Matthew C Klein, Columnist

Microsoft Plays on the Small Screen

Microsoft is the latest big tech company to try its hand producing original content.

April 7, 2014 at 6:38 PM UTC

Matthew C. Klein writes for Bloomberg View about the economy and financial markets. He previously wrote for the Economist magazine and its economics blog, Free Exchange. Before that, Klein was a research associate at the Council on Foreign Relations, where he spent more than two years studying the history of the Federal Reserve and the intellectual history of monetary economics for an upcoming book by Sebastian Mallaby. He also worked at Bridgewater Associates, where he studied the economies of Central and Eastern Europe and advised institutional investors on asset-liability management. Klein has a bachelor's degree in history from Yale University. Originally from Chicago, he lives in New York.

Stay tuned, folks. Photographer: Matthew Lloyd/Bloomberg

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Microsoft Corp. first tried to get into the television business in the 1990s. That effort failed, but the experience hasn't stopped it from trying again with the help of heavyweights such as Steven Spielberg and former CBS Corp. film and entertainment boss Nancy Tellem. While the new plan might succeed, it illustrates why tech companies will have a hard time changing the way most Americans consume television.

Microsoft's latest foray into original content makes sense because its objectives are modest: Rather than trying to supplant existing television content, Microsoft merely wants to produce targeted and original programs for the young men who use its Xbox game consoles. Those people are already paying Microsoft for membership in Xbox Live Gold to play games online. Microsoft also plans on taking advantage of the Xbox's technological power and audience sophistication to experiment with interactive television programs.