[OLD BOY]

Originally Posted by harry_hitch

1st paragraph. Netflix can't survive on £8.99 a month though. You yourself said in your last post to me they keep putting the price up for new customers. LOL, It was you who also said less well off people will flit between streaming services, now you are saying this will be stopped by streaming services charging an annual fee! Where exactly do you stand on this point now? Will it, in your opinion be, a monthly service people can drop monthly, or will it be an annual fee?
If it is an annual fee how much will it be? £100-£120? Lets assume there will be streaming services plus Amazon, Netflix and Now TV. I hope 5 sounds fair. How can a poor family afford to spare £500-£600 a year, on the 5 streaming services (so they can have all the variety) on top of Amazon, Netflix, Now TV and the license fee?

2nd paragraph. I am afraid I don't understand your sentence. Again, how will the subscription be paid? We have been over the pay per views stuff before. How much will cost someone to watch (for example) 3 shows that come on daily on a week night. (Let's forget about the weekend shows for now, and all the other shows.) That's 5 episodes a week 4 weeks a month. That's 20 episodes a month, per show. That equates to £10.00 per show a month. £30 a month to watch just 3 shows on a daily basis, I don't see that taking off.

3rd paragraph. Are seriously saying has more content than the content Sky can offer? How many more actively current shows do the channels on Sky broadcast compared to Netflix? Don't get me wrong, Netflix is great at the minute, but Sky has a massive amount of box sets and the number of channels frequently have something on I can watch. It will be difficult to say definitively who has more content though. I am going to stick with Sky though.

4th paragraph. My point about amazon was it is simply subsidized by the money Amazon make off of their main business website, which has adverts. So Amazon, in my eyes, will use advertising to help keep the costs of their services down. I appreciate it does not currently interrupt your viewing schedule. BTW, do you pay for the pay-per-view shows and or films on Amazon Prime?

5th paragraph. As for Now TV, it's odd after all this time you think I don't know the difference between broadcast tv and on demand, why would you suddenly think so? Did you not read the part where I said there were ads on the catch up services from Sky?!? It's also odd how for many weeks you have never said that you use now tv solely for catch up purposes (in fact I am sure you have said many times you still use linear TV and don't want it to go) but since PB rightly challenged me on my wording a number of posts ago, it seems you have tried to take his argument on further, which you are entitled to do. If I was wrong to state it is linear based, you equally wrong to say it is on-demand based - it offers both services.

If you want to say people use it more for on demand, look at their website, under entertainment pass it states

Addictive new shows and award-winning dramas on 13 pay TV channels that you won’t find on Freeview.

Watch Live, Catch Up on missed episodes or watch over 250 Box Sets On Demand.

The wording of this tells me that the first service it's selling is live TV you won't get on freeview. It then says, you can watch it all live and then you can use the catch up feature to watch any shows that were on at the same time. I am guessing that is because you can't record on Now TV, happy to be corrected. You will also see on the little cinema ticket stub adverts, that they are highlighting the live tv broadcast times for shows first, and then telling you it is on catch up too. I fail to see where it states this is primarily an on demand service. Please tell me on the website where its wording is aiming for on demand above linear tv.

I am not denying people use it as an on demand service too, but the wording (in my eyes) suggests Sky want to sell it as live TV first and foremost. Again, fair play if you are not getting ads on your on demand stuff. The fee I pay Sky is more that you pay for Now tv, and yet I am getting ads on the catch up service. Not sure how long that will be before it trickles down to Now TV. Please don't say its because you pay a subscription, so does every one Sky.

6th paragraph. Does relate to anything I said. How are they going to fund hoovering up all these exclusives?

7th paragraph. Okay, lets say the BBC, Channel 4, Fox and Universal are all worried, and they pull all their content off Netflix including all their films. How do Netflix justify charging the same price for considerably less content? And how is attractive is Netflix then to customers?

As promised, my views on this are as follows.

Point 1. We all know, I think, that Netflix prices will increase somewhat from the present £8.99 as we get more and better content still in the future. I would expect that to increase to about £20 pm in real terms if they succeed in giving us the full works including studio deals allowing them to show first run films following the pay per view period (currently held by Sky).

Now, that would be a lot to pay for those who can barely afford the licence fee, and therefore to maximise income, Netflix may well structure their prices into tiers, allowing the present service to continue to be available for about £10 pm. Assuming that the licence fee becomes a subscription, this would be a good alternative to the terrestrials for cash strapped families. At £120 per month, this provides a cheaper alternative than the current licence fee. They would still get the free to air terrestrials, minus the BBC channels but plus Netflix. If they preferred, they could simply subscribe to Now TV and get access to the Sky channels at less than they pay now for the licence fee.

Flitting between streaming services no doubt would also take place. If, as I have speculated, Netflix and others decide to force subscribers into annual deals (as Amazon does now), those who can only afford one service will have the opportunity to change services at 12 monthly intervals. That would give less well off people a much better choice over time than they get now. What is not to like?

Point 2. I am not quite sure why you don't understand my paragraph. If it is the reasoning that you are questioning, I assume that the confusion is expressed in the questions that you ask under your second paragraph. My response to that is that I fail to see why you question how subscriptions would be paid.

There are plenty of streaming services operating by subscription currently, including pay per view (eg Google Play) and they don't have a problem collecting subscriptions. There are, however, certain difficulties with collecting BBC subscriptions given that the BBC channels are available via aerials and without a box. The Government is looking at that and believes that a technical solution will be available by the time the next review takes place. We haven't been told (to the best of my knowledge) what that solution will entail.

Pay per view viewing is indeed expensive and is only worthwhile when watching a limited number of programmes offered on this basis. Personally, I prefer paying by subscription.

Point 3. Yes, I am saying there is more content on Netflix than on Sky. It's better quality overall as well. There may be a lot of content on Sky's channels but a very high proportion is very dumbed down material which (in my view) should not be allowed as it is brain numbing to the extreme! Sorry, controversial comment there.

Point 4. Well, my comments about advertising have been related to commercials. I have no problem whatsoever with advertising banners on the sites themselves, I just don't want them to interrupt my viewing.

I do watch PPV programmes occasionally, but frankly my subscriptions pay for almost all of my pay TV viewing.

Point 5. Reading previous posts, I thought you had not actually seen Now TV, my apologies if I was wrong about that (there are too many posts to trawl through!). My point was that although there are advertisements on Now TV, they are only contained within the small linear broadcast TV section of that site (in other words, the same channels that you get on Sky TV). However, the streaming videos available on Now TV do not contain advertisements. I was certainly not questioning your understanding of what linear broadcast TV was!

I do not distinguish between 'catch up' and 'streaming videos' on Now TV. I would not regard the last few series of 'Aquarius' as 'catch up', which I would tend to regard as services enabling you to see programmes that were broadcast last week (now last month for most 'catch up' players). I guess you could regard all previously broadcast programmes as 'catch up', but I don't think that is a common interpretation.

For the record (I have said this before), my viewing is almost exclusively via my own recordings, Netflix, Now TV, Amazon and the various players. I hardly ever watch anything live - even the News is recorded for viewing when I am ready to watch it.

You are correct in saying you cannot record from Now TV. As to whether Now TV subscribers actually prefer live TV cluttered with commercials or the streaming videos of the same programmes and more on that platform I will leave to conjecture unless someone has the figures. Unless you love to waste your time with commercials, I would suggest that most people just choose the videos on there and watch them.

Sky may choose to promote the live TV because they make more advertising money from you the more you watch by that method, but frankly, given the choice before you when you get into Now TV, why would you choose to watch programmes that way? Incidentally, the 'catch up' part of the service is the same as any other 'catch up' service, but there are no ads on Now TV videos.

Point 6. I think you will see a growing tendency for the services with global reach buying up all the exclusives because they will simply outbid the national broadcasting companies with their bigger wallets. Sky are riding high at the moment and indeed they have recently secured a deal with Showtime. However, I think we are nearing an end to this era and things will be looking very different not that long from now. Only time will prove this to you.

Point 7. Yes, I am sure that these channels will be milking their exclusive content for all its worth before they release their shows to the global companies. However, they will ultimately sell them on to make even more money for those programmes. There are already signs that these channels are not only using their players for catch up, but also for displaying other programmes they have made or commissioned. For example, All 4 has three series of 'Indian Summers' on it, despite the fact that only series 1 has aired on Channel 4. It is possible that the channels could avoid selling on their programmes by substantially expanding their own sites and allowing them to be accessed globally.

Of course, the likes of BBC, Channel 4, Fox and Universal could decide to pull their content from the streaming providers if they wished to do so, but how do you think that would actually affect Netflix and Amazon, who get their programmes and films from a variety of sources and are now even making their own content?

I hope that this addresses all the points you have made, Harry. Let me know if you think there is anything I have missed.

---------- Post added at 12:10 ---------- Previous post was at 11:58 ----------

Originally Posted by Chris

This is one of the most often-repeated pieces of nonsense about the BBC's future funding model.

There are four public service broadcasters in the UK*, and all of them are forbidden by law from hiding their PSB channels behind subscription. If ITV, Channel 4 and Channel 5 can fulfil their public service obligations based on advertising revenue, why do you imagine the BBC would be forced to do anything other than that, when and if the day comes that the licence fee is no longer considered tenable?

* six, technically, as STV and S4C have the PSB rights in channel positions 3 and 4 in Wales and Scotland, respectively

Laws can be changed, Chris. The Conservatives have not disguised their preference to force the BBC into a subscription based model.

Putting commercials onto the BBC will not be popular with the public but converting the licence fee into a subscription would address the complaints made by those who say they are forced to pay this fee even though they don't watch or listen to the BBC.