Distribution, sharing and storage of the digital contents : state of the art

Since the mid-2000s, the boundaries between media groups, public audiovisual service operators, telecom network operators, software publishers, Internet service providers and electronic equipment manufacturers have partly lost their watertightness, historically linked to the "non-convergent" distribution and broadcasting of digital content (one type of content was associated with one distribution and broadcasting mode, and one consumption mode). The widespread introduction of the Internet and the IP protocol in content transmission architectures has led to "convergent" distribution and broadcasting of digital content (with one set of content associated with one distribution and broadcasting mode, using the IP protocol, and a multitude of consumption modes), forcing incumbent players in the transmission chain to reposition their activities.

This first article provides a deliberately non-technical overview of digital content and the different types of media (print media, publishing, cinema, radio, television, Web/Internet, etc.), as well as a presentation of the three ecosystems formed by the players in the digital content transmission chain: the cultural industries, the telecommunications industry and the IT and consumer electronics industry. In particular, this first part will shed light on the "convergent" repositioning of the historical players (French with France Télévisions, Radio France, Vivendi via its subsidiaries Groupe Canal+ and Universal Music Group and SFR, Lagardère via its subsidiary Lagardère Active, Orange via its subsidiaries Orange France, Orange Studio and Orange Cinéma Séries, Bouygues via its subsidiaries TF1 and Bouygues Telecom, Iliad via its subsidiaries Free and Free Mobile... Luxembourg with Altice via its subsidiaries Numericable and SFR...; Germany with Bertelsmann, which owns Prisma Media, Groupe M6 and RTL Group...; the USA with Microsoft, Apple...), but also new players such as the Internet service providers born with the development of the latter in the 1990s (Amazon, Google, Yahoo!...) and the social networking companies that emerged in the mid-2000s (MySpace, acquired by Specific Media in 2011, Facebook, YouTube, acquired by Google in 2006, Flickr, acquired by Yahoo! in 2005, Dailymotion, in which Orange is a shareholder, Twitter...).

Five other articles complete this major dossier.