When Sony and Samsung launched their new TVs last month at separate launches in Singapore, they wowed audiences with a feature that is fast becoming a standard in even low-end models: Net connectivity. These Net-enabled TVs, which either connect to the Internet via Wi-Fi or wired Ethernet, promise a wide range of uses. Instead of ‘leaning back’, couch potatoes can now ‘lean forward’ and browse multiple online content via the built-in apps, which the TVs support, a la Apple’s AppStore. Plus, they can view movies and play back songs that users have stored on a home network. They can also stream YouTube videos straight to their TV sets. Yet, the star feature on these newfangled models – viewing paid content over video-on-demand services such as Hulu or Netfl ix – is something still elusive to TV viewers outside the United States, including tech-savvy Asian markets like Singapore. A buyer of that same Net-enabled TV in the U.S could fire up a world of entertainment content from Hollywood once he signs up to Hulu or Netflix. The same person in Singapore would at best be able to watch pixelated YouTube videos. Despite fast-changing dynamics in the market, this really points to one of the biggest issues affecting releases in the video-on-demand (VOD) window: geographical segmentation. It also speaks of a fear of technology that still somehow affl icts the content world. Instead of considering that there are now millions of new viewers around the world, which could directly pay for and view content on their new Net-enabled TVs, content owners have done the opposite – denied consumers what they want. To content owners of popular U.S drama series, for example, it makes perfect sense to sell content to their regional platform partners in the form of both cable and Internet protocol TV (IPTV). This helps “divide and conquer” each region, and in the case of exclusive carriage deals, forces platforms to increase their bid for content. Even with the advent of the Net, or the arrival of cheaper ways to deliver content to homes, this idea of maximising returns from separate windows has not changed. But what is really happening here is that consumers are subject to this rather unfavourable scheme of things. They can only watch content as and when content owners and their partners decide they should – hardly a state of affairs that can be maintained in a world where video sharing is second nature for users. Understandably, in-country platform partners would not mind the old arrangement, as securing the best content – at exclusive rates then passing the cost on to consumers – is their business model. But is this the best way for consumers and for the industry as whole? If piracy is a concern, then surely markets like Singapore, which ranks as one of the lowest in the region for pay-TV piracy, deserve a chance to have content delivered straight to their homes. But if the reason that VOD content is not made available direct on new TVs is because of old business models with platform partners, then there is a need to reassess what is best going forward. For Net-savvy consumers, geographical boundaries don’t apply. If they can watch a U2 concert streamed live via YouTube, why can’t they watch Glee on their TVs as well? When this need for instant gratifi cation is not met, the obvious alternative is for them to turn to pirated content. The music world still bares these wounds. When CD sales plummeted, it was not just because there was a free pirated alternative – people just didn’t want to buy songs the way that record companies packaged them. Why can’t the VOD world follow suit, and start reaching out to viewers directly? Net TVs offer that new access. Here are millions of customers who can be reached, and who can pay for a movie or the latest episode of Boardwalk Empire directly on their TVs or via services like Hulu and Netflix. Instead of making sure viewers in other countries don’t get such content over their new TVs, content owners should be making it easier for these folks who want to pay for the content and view it directly on their TVs, sans a cable or IPTV operator. This is how the fast-moving mobile applications world does business – and very successfully too. After making its name as an iPhone game developer, Finnish game developer Rovio, released its popular Angry Birds game for the fast-growing Android smartphone market. It did not mean that Rovio was neglecting its long-time partner Apple, but it was facing up to the fact that Android phones were becoming more popular and it wanted to reach out to more users. The result: the game was downloaded one million times by Android users on the first day of its release. VOD is about giving more consumers – not fewer – the ability to access their content. In a normal business, doing so would have been a no-brainer, but in the strange world of geographically-segmented content deals, this is only just becoming obvious. Things have improved, slightly, over the past couple of years in Singapore. For more than two years, SingTel has been offering next-day VOD screenings of popular U.S drama series such as Gossip Girl over its IPTV service, and last month, StarHub unveiled a Net-based VOD box for its broadband users, which complements the cable TV offerings. Meanwhile, some content owners are doing things differently also. Comedy Central now shows full episodes of previous South Park seasons, and The Daily Show with Jon Stewart – key ways to engage the Net-savvy generation. But more can be done. Net TVs and Web technology in general should give content owners more power in how they deliver their prized assets. With millions of viewers now able to hook up easily to paid content delivered over the Net, the reach of content owners now extends to households in more homes than ever. That cannot be a bad thing.