The Entertainment & Broadband Revolution

Globalisation, technology and demographics are requiring the entertainment industry to adjust to new trends. A new era started for this industry as soon as internet and globalisation driving forces changed millions of people’s way of life worldwide. The entertainment industry is one of the most important contributors to national wealth especially in the U.S. where entertainment revenues account for 10% of GNP. Walt Disney, AOL Time Warner, and the Lucas Group have entertained us with their creativity and magic proposing amusements that fit our way of conceiving them, and this is what made them giants. Opportunities as well as threats lie in the future of the industry and only a clear vision of the latter will ensure success. Adaptation is the key resource for any global company, and entertainment corporations besides having to adjust to local preferences have also to react rapidly to the evolution of tastes and desires of people.
The high influence and reach on people that the amusement industry has makes its stakeholders very concerned with the type and quality of the messages delivered. Today environment, ethics, and health issues finally find space in concert venues, Hollywood movies and games, thanks to the power and values behind key stakeholders. Challenges lie in every sector that composes this industry: book publishing, movie industry, gambling, games, music, sport. For the purpose of this thesis I will not touch the sport and music sector rather I’ll focus on home entertainment changes. My work will show understanding of the driving forces which are pulling on-line entertainment demand and entertainment related advertising.
In the entertainment “era” a new momentum is rising, the broadband revolution. How corporations are expecting to take advantage of this, and how will this industry choose to deal with current trends is going to be my focus. More specifically I will try to depict how broadband will influence the entertainment industry under several points of view including advertising, new appliance development and new service offer.

Chapter 1 focuses on the impact of broadband on the market place as well as on consumer behaviour. Also it shows an understanding of the regulatory environment that is going to influence broadband diffusion. This chapter provides also examples of the services that broadband will be able to offer.
Chapter 2 deals with changes in advertising driven by broadband enhanced capabilities in delivering information. It shows the advertising trends and how advertising will benefit from broadband.
Chapter 3 relates to the introduction of new home appliances broadband activated. This to signify that broadband is a 360° revolution influencing not only content delivery speed but also to what this content is being delivered.
Chapter 4 reveals the effects of piracy in the entertainment industry and how the problem is currently addressed. Also it addresses a revolutionary system called the Superdistribution system which turns the weaknesses of digital content (at the easiness of duplicability) into strengths.

Due to the nature of these topics, in this dissertation appear many technical words the reader may not be familiar with. For this reason I included a glossary that explains the meaning of technical terms in one place, instead of using footnotes in every page. Words printed in italics are included in the glossary.
The main reason I chose this topic for my dissertation is that I aim to work in the entertainment industry and I was really interested to see how the broadband phenomenon is going to affect it. Also I have always been interested in computer related issues and therefore entertainment and broadband seemed to me a great match especially now that the future of one seems so bonded to the future of the other.