“But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing”

As ever, great words of wisdom from the word of God!  And it looks as if Bell Globe media,  Canada’s premier multi-media company with ownership interests in Canada’s leading media including: CTV Inc., the number-one private broadcaster, and The Globe and Mail, the leading national daily newspaper is certainly not letting the left hand know what the right is doing.

The LEFT hand is CTV, which operates 21 conventional television stations across Canada and offers a wide-range of quality news, sports, information and entertainment programming. It has the number-one national newscast.

The RIGHT is The Globe and Mail which on 9^th May published an intriguing news story entitled, “Warner to harness hated technology to sell movies, shows” .  Apparently, Hollywood movie giant, Warner Bros. (part of Time Warner Inc.) is on the point of doing a deal with BitTorrent Inc. to use its peer-to-peer technology to sell and rent movies and television shows on-line.

When you hold this sensible move against the backcloth of emerging OPLANs around the world, then the future for the likes of CTV Inc and their business model seems questionable.  Once there is ‘open’ and seamless connectivity from one location in the world to another, then in the longer term, even the likes of Warner Bros will be forced to rely on the quality of their output and not the fact that they have control over a unique distribution channel – as has been the case to date.   A burgeoning new generation of creative film makers, actors, editors and the rest – using dirt-cheap digital cameras and editing kit purchased from Wal-Mart – will start to spring up, making all manner of new video content which will be ‘sold’ around the world for a few cents a view.

So well done Warner for spotting the inevitability of the peer-to-peer world and embracing rather than fighting the likes of BitTorrent.   Let’s hope that CTV Inc does not drag Bell Global Canada down the tube so that interesting stories like this stop being captured. 

Second thoughts, maybe Sarah McBride, the author of the above article has a bright new future in a world where OPLANs and peer-to-peer communication empowers her to break free from her current employer!  Now that’s a thought!