Early Adopters Not Enthused About Multimedia Handsets -- The cellular phone industry's hype machine has been in high gear over innovative music- and TV-centric devices and services, but a new In-Stat report shows that some early-adopters are lukewarm about them. Fewer than 9 percent of respondents to an In-Stat early-adopter consumer survey were very or extremely interested in buying a cell phone capable of playing MP3 or other music files, and less than 11 percent were very or extremely interested in broadcast TV functionality. Only in the past year or so have smartphones started to build a significant market, after several years of hits and misses. A similar road is likely ahead for multimedia cell phones. Some mobile programming is quite clear: news and weather are winners.
The global streaming industry has spent the better part of a decade chasing subscriber counts as the primary metric of success. That era is now formally over. New market data from Omdia confirms that the industry has crossed a decisive threshold; one that shifts the competitive playing field from growth-at-all-costs to monetization discipline. For senior executives navigating media, advertising, and technology strategy, the implications extend well beyond entertainment. A Historic Revenue Crossover Online video revenue increased 13.5 percent to $176 billion in 2025, while pay-TV revenue declined 4 percent to $170 billion; marking the first time in the industry's history that streaming has surpassed legacy pay-TV in revenue terms. This is not a rounding error or a statistical artifact; it represents the culmination of more than a decade of structural disruption to the traditional broadcast and cable TV model. Global subscriptions to online video services reached 2.24 billion by the ...