Quote:
Originally Posted by jfman
Easy enough for everyone to buy a freeview box, and digital switchover still took 15 years.
It's going to be a PR disaster if streaming is 'standard' yet arbitrarily starts telling everyone they need new hardware to continue viewing.
|
Moreover, digital switchover couldn’t even begin until there existed a free digital terrestrial service that was widely understood to be free. OnDigital and then ITV Digital failed because they looked like just another subscription service and created the impression that it wasn’t possible to get into digital TV if your interests went no further than freely available public service broadcasters.
It wasn’t until the BBC took the lead in rebranding digital terrestrial TV as Freeview that set top box sales began to climb to levels where analogue broadcast switch-off dates could be proposed.
There is a large constituency of TV viewers in the UK who aren’t interested in paying for TV and won’t buy any hardware that’s not essential. They’re never going to buy a fire stick, a Roku, Britbox or Now TV.