How Music and Movie Bigs Can Thrive

The video content owners also successfully leveraged the explosion of cable channels, which were desperate for content. And they found video rentals and then DVD sales to be huge wealth creators.

Ironically, of course, the video content owners fought both of those new distribution outlets tooth and nail. They lobbied against cable channels and took the video recording fight all the way to the Supreme Court.

Unfortunately for their shareholders, almost all of the major content owners have been stupidly spending huge amounts of time and money fighting the reality of today's new distribution channels. They're terrified of the democratization of distribution that the Internet enables. They're scared to death of losing control.

On some level, they seem to understand that the world is moving past broadcast and physical albums. Instead of resisting, they should be jumping headfirst into this brave new world. Perhaps we'll be watching video on our refrigerators, on buses, on subways or on our glasses. More outlets could end up being a wondrous development for content owners. No, they won't be able to stop piracy in the brave new world. As Sony BMG just learned through the public outcry over the covert copy protection program it put on CDs, trying to do so can even backfire.

So here's a novel idea: Stop fighting it! Embrace it. Just push all your content out to the end user in any way, shape or form you can think of. The possibilities are endless. And as the explosion of successful reruns on cable channels in the U.S. (and around the world, too!) and the sales of DVDs have shown, the consumer's appetite for content is voracious. So deliver to the consumers the content they want, in whatever form they want it. Sell it to them. Create sponsorship programs. License it out.

The models for growth are out there. But until these companies start moving in these directions in a serious fashion (their latest attempts, including three ABC prime-time TV shows available on iTunes and Wonder Woman on aol.com, are decidedly not "serious" attempts to leverage these channels), I'm going to remain short Warner Music Group, Viacom (VIA Quote) and others that are foolishly blowing it.