Faultline is a research service from Rethink Research Associates (www.rethinkresearch.biz) which examines the future of all entertainment media. The imagery of the Faultline comes from the fact that some established players are in danger of missing out on future markets.

They have been mining a rich seam, and are so pre-occupied by the day to day requirements of that business they often don’t see huge waves of change about to engulf them, the way piracy engulfed music and films, the way digital flat TV screens are killing the cinema, and the way IPTV, mobile TV and public internet TV can undermine analogue and free to air TV broadcasting.

What we try to do here is to get our clients to think differently. To understand just how rapidly things are changing in digital media and the internet and try to accommodate their existing business models alongside new models.

Sometimes, large companies have to be prepared to dump their old businesses, or “eat their young” as we often call it, and that’s hard and involves internal wars and driving cultural change. Sometimes there are hybrids, both in business models and in technology, that are genuinely workable. Sometimes it’s all down to content and execution. We try to help clients through this decision making maze and we do this in two ways. We produce a weekly set of thoughts on the state of the market, called Faultline, and we advise directly on projects such as IPTV system components, broadband wireless services, triple and quad play delivery models and pricing, video delivery formats and platforms, and of course content protection technology strategies.

Our clients come from both sides of this revolution, the larger dinosaurs that are trying to hang on to their huge empires and the nimble, fast moving minnows that have come up with a crazy idea and want it validated, measured and improved.

If you need to rethink any part of the digital media food chain, give us an email on This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it or a call +44 (0)207 407 9848 and we’ll talk it over with you right away.