Quote:
Originally Posted by denphone
We have had this argument before with a well respected CF member and Linear channels are here to stay and will still be around when l have gone the way of the dodo despite what the doomsayers of CF say.  |
But on what basis do you say that, Den? Your view of the future is only going to happen if most viewers choose to keep watching broadcast linear TV much as they do now, and the quickening trend to other means of viewing (on demand/streaming services) is arrested sharply in the very near future.
In the end, you have to look at the economics of it all, as well as the growing impatience of people who are demanding instant gratification and will not wait for their programmes of choice to show up on the TV schedules and have their viewing interrupted by commercials.
Maybe that decline could be mitigated by channels reorganising how they broadcast their programmes. If they did this 'cinema style' by showing uninterrupted and better quality home grown material (because all the the good stuff they could procure would be snapped up by the streaming services), and having these good programmes followed by commercials, shorter programmes, trailers, more commercials and then another good quality programme, this might keep things going. I do think people are more tolerant of commercials between programmes rather than interrupting programmes.
Even then, I think the prevalence of broadcast linear viewing will be much less in the future, and I seriously doubt whether such broadcasting will be economically viable in a couple of decades.
---------- Post added at 11:42 ---------- Previous post was at 11:27 ----------
Quote:
Originally Posted by Chris
You're simply unable - or unwilling - to deal with the scale of the problem.
None of these experts foresees a crippling problem, because nobody who knows anything about the subject, seriously believes the UK will have switched off broadcast TV and transferred our entire news and entertainment provision to IP-based services, not now, nor in 10 or 20 years time.
Throughout this thread you have been predicting the end of linear TV based on nothing more than your fondness for the alternative.
Others have pointed out to you that:
- a linear TV schedule provides least friction for a busy consumer with limited appetite to make conscious choices;
- any live event is, and will always be, by its very nature, broadcast according to a linear schedule;
- one-way transmission by satellite or terrestrial transmitter is a vastly more efficient way of delivering high-bandwidth content to large numbers of people simultaneously. This requires scheduled broadcast, even if the end user stores transmissions (TiVo or similar) for later consumption on-demand;
- scheduled broadcast puts large numbers of people within reach of advertisers simultaneously;
- it also increases the number of simultaneous views of content, allowing for popular shows to achieve the prized "water-cooler moment" that further publicises them;
- all of which is essential, given the high cost of quality, original TV.
- and, not forgetting, the hard fact that the internet's projected future bandwidth and energy requirement is already enormous, without the added burden of putting our entire TV system onto it.
These are the facts. Nobody wants the future you keep pushing, in sufficient numbers to make it happen. On-demand streaming has its place in the mix, but that's all it will be for the foreseeable future.
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Well, it's easy to be negative, Chris. You have put all of these supposed problems in the way, without it even crossing your mind that throughout history, problems preventing change have been overcome.
I find it difficult to understand why you think that 'busy people' would not want to use their limited free time to watch something worthwhile. The description you paint is of a nation of semi-comatose people watching dazed-like at any junk that is thrown at them. I sincerely hope that most of us are better than that!
You say that any live event will always be watched via broadcast TV, completely ignoring the fact that such events can be streamed live.
If you ever watch Netflix or Amazon, you will see new series advertised before they appear, just like films at the cinema. So you can still share these experiences, when they first appear, with your friends.
I could go on, but I think the trend towards streaming and on demand viewing is already towards these methods of viewing and this is set to grow substantially.
I do not doubt for one moment that the viewing figures for broadcast TV are still healthy, but existing trends should make it obvious that things cannot remain as they are for much longer.