It’s cliché, but oh so true – content is king. Look at most industry conference agendas these days, whether they be broadband or wireless focused, and content is the center of attention. The tag line for this year’s IBC Conference, a leading global telecom industry event taking place next week in Amsterdam, is “the world of content creation management delivery.” Most of the CTIA I.T. and Entertainment conference centers on the delivery of content wirelessly. Like it or hate it, the future of our business involves figuring out how to profitably deliver content to customers. Voice service won’t disappear, but will morph into a value added application among a variety of more robust services. Carriers are in the beginning stages of making the transition to purveyors of content. There’s a lot to learn. With that in mind, we invite you to join us for an upcoming free webcast, IPTV Content: Putting the Pieces in Place, scheduled for Thursday September 11, 2008 at 2:00p ET/1:00p CT. It will be well worth your time.

I got word last week that the National Cable Television Cooperative (NCTC) may be relaxing some of its membership rules to allow IPTV providers to join. NCTC is one of the original aggregators of video content. Small cable companies formed NCTC to pool subscriber counts and get access to programming at rates that they could not get on their own. NCTC’s legacy has historically been tied to small cable companies. In the past ten years, small telephone companies wanted in on the video action as well and began joining NCTC to get access to cheaper programming. But those same telcos also competed with NCTC’s historical membership. The scuttlebutt is that the competitive threat posed by telcos caused NCTC to institute a new member moratorium in 2005. That moratorium created an opening for more telco focused content aggregators including NRTC and Telechannel.

Word now is NCTC is revisiting the moratorium. Telephony Online asked my opinion of this development, for which I commented that I wouldn’t be surprised if they allowed IPTV providers into the membership. NCTC, like any organization, needs sustainable growth, and telcos represent that growth. This issue is far from resolved and NCTC is being very vague about exactly what their new membership rules will be. I suspect that many NCTC members wouldn’t be keen on relaxing the moratorium, which creates somewhat of a conundrum for the organization itself. Keep existing members happy with the status quo, or think long term and open your doors to a growing market segment. Makes for some interesting board meetings I’m sure.

There are two events we’re involved with that are squarely focused on these and other telcoTV and IPTV issues. First is the TelcoTV Conference and Expo, coming up in November in Anaheim. TelcoTV is the premier event for the discussion of issues like this, and offers the largest solely focused exhibition of telcoTV solution providers of any conference in North America. Second, is a webcast we’re hosting on Thursday Sept. 11th, IPTV Content: Putting the Pieces in Place, sponsored by Avail Media. We’ll be discussing the importance of IPTV content and clarifying the different content rights issues. We’ll also have representatives from ESPN and Wealth TV to share their views on these important issues. I hope you can join us for both.

Sprint has announced the launch of Sprint Exclusive Entertainment (SEE), its own network of originally produced content for Sprint mobile phones. SEE, which will initially focus on sports, music, and other entertainment focused programming, will offer brief on-demand programs averaging two minutes in length. Sprint produces the content themselves and expects to deliver up to 150 programs each week. SEE illustrates the continuing trend of service providers producing content for both mobile and landline video networks.

Telecom carriers from the largest to the smallest are experimenting with content production and distribution as a way to offer differentiation from competitors. Distribution of this content is happening across multiple platforms, including VOD, PC, and mobile. As carriers gain more experience in content production, the sophistication and production quality will certainly increase. It’s too early to tell if these moves build significant competitive advantage. There is a contrarian view within telecom spaces that argue content production should be left to those who do it for a living and know it well. These skeptics argue that telecom carriers should stick to what they know and focus on becoming a distributor of content, not a producer. Respectable arguments can be made on both sides of this equation. For the time being, it appears as if the march towards content production will continue by telecom carriers. Time will tell whether this strategy adds any real value to both consumers and company stakeholders.