Originally Posted by Chris (Post 36184522)

You have been making it very clear that you still don’t understand the government’s role in setting the PSB licensing regime.

Originally Posted by OLD BOY (Post 36192949)

To be honest, jfman, I don’t see how the government can seriously agree to spend scarce resources on a preferred method of broadcasting that the content providers don’t want.

If channels are abandoned in favour of streaming, and at a time that the BBC complain they are so cash strapped that they have to withdraw services, what will be left to broadcast terrestrially?

To date, I haven’t heard a reasoned argument against that view, apart from the usual appeal to the emotions that ‘people want the choice’.

I don’t think the option will be available, and there won’t be a referendum!

Originally Posted by OLD BOY (Post 36192949)

To be honest, jfman, I don’t see how the government can seriously agree to spend scarce resources on a preferred method of broadcasting that the content providers don’t want.

If channels are abandoned in favour of streaming, and at a time that the BBC complain they are so cash strapped that they have to withdraw services, what will be left to broadcast terrestrially?

To date, I haven’t heard a reasoned argument against that view, apart from the usual appeal to the emotions that ‘people want the choice’.

I don’t think the option will be available, and there won’t be a referendum!

Originally Posted by Chris (Post 36192960)

You’ve heard plenty of reasoned arguments, repeatedly, over many years. They just don’t align with your opinion, so you dismiss them and tell yourself that dismissing an argument is somehow the same as disproving it.

Also LOL at you posting an article that proves terrestrial TV is a highly valued commodity and then somehow concluding the government must inevitably decide to pi$$ everyone off by authorising its switch-off.

And further LOL at whoever wrote that piece observing the BBC has failed to ‘commit’ to continued support of terrestrial broadcast, as if that means it might unilaterally pull the plug, when in fact it is not up to the BBC to decide that - it is part of its charter conditions, which are set by parliament, not by the BBC.

Originally Posted by OLD BOY (Post 36193041)

I’m not sure where you are coming from - it’s like you are living on a different planet.

As the article says:

‘In 2024, free-to-air broadcasters and regulator Ofcom warned of a tipping point in terms of the viability of terrestrial TV broadcasts. The BBC highlighted the increasing cost of terrestrial TV per user. It also put a question mark over whether or not it could justify the ongoing expenditure.’

The article references the public’s preference to continue to broadcast terrestrially, but you ignore completely the financial issues associated with continuing to use transmitters for this purpose.

Originally Posted by Chris (Post 36193044)

That’s because it’s a sleight-of-hand.

There is no cost per user on terrestrial TV. It is a flat cost, regardless of how many people receive the broadcast.

Dividing it up amongst those who actually tune in, in order to create an entirely notional amount spent per user, is pointless because there are so many other factors that are within the broadcasters’ control if they want to have lower costs per user - principally, by making programmes more users want to watch.

The PSBs, the BBC most of all, have the top EPG slots and are in every home, on every platform. If they’re losing viewers they shouldn’t be helped to vanish up their own arsehoes by agreeing to switch off the distribution method your own link proves is the one viewers still want.



Wrong.

Mature technology - check.
Reaches every customer - check (pretty much).
Minimal barrier to entry for consumer (in terms of cost of receiver, simplicity of technology) - check.

The cost to reach every customer - because it does reach every customer, whether or not they actually watch is another matter - is tiny.



That wet, squishing noise is the sound of you dragging the goalposts across a particularly soggy Sunday league football pitch and hoping everyone’s too tired or drunk to notice.

The principal protagonist here, according to the article you linked to, is the BBC, which is the backbone of UK public service broadcasting and, famously, does not run adverts. In fact it even employs people to blur out the trademen’s business names on DIY SOS, such is its commitment to not advertising, even on the occasions it would be rather nicer if they did.

The apparent cost to stream is so low because nobody has yet fully addressed the elephant in that room, which is that consumers are paying network operators for ‘unlimited’ internet access based on certain assumptions about average monthly data usage. I don’t know if you’re aware quite how much of a difference it makes to data usage when a household goes IP only - in the 50 days since our router was last power cycled we’ve downloaded just shy of 3 terabytes. We’re in a new-build and haven’t got round to putting an aerial up, so all our consumption is over IP. That’s what a single family doing *everything* online looks like. Push close to 2 terabytes per month on every household and the ISPs are going to start squealing, loudly, and suddenly the entire business model for the delivery of home broadband has to change. Whatever the streamers are currently paying for peering, content delivery networks and the like, doesn’t come close to covering the actual cost.



This is exactly what I meant when I said you think dismissing something when it doesn’t align with you opinion is not the same thing as successfully arguing against it. You might as well have just stuck your fingers in your ears and gone ‘lalala’.

Originally Posted by OLD BOY (Post 36193045)

It’s not just my opinion. Perhaps you should read this.

https://www.ofcom.org.uk/siteassets/...t.pdf?v=344045

Originally Posted by Chris (Post 36193046)

What, you mean the report where Ofcom states it is making an ‘early’ assessment of the market (i.e. not making conclusions or asking for certain actions), and proposes that 2 of the 3 possible ways forward include keeping terrestrial broadcast? That one?

Yes. In fact, I read it long before the last time it came up in this thread, which must have been some time ago now because the document is almost a year old.

Originally Posted by OLD BOY (Post 36193048)

Still. as usual, you think you know better.

Originally Posted by OLD BOY (Post 36193048)

So you read:

‘ …There is no way around the fact that the proliferation of TV distribution methods ….will put more and more pressure onto PSBs…..The tipping point will come for DSat and eventually DTT at which the costs of distribution outweigh the benefits.’

Originally Posted by Chris (Post 36193050)

I did. But, that being the part where they merely identify the problem, I kept reading in order to discover what their possible solutions are. So I also read:



And



And also



… which is the only one of the three options Ofcom has put forward for early discussion that actually involved ditching DTT. The other two emphatically do not. The *first* one in the list even advocates for investment to make it resilient and more efficient. Yet somehow no matter what you read, and even when what you post says the opposite of what you think it does, you stick to the idea that you must be right. Meanwhile, we draw ever nearer to your switch of prediction date. Tick tock.



Based on all the above, apparently I do, and you’re right (for once), no there’s not.