Originally Posted by Chris (Post 35999729)

I’m very curious to see what Disney’s offering looks like when it launches in the UK. If it’s as clean and all-you-can-eat as Netflix they could come to dominate very quickly.

Originally Posted by cheekyangus (Post 35999757)

Disney has a UK service already, it's just not particularly well advertised and doesn't quite have the range of the new services in the US will. Disney Life was estimated by the person who told me it existed to have around 80% of what Disney+ will likely have.

Originally Posted by Horizon (Post 35999763)

I'm sure the actual Disney+ service will be as you describe, the problem is that Disney has, or will have, several streaming services at least in the States.

All of the Hollywood companies appear to be trying to replicate in the streaming world what they had in the linear channels world, ie multiple services. They haven't quite learned yet what made Netflix so successful.

---------- Post added at 17:55 ---------- Previous post was at 17:51 ----------

Sky hold the rights for all new Disney films, so our Disney+ service will have less content to begin with.

Originally Posted by muppetman11 (Post 35999809)

Imagine the cost increase for those who like to watch a lot of movies..........not good.

Originally Posted by vincerooney (Post 35999817)

My thoughts are people are going to go back to streams and VPNs again. I find it quite funny since i started on the internet in 1996 just as the boom was occurring. The first few years were fairly laid back with only the hardcore IT guru knowing how to share stuff.

Then we got to 2001 and the likes of napster, kazaa and limewire exploded onto the scene. By 2004 these were either shut down or just a haven for viruses. Then the world of torrents became main stream and tv companies and music companies went on a war against them. shutting sites down and tracking users through the ISPs and fining people etc.

At that point spotify came more high profile. For a small amount you get millions of songs to listen to rather than 99p a song. Bargain. Netflix trotted on with a gaggle of different tv shows and movies for a cheap price with a rotating library. No longer did you need to stream! Everything was a reasonable price for once which people were prepared to pay! 16.99 gave you unlimited music and netflix.

But now the big companies lick their lips as they want a piece of the pie. So expect a tornado of streaming companies to launch meaning if you want everything.....you'll have to pay A LOT.

Its like the companies dont understand that there is a limit to what people are prepared to pay for. Less content on netflix will make netflix less appealing but it wont make new streaming providers more appealing as they'll have less of a library too. its fragmenting the entire services.

I can envision a world of VPNs becoming more popular again and rather than people paying 15-20 quid on spotify or apple music or amazon prime or netflix they'll pay a lot less and watch all these services via streaming websites or torrents again completing a full circle.

Originally Posted by vincerooney (Post 35999817)

My thoughts are people are going to go back to streams and VPNs again. I find it quite funny since i started on the internet in 1996 just as the boom was occurring. The first few years were fairly laid back with only the hardcore IT guru knowing how to share stuff.

Then we got to 2001 and the likes of napster, kazaa and limewire exploded onto the scene. By 2004 these were either shut down or just a haven for viruses. Then the world of torrents became main stream and tv companies and music companies went on a war against them. shutting sites down and tracking users through the ISPs and fining people etc.

At that point spotify came more high profile. For a small amount you get millions of songs to listen to rather than 99p a song. Bargain. Netflix trotted on with a gaggle of different tv shows and movies for a cheap price with a rotating library. No longer did you need to stream! Everything was a reasonable price for once which people were prepared to pay! 16.99 gave you unlimited music and netflix.

But now the big companies lick their lips as they want a piece of the pie. So expect a tornado of streaming companies to launch meaning if you want everything.....you'll have to pay A LOT.

Its like the companies dont understand that there is a limit to what people are prepared to pay for. Less content on netflix will make netflix less appealing but it wont make new streaming providers more appealing as they'll have less of a library too. its fragmenting the entire services.

I can envision a world of VPNs becoming more popular again and rather than people paying 15-20 quid on spotify or apple music or amazon prime or netflix they'll pay a lot less and watch all these services via streaming websites or torrents again completing a full circle.

Originally Posted by OLD BOY (Post 35999831)

On the other hand, maybe people will ditch their conventional subscriptions and go streaming only.

Originally Posted by OLD BOY (Post 35999831)

On the other hand, maybe people will ditch their conventional subscriptions and go streaming only.

Originally Posted by vincerooney (Post 35999863)

Don't get me wrong OB i think we are heading there. But i still think the majority of people in this country still follow a sort of 7-10pm tv schedule. I think things are changing but not as quick as predicted. My mum who is 67 now "binge" watches tv shows over several nights which is astonishing. But my dad (if he was alive) wouldn't even know how to do that and would be running back from the pub for a certain tv show at 10pm or something.

Will tv companies try to stop the move to streaming only? Surely virgin media would cease to exist as a tv provider?

Originally Posted by muppetman11 (Post 35999837)

The point being made is a film lover who watches lots of films can now get a Now TV cinema pass for around £10 if you look around for offers.

Going forward you'll need a sub to Comcast , Warner , Hulu and Disney how much will that lot cost because it will certainly be more than a tenner.

Originally Posted by OLD BOY (Post 35999927)

Well, those are the big questions, and contributors to this forum have different views.

Clearly, no-one can be certain, because all of this is dependent on human ingenuity in making things work. My own opinion is that the economics of it all will shift the existing content providers to streaming. Advertising revenue from the TV channels will fall the more people shift to streaming, ultimately rendering our TV channels unprofitable. None of us know how long that process will take, but you can safely bet that the younger generation will be streaming away in the near future and hardly bothering with scheduled TV, which is very restrictive compared with streaming.

As you will see from the posts on this forum, there are some who vehemently protest that our TV channels will never die, because they feel that they themselves will always watch this way. I understand that, but I'm afraid that progress is likely to prove them wrong. The truth is, no-one can be completely sure. I just look at the viewing trends and technological advances and draw my own conclusions.

As for VM, I don't think that this change will mean that they cease to exist as a provider of TV content. Liberty Global see themselves as content aggregators now, so instead of having bouquets of channels in the future, we will have bundles of streaming services. Hopefully, there will be a system in place whereby if you take them all, you will get a discount, just as we do with bundles of TV channels. That would be attractive to most people, I think.

---------- Post added at 11:38 ---------- Previous post was at 11:32 ----------



I completely understand your concerns about that, muppetman. My view, as you know, is that viewers will migrate to these services and ditch the scheduled pay tv channels. Therefore, if that happens, you can deduct the cost of Sky channels from your calculation, which means you would end up paying about the same for much better content, both in quantitative and qualitative terms.

Originally Posted by OLD BOY (Post 35999927)

Well, those are the big questions, and contributors to this forum have different views.

Clearly, no-one can be certain, because all of this is dependent on human ingenuity in making things work. My own opinion is that the economics of it all will shift the existing content providers to streaming. Advertising revenue from the TV channels will fall the more people shift to streaming, ultimately rendering our TV channels unprofitable. None of us know how long that process will take, but you can safely bet that the younger generation will be streaming away in the near future and hardly bothering with scheduled TV, which is very restrictive compared with streaming.

As you will see from the posts on this forum, there are some who vehemently protest that our TV channels will never die, because they feel that they themselves will always watch this way. I understand that, but I'm afraid that progress is likely to prove them wrong. The truth is, no-one can be completely sure. I just look at the viewing trends and technological advances and draw my own conclusions.

As for VM, I don't think that this change will mean that they cease to exist as a provider of TV content. Liberty Global see themselves as content aggregators now, so instead of having bouquets of channels in the future, we will have bundles of streaming services. Hopefully, there will be a system in place whereby if you take them all, you will get a discount, just as we do with bundles of TV channels. That would be attractive to most people, I think.

Originally Posted by muppetman11 (Post 35999931)

With a Now TV Cinema pass there is no cost for any other channels unless you specifically want them , so my point still stands.

Originally Posted by denphone (Post 35999933)

Strange that as Global pay TV is still set for growth adding 81 million additional subscribers between 2018 and 2024, translating to growth of 8%, according to Digital TV Research.

https://www.digitaltveurope.com/2019...-cord-cutting/

Originally Posted by OLD BOY (Post 35999937)

Indeed, and there's no doubt that global pay tv will keep expanding for the foreseeable future. However, the picture is quite different in developed countries such as the UK. The article mentions the 'alarming' amount of cord cutting in the US, which is similar to what we will be facing in the coming years.

Originally Posted by denphone (Post 35998805)

A project destined to fail...

Originally Posted by denphone (Post 35999946)

As one has told you before OB we are not America and British people behave far more differently then our American cousins.