Re: Linear is old tech - on demand is the future
 

Nope.

It's the same as high street shops.

It used to be exciting going into department stores and browsing all their multiple selections and walking along the high street browsing the multiple different shops. But the shops never changed. They replicated themselves so that every high street looked identical to each other with the same chain shops and people got bored with them, then Amazon and other online players came along...

Why would future generations (assuming they can afford to pay for the streamers), choose tv channels, most with adverts, over instantly available shows ad free?

As I keep saying in others threads, the biggest piece of evidence I can put forward as to why we're into a whole different world with tv now and why linear will decline somewhat is simply to look at what Rupert Murdoch did.

He built up a company over decades, only for Netflix to come along and destroy the business model he knows.

The days of television being dominated by a few broadcast channels ended when Rupert Murdoch launched Sky. He was the disrupter, the new kid on the block then.

The days of linear tv dominating ended when Reed Hastings decided sending DVDs out to people was a pain in the arse and it was much better to stream all the stuff over the internet. Things move on. Simple as that.

(Having stuff like Jeremy Kyle and Come Dine with Me, just hastens the inevitable decline of most linear tv.)

Re: Linear is old tech - on demand is the future
 

Yes, something has changed. Here is a different link on this story.

https://advanced-television.com/2018...inues-decline/



Globally in 2018, linear TV has shown no new signs of life; ratings continue to fall, even with mainstays like the NFL. Despite this, linear TV has sustained advertiser demand, implying the perception that linear TV is as effective and essential as ever, but for how long and in what balance relative to alternatives?



---------- Post added at 16:42 ---------- Previous post was at 16:39 ----------

I agree 100% with your assessment, Horizon.

Re: Linear is old tech - on demand is the future
 

:)

Re: Linear is old tech - on demand is the future
 

Spot on, but, there are others on here, who have their heads firmly up their arse, and will deny what is so obvious.

Re: Linear is old tech - on demand is the future
 

It is not obvious what will happen in the future, but the evidence for what is happening now is obvious and very clear:

1. Murdoch sold most of his business' because he couldn't compete with trillion dollar tech companies and Netflix.

2. Cord cutting in America shows no sign of abating with people cancelling their traditional pay tv subs eroding the viewing figures for many channels.

3. Netflix's and Amazon's rise shows no sign of abating. Netflix now has 130m subscribers and Amazon has 100m. No traditional pay tv network can compete against that.

I said somewhere at the beginning of this thread or another ages ago, that I do think a core group of channels will survive. But to use the high street analogy again, these channels will ultimately be no more than shop windows into their respective company's streaming services.

Re: Linear is old tech - on demand is the future
 

I'm not sure how you work out no one can compete with the subscriber numbers , I remember reading recently Discovery discussing it's global reach through it's many deals it has with pay TV platforms and it way exceeded the number of subscribers you quote for Netflix.

Re: Linear is old tech - on demand is the future
 

That's the point muppetman, it's those other platforms that have the subscribers, not Discovery directly, unlike Netflix.

Re: Linear is old tech - on demand is the future
 

It's totally irrelevant how many subscribers a streaming company has around the world, it is how manly they have in this country that counts as PL rights are sold on a geographical basis.

I assume no streaming company would be allowed to obtain worldwide rights for PL as any broadcaster isn't even in this country.

Re: Linear is old tech - on demand is the future
 

Geographical basis for now... do you really think it will remain like that with global steamers which have audiences/subscribers of hundreds of millions?

I don't assume it will remain as it is now, in fact I assume it won't.

Re: Linear is old tech - on demand is the future
 

Re: Linear is old tech - on demand is the future
 

Well, little by little, you can see the future beginning to unfurl.

I've drawn attention before to the scrape ITV got into a few years back with the reduction of advertisement placement on its channels.

It seems that TV advertising is now expected to be flat, but on line revenues are increasing.

Seems like Carolyn Mc Call has got it right with her focus on improving the ITV Hub.

https://www.a516digital.com/2018/11/...er-online.html

Re: Linear is old tech - on demand is the future
 

The point you seem to be missing with this shift from linear viewing to On Demand the advertisers have to advertise somewhere get ready for adverts before and after your On Demand shows.

Re: Linear is old tech - on demand is the future
 

The answer appears to be to permit viewers to choose between subscriptions with no ads and no subscriptions (or less costly subscriptions) with ads.

Anyway, why should the media companies be concerned with the plight of advertisers per se? They are only interested in relation to their own funding models.

Re: Linear is old tech - on demand is the future
 

I’m not sure how many subscribers a company that is yet to turn a profit is relevant.

The business models rely on large numbers paying a small amount per month. To buy say, worldwide Premiership rights would cost over £7bn, give you a compelling product in one country and add on content for the rest. So realistically you’d need the compelling content in every region: France, Germany, Italy, Spain, etc.

How many tens of billions have you spent? Will the 100m subscribers paying £8 a month suddenly pay you £££s a year to cover your costs?

Re: Linear is old tech - on demand is the future
 

It's not only the cost of rights you have to factor in

Cost of supplying each game to the subscribers
Cost of advertising to encourage people to be subscribers
Cost of processing subscriber payments
Cost of support staff

To name but a few