During one of the plenary sessions at the National Cable and Telecommunications Association annual conference a content supplier executive cut the tail off of video. He claimed that video content, such as movies and television, does not exhibit the same market characteristics as music and books.

A long tail for movies and books means that small, ideosyncratic demand can support the availability of diverse content, because suppliers can fill web shelf space that they know will trigger few sales. Itunes can offer consumers countless songs and Amazon can arrange the delivery for millions of books.

Presumably cable television operators could fill terabytes of storage with millions of movies and television shows, but perhaps they don't have to. When I visit Blockbuster I typically head to the most recent releases, despite having access to thousands of older movies at a substantial discount. My book library visits do not always focus on the new releases.

I am wondering what the implications of a shorter tail for video may be. Perhaps vertically integrated content plus distribution companies can leverage access to recent video releases to secure a competitive advantage. If so cable wins.