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1. Media companies, whether content or distribution (and in the case of Comcast, they are rooted in both) rely upon a distribution chain with distinct links. Digital content is an anathema to that structure, but media companies will continue to devise some defensive “Maginot line” to protect what they believe is the most effective way to maximize value from content.

2. I don’t see this happening. Too elegant, and it vaguely reminds me of a P&G “time-buy” with soap operas. In addition, I continue to believe that the “right” content will drive demand (although “right” is the elusive alchemy). It will be fascinating to observe how content, in its digital form, will be coddled in order to position appropriate in front of various demographics while exploiting every available digital viewing platform.
3. I get your point be see a different analogy. It’s not an issue of being a low margin supermarket. Instead, consider a high-end specialty grocer offering an assortment of products. The basic produce is essentially a commodity and should be priced accordingly. But with the right packaging and bundling the specialty shop charges a premium.

In a more consumer oriented world, cable operators would have been forced to unbundle their basic-cable package and instead of getting in excess of $35 just for the basic tier, the a la carte offering would have allowed, for some subscibers, a much lower price point. But cable operators have dodged that consumer bullet and maintain artififcially high price points (in part because they need to maintain, on basic cables, margins in excess of 50%, and are being squeezed by cable networks that aggressively increased license fees).

A few comments:

1. In the modern entertainment supply chain, where the cost of distribution has evolved from the highest barrier to entry to the lowest in less than fifteen years (think YouTube), the real impact of this disruption is just now being felt. In this reality, the quaint notion of release windows – the tightly-controlled cascade of purchasing opportunities from theatrical release to PPV to DVD to Broadcast, etc – may become obsolete faster than anyone anticipates and anyone hoping to maximize revenue by more efficiently manipulating these release pattern is in for a big ugly surprise.

2. In a world where bandwidth is ubiquitous and cheap, content owners need to reexamine the moment when content slips from “demand” (consumers pay for what they want) to “sponsored” (advertisers pay for the content and give it away in exchange for impressions”). At that transition point, content loses 90% of its value on an eyeball-per-minute basis. What’s that? Eyeballs-per-minute? Absolutely. The market has become so fractured by technology that an eyeball-per-minute measurement may be the only way to truly value any sized inventory of films, TV episodes, recordings, etc.

3. Comcast is only interested in content insofar as it can be used to hedge the inevitable devaluation of its primary source of revenue – consumer bandwidth – from a high margin luxury to a low margin commodity. As far as business models go (more specifically, as profit margins go), Comcast today more closely resembles a supermarket chain than a Jaguar dealership; or its favorite business — a cable monopoly. I’d like to see how long a supermarket can exist in a narrowly competitive market category posting a 30% margin. The answer is…it can’t.