It is an incredible time to be a part of Magine. We are finally experiencing the opening up of the information age for live television, which means we are now able to serve the generations that have been formed by it.

The magic of genius storytelling, live performance and high quality crafted production is now consumable uninterrupted, from anywhere, in any flavor, to wherever. And it is happening fast.

Until recently, two fundamental barriers have been in the way. The first being the basic delivery mechanism, which couldn’t support the viewer letting go and getting lost in a riveting drama, or entering a mental stadium for the tense final minutes of their team’s season, without the risk of things breaking down – disaster. Viewing online or on the phone has always been a nervous high-wire walk, resorted to only in emergencies or for lower value nibbles, never glorious TV feasting.

That has all changed. You can now be brought to tears, or to your feet by staring at a phone.

The second barrier has been availability; finding something we want to dive into and watch, no matter where we are. The content we wanted to view, has often been restricted by something mysterious going on backstage – the rights paradigm.

And rightfully so – bloody good thing. Blowing up the control over where, when and by who access to the best entertainment in the world is granted would mean less to view, not more. It would mean punishing, possibly crushing the creative source of what moves us most.

This is the industry’s high-wire act. How do we gently move from localized, controlled provisioning to opening up to discovery of all the world’s greatest TV?

This too is happening. In fact, the biggest moves are being made by those with the least to lose. Those still dependent on the local model now need to embrace experiments for new audiences – there is more to gain if we move together smartly. But we have to move.

Magine at its core is a wild mix of brilliant engineers and designers, of responsible content and rights experts, and of digital business pioneers. We are all working on the same thing; sometimes boldly bounding, sometimes carefully stepping into the deep end of TV’s Time. Right now we’re working on developing what we call the TV Superhighway, the new partnership playing field for viewers, creators and entrepreneurs to all win together in the new arena.

Game on.

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