ABSTRACT
Chapter 3 asks how we conceptualise the industry responsible for the provision of online TV services. It demonstrates that this is a highly volatile industry composed of multiple different kinds of business operating in a range of sectors with divergent business models. To help navigate this ‘mess’ the chapter outlines two approaches to analysing the online TV industry. It begins by categorising the companies operating online TV services according to business origins. Adopting this approach, the chapter distinguishes between: TV natives that have extended an existing television services onto the internet; online natives that have originated online services for the internet ecosystem; and content natives that have extended a content-based business from another field into an online TV service. However, this approach overlooks important intersections between these different categories. The chapter goes on, therefore, to categorise the industry according to core business focus. Through this approach it is possible to divide the online TV industry into content businesses and technology businesses. Combining these two approaches reveals the controlling points through which different segments of the industry attempt to exert competitive advantage. The chapter ends by focusing on the ways in which different segments of the industry seek to exert competitive advantage through control over technological infrastructures and devices. The subsequent chapters each take a further area of industrial control as their focus.
