Re: The future of television
 

Whether in the BBC I-player or not its still a channel you are watching , the TV guide is much easier to find programmes rather than going into Iplayer for its now and next.

You are trying to fix something what isn't broken.

Re: The future of television
 

That sums up progress for you ;)

Re: The future of television
 

This discussion is just going round in circles now. For the nth time: the broadcast technology is irrelevant. Television broadcast according to a schedule is linear.

Re: The future of television
 

You are creating arguments out of points I have not made. As usual.

For starters, you need to pay more attention to what is actually happening before you respond to these things.

The new approach, as you don’t need me to remind you, is the ‘direct to consumer’ approach, and by that we are talking about all content being available on streamers. Given that we are now finding channels closing down and the content being transferred exclusively to streamers, I don’t know where this option is going to be for people to watch this content through TV channels even if they wanted to. Note that Disney+ has closed all its children’s channels and all its film channels. The content is now on Disney+ and there are no linear channels, just as I have said would happen all the way along. But for some inexplicable reason, you don’t see that. The next closures will probably be the Discovery channels, and Discovery+ doesn’t have linear channels either.

Now although linear channels are available on Pluto TV, Now and the BBC I-Player,, these are very much exceptions, and the first two put their on demand content more prominently on their streamers. I cannot see the linear channels continuing to appear on Now (TV) when Sky finally launch their streamer (Peacock), although they may continue the practice until the satellite part of their business continues. The I-Player is unlikely to change until all terrestrial is transferred to IPTV.

Of course viewers will not pay twice for the same content. So if, for example, Virgin decided to offer a choice of streamer bundles and terrestrial TV, and it is almost certain that this will be the case, we would no longer be paying for pay-tv channels because they would no longer be offered. There would be no point in doing so, would there?

You claimed that ‘quality of service to end users, in high and ultra high definition’ is even applicable to scheduled TV. When I questioned you on that your response was that UHD was not available to those not on the internet or who suffered low speeds. But that does not address the point that the streamers offer so much more UHD and no SD, making your assertion completely wrong. I might as well respond to your point by saying that Freeview channels were not available to people without electricity. Clear, unambiguous nonsense.

As for your ‘cost of maintaining linear TV’ argument is concerned, again, it is the wrong argument. The future is with the streamers, and most of these will not carry an option of linear channels, whether you like it or not. Disney is showing the way. All the things you have been denying in relation to my vision of the future are starting to be realised, but jfman, you just carry on arguing. In fact, I suspect that you will still be arguing when the last linear channel has closed down.

Re: The future of television
 

Have DAZN not trebled their price in Italy?

Make your mind up OB. One day it’s direct to consumer, the next it’s content aggregators.

The plucky upstart defying the trend.

2035?

Why would they no longer be offered by anyone?

The number of people without the internet - and fast internet - is clearly far greater those without electricity. Yet you have the cheek, despite all of your inconsistencies, to accuse anyone else of spouting nonsense.

Incorrect Old Boy. It’s precisely the right argument - your inability to offer a response of any meaningful consequence obviously means you’d prefer to debate something else. That’s understandable. But it doesn’t change the fact that the financial viability of linear television will continue long past your arbitrary end date plucked from thin air.

Re: The future of television
 

Re: The future of television
 

At present I can order the apps as I choose, along the bottom of the “home” view on my Samsung TV. I have Netflix in prime position at bottom left, followed by iPlayer, Disney+ and Amazon Prime. ITV, channel 4 and 5 players are well off to the right somewhere because I so rarely use them. I’m guessing in future, the PSB apps will be hard-coded to the left of the home view and only then will I be able to re-order all the others.

Re: The future of television
 

I think so too.

It will be the streamer version of the PSB channels having 'due prominence' on the EPG's.

Re: The future of television
 

I don’t think you are getting my drift. At some point in the future, VM will have to take account of the fact that TV channels are closing and the content added to the streamers. As we’d otherwise have fewer channels, it would make sense to have packages of streamers instead of pay-tv channels.

Look at what happened with all those Disney channels, and think about what will be the result when they all do that. It’s just a matter of time.

My point is that you won’t be able to choose between scheduled linear channels as now and the streamers, because the linear channels will no longer exist. Just like happened with Disney.

---------- Post added at 17:06 ---------- Previous post was at 16:56 ----------

Wait a minute - you should know by now that what I have been saying is that the scheduled linear channels as we know them now will no longer exist. All4 is a channel, as is My5, the ITV Hub and of course the BBC I-Player. They may continue to exist beyond our current scheduled channels, although they may become absorbed within a free section of Britbox or something like that. So ITV, ITV2, ITV3, ITV4, etc will all combine under let’s say the ITV Hub, categorised by programme type instead of by channel.

How on Earth you think it is easier to find a programme in a TV listings magazine with all those listed channels, I don’t know. In future, you would simply go to a streamer and look up dramas, documentaries, and so forth. Sky and Virgin could assist by providing such categories together for all the streamers on their system to assist the viewer to find the programme of their choice rather than search streamer by streamer.

By the way, Amazon already does something similar, as does Apple+.

Re: The future of television
 

I’m still lost is the streaming model direct to consumer or reliant upon Sky/Virgin or whoever else for wholesale revenue?

Still nothing on where/when BBC/ITV/Sky arbitrarily close down linear channels rather than continue to support their cross platform offerings.

Nothing on who/where/when this becomes as seamless as an EPG.

Pipe dream stuff.

Re: The future of television
 

On Sundays it's wholesaled by the telcos, on Mondays it's direct to consumer. I'll keep you posted about Tuesday. :D

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Re: The future of television
 

Who said anything about a TV listings magazine :confused:

A digital TV guide I'm sure what I put was pretty clear.

Re: The future of television
 

I do realise that your fantasy situation is to have world where only streamers exist and linear channels no longer exist. Nobody else is going to look at broadcasting with exactly the same extreme viewpoint as yourself. It isn't going to make anyone who doesn't want to seek out content on a streamer to suddenly think "oh! OLD BOY dreams of a world where linear channels no longer exist. I must change my life around and stop watching scheduled TV". Really, it just isn't going to happen.

Okay, let's look at Disney, it tried and failed to acquire Sky. If it had been successful I don't think they would have gone through the scheduled channel cull we have now seen. When the Disney kids channels closed, reports were that Disney was asking too much to recontract for channels with declining viewing patterns. Nothing unusual there, viewing patterns change and pay-tv providers no longer consider them to be worth the asking price. The profit margin is no longer there for the pay-tv provider.

Disney is fairly unique, it has the global scale to throw all its weight behind its streaming service. As a global provider, it doesn't even matter if their decision in the UK and Europe loses viewers. They are charging their subscribers far more than they were getting from the pay-tv providers so they still have some income, even in the worst case scenario. In America, they still have the ABC network as an outlet for scheduled content, so very little risk in that market.

Looking at the other channel closures over the last few months, I don't see anything to be of concern. CBS/Viacom killed off a few music channels, viewing figures have been dropping for years in this genre, so understandable. Discovery killed off a few of their under-performing channels. They have recently acquired channels from UKTV and were spreading their content too thinly across their channels. Some fairly routine and far from unexpected changes there.

No real indication of the pay-tv providers haemorrhaging channels.

---------- Post added at 19:54 ---------- Previous post was at 19:46 ----------

I wonder how he thinks it will be funded. If Sky dropped the Disney channels because the profit margin was too small, why would they be happy to move from selling scheduled channels direct to their own customers. The small amount of cash received from acting as a subscription collector for global streamers isn't going to be enough to run a viable TV platform.

Not to mention that the streamers will be reluctant to wholesale their streaming platforms, it cuts into their profit margins too.

Re: The future of television
 

Oh, thanks for that, Chris, really helpful. I only did it that way to avoid the more time-consuming method. However, consider me told. jfman will need to guess at my responses, but it really shouldn’t take too much brainpower, I guess.

---------- Post added at 20:37 ---------- Previous post was at 20:28 ----------

This is just fantasy, you know. I have said the linear channels will close years ago and I was derided for expressing such an opinion. Now it’s actually started to happen, well within my timeframe, you are pleading a special case forDisney. What will be the special case for Discovery channels, which are probably the next in line.

As for adding these streamers to TV platforms, how do you explain the streamers we already have on Sky, Virgin Media and BT? How do you explain Roku and Amazon Fire?

Whatever the economic arguments you may have, please just acknowledge that it is already happening!

You are personalising this as if it’s my fault!