From
http://www.itwire.com/content/view/18785/1095/

BigPond head honcho Justin Milne has delivered the most convincing picture
I have yet seen of Telstra's media comms abilities and ambitions and it
reinforces what I have been saying for years: Telstra is uniquely positioned
because it is such a powerful player in so many overlapping, and converging,
technologies, services and markets.

Milne was addressing the 55th International Advertising Festival in Cannes.
Some of what he said was new, some not, but the bringing together was
impressive, and for Telstra's competitors, I suspect more than a little
frightening.

Milne opened with a video. I was not there so I don't know what was in it.
The significant thing is that, as Milne said: "the presentation was not
outsourced. It was produced in-house by our own people in our own studios.
It might seem strange that a telco has that capability. But it's an example
of the things you need to be good at - if you're going to become a
'media-comms' company."

Milne defined a media comms company as one that has the content, the
networks to distribute it and the intelligent systems needed to deliver the
right content to the right customer at just the right moment. Telstra has
all these attributes in spades, and while its' debatable whether a
media-comms company needs to have its own studios, it's yet another example
of just how all pervasive Telstra has become.

BigPond of course is Australlia's largest ISP (by now it has probably passed
the 50 percent retail share mark (a milestone that Milne foreshadowed
earlier this year . But also, thanks to its exclusive sport, movies, music
and games content it is according to Milne, one of Australia's biggest
online publishers. Not only that, it is a not inconsiderable live
broadcaster. "In sport, we have exclusive new media rights for three of the
country's most popular sports. We broadcast live events, highlights
packages, extensive statistics and all the information demanded by sports
fans. We operate three web TV channels including one that, on weekends,
broadcasts 18 hours live from our own studios" Milne said.

Telstra is also the largest Australian-owned music download site. "We
regularly have online or mobile exclusives...We have another web TV channel
broadcasting music videos 24/7. And we produce and broadcast a series of
weekly live concerts featuring Australia's best known musicians," Milne
said.

BigPond also claims to run Australia's largest online gaming community. "We
have more than 1,000 games. We operate a shop where users can buy, rent and
download games. And we publish GameArena, a site that rates and reviews
games," according to Milne.

He then went on to talk about Sensis and Foxtel and concluded "When you put
together all the content on BigPond, the content on Sensis and the content
on Foxtel, Telstra probably publishes and broadcasts more content than any
media company in Australia...[and] by the start of 2008 the amount of time
Australians are spending online surpassed the time they spent watching
television," (according to AC Nielsen)

So, Telstra has a powerful position in delivering to every one of the three
screens - PC, mobile, television - and there is now considerable convergence
between these separate information and entertainment channels. As Milne put
it: "Telstra commands perhaps half of the online and mobile market...[and]
the distinction between PC and television audiences is disappearing...PCs
are shifting from home offices into public places like kitchens and family
rooms...Technology now allows users to transmit PC content direct to their
TV, suddenly it no longer makes sense to treat TV audiences much differently
from PC audiences."

Now, he said, "Telstra is integrating content, platforms and devices so that
any content will be accessible on any platform and over any device - so the
consumer has a single sign-on, uses consistent interfaces, receives a single
bill and can be serviced with a single call."

Telstra, Milne said had interviewed 900,000 Australians and segmented the
population on the basis of their preferences. "That means we can anticipate
our customers' needs. It means we can differentiate our products, services
and prices for market segments."