TedPage: Mark Cuban gets it

The title may be cliche but it describes my impressions after reading an interview with Mark Cuban in IEEE Spectrum. Before the article I pretty much knew Mark Cuban as the eccentric owner of the Dallas Mavericks basketball team. He's known for being loud and basically letting his thoughts be known in a more public way than the NBA would like. He made is money with broadcast.com and now owns HDNet. These are probably the reasons he should be known.

What struck me most about the interview was his understanding of how the movie industry is hurting itself. And, that they shouldn't be scared of change as much as they need to embrace the new media landscape.

If you're going to create content, create it digitally and then just find out how consumers want to consume it. Sometimes they want to consume it in the home. Sometimes they want to consume it on their PDAs. Sometimes they want to get out of the house and go into a theater. And they want to consume it in different quality levels: Super hi-def, regular hi-def, on a small TV, analog to download, whatever.

And what are we selling anymore? We're selling the experience of viewing the content. Yes, there is something in the content, but the experience is a large part of overall package.

The movie theater industry has a long way to go. They still think they are in the movie business. They still think owning a theater is about showing movies. It's not. It's about being a great place to go on a date; it's about being a great place to go with your friends. It about a great way to get out of the house so you can get away from the kids and enjoy yourself. They just can't figure that out, so they feel threatened.

Yes! I also thought it was interesting his take on why some cable networks are not going HD. I imagine this is also why we're seeing a lot of cable networks start their own shows.

You can't convert Roseanne to hi-def; it was shot on tape. Or, if they have special effects that were mastered on tape, the show doesn't convert to HD, it doesn't work...When you watch something on ESPN or CBS, it looks great. And then you watch something on one of your other [channels] and it looks like something's wrong. That's because it's been converted. Why? Because some of the stuff just won't convert....The networks, the cable networks in particular, aren't willing to convert all their stuff over, because they already have so much licensed that's not HD-compatible. If it goes to HD, they look [terrible].

Overall the whole interview was a breath of fresh air into an industry that seems to be choking on the dust that has collected. I can't say where all of the media landscape is going, but it's clear that it is changing to include more consumer choice. And that it's fracturing. The new players will be those that turn the shards into diamonds.