Categories: Articles

Netflix And The Futue Of Global TV Networks

Every Monday morning at 7:10 am, I am a guest contributor on CHOM 97.7 FM radio broadcasting out of Montreal (home base). It’s not a long segment – about 5 to 10 minutes every week – about everything that is happening in the world of technology and digital media. The good folks at CHOM 97.7 FM are posting these segments weekly to SoundCloud, if you’re interested in hearing more of me blathering away. I’m really excited about this opportunity, because this is the radio station that I grew up on listening to, and it really is a fun treat to be invited to the Mornings Rock with Terry and Heather B. morning show. The segment is called, CTRL ALT Delete with Mitch Joel.

This week we discussed:

Heather B was feeling under the weather, so it was just Terry and me this morning. Feel better, Heather!
Is Netflix the first global TV network? That is what CEO, Reed Hastings, stated the other week at the famous CES conference that took place in Las Vegas, when he announced the launch of 130 additional countries, making Netflix available in close to 200 countries. With that, Netflix also said that they will be cracking down on streaming from abroad. That sucks for us up here in Canada. It means that the company is going to get even more serious about preventing people from using virtual private networks, proxies and IP-masking unblocked technologies to watch videos that they otherwise wouldn’t be able to stream in their countries. This is a geographic licensing issue, and it’s the reason that Netflix in Canada (and many other countries) is so much more limited in selection than the US version. According to Netflix: “We are making progress in licensing content across the world…but we have a ways to go before we can offer people the same films and TV series everywhere. In the meantime, we will continue to respect and enforce content licensing by geographic location.” So, no more IP blockers for the rest of us?
Messaging Apps are now bigger than social networks. There’s a reason that Facebook spun off Facebook Messenger into its own app, and a reason that they also paid close to $25 billion for WhatsApp. Well, the next Twitter, or Snapchat… or whatever could have made its debut in the past few weeks. Peach is a new messaging app from Dom Hofmann, who is also the founder of Vine. People are saying that it’s the mass market’s version of Slack (a very popular and growing business messaging app that was also named the company of the year by Inc. Magazine in 2015), with a slick onboarding process, and lots of fun features. So, you’re hearing about this first… and early, but it’s looking like Peach could be that next big thing that everybody is always looking for.
App of the week: OMG I Can Meditate!

Listen here…

Mitch Joel

Mitch Joel lives at the intersection of technology, business transformation and consumer culture. He is the Executive Director of Next Era Institute, a strategic intelligence platform helping leaders understand the forces reshaping business, technology, culture and society. The Institute identifies which shifts matter, explores their wider significance and translates them into strategic direction and momentum. Mitch is also a globally recognized keynote speaker. He has delivered thousands of presentations across both B2B and B2C industries to organizations including Google, Walmart, LEGO, Shopify, Microsoft, Procter & Gamble and Unilever. Strategy Magazine has called him “one of North America’s leading visionaries.” Mitch built his career by working directly inside the waves of change that reshaped modern business. He founded and built a digital marketing agency that worked with some of the world’s largest brands and was later acquired by WPP, where he served as President of a firm operating in 25 countries with almost 3,000 employees. Mitch is the bestselling author of Six Pixels of Separation and CTRL ALT Delete, and the host of Thinking With Mitch Joel, one of the longest-running business podcasts in the world. His writing and commentary appear in outlets including Harvard Business Review, Fast Company and Inc. Magazine. He is a member of Dr. Marshall Goldsmith’s 100 Coaches and was named to the Thinkers50 Radar. Mitch also hosts Groove – The No Treble Podcast, documenting the oral history of electric bass players. Mitch is also Co-Founder of ThinkersOne, a platform that enables companies to bring personalized thought leadership from world-class experts into meetings, events and off-sites in focused 15-minute bursts.