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The Business and Consumer Environment (2)
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The "world of 500 channels" -- which seemed a certainty in the early 90's -- never materialized.
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The conglomerates took, and carefully guarded, control of the properties (the copyrights) needed to fill channels, using them first as "barriers to entry" against other potential channel suppliers, then as a "weapon" to keep their suppliers in line. The upshot is a world of closer to 100 channels.
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Similarly, the promise of home shopping via technology has not been fulfilled.
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The media behemoths all developed, then proliferated "shopping channels." In their zeal, they underestimated consumers' attachment to the experience and community of the in-store retail experience, and thus overestimated the volumes that could be done on ever-more-targeted specialty channels.
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Successful firms have made multimedia a part of their arsenal.
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However, they have refrained from over-investing in what had, in the screaming headlines of the early 90's, been painted as a next revolution.
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The revolution simply never came.
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