[OLD BOY]

Originally Posted by Raider999

According to viewing figures shown some hundreds of posts ago, there are many channels that exist on very low numbers so what makes you think they will all suddenly disappear?

Because now is not the future. Those figures will go down and with it, the quality programmes, which will lead to even more audience losses. That cannot continue forever. If you run a channel on a shoestring, do you honestly think there will be much on there worth seeing?

---------- Post added at 09:48 ---------- Previous post was at 09:34 ----------

Originally Posted by jfman

I've been over this a million times.

Literally nobody buys anything other than exclusive rights to content - live, on demand, streaming, etc. It'd leave a huge gaping hole in business plans all around the industry if a streamer didn't pick up all forms of TV rights to ensure nobody else (ITV for example) started beaming your non-exclusive content into 26 million homes.

So it's a total red herring to claim there's any additional rights cost at all.

Which brings us to the genuine additional cost and effort. Which is demonstrably virtually nothing given the channels all over the EPG running on shoestring budgets with virtually zero viewers.

Why continue? If you are ITV, Channel 4 or Five you get prominence on Freeview. If you are Sky you get prominence in 9 million homes on your own platform. None of these companies are going to walk away from that lightly to become apps on a Samsung TV leaving prominence (and software updates) up to the manufacturer. Of course they will have a streaming presence, but why rely on that alone and give up your golden goose that is the fact people switch on their sets and find you right there at the top of the EPG.

If you don't think that this prominence has any significance at all can you explain to me why an Andy Murray match at Wimbledon will rate higher on BBC1 than BBC2? Why would the FA Cup rate higher on the BBC than ITV?

You are simply applying your own views to the entire population - and as I've said before anything other than state intervention makes it extremely difficult to get 100% of a population to do anything.

I get that prominence on the EPG has great significance, because at the moment, if you want to record a programme, that's where you go to record it. If you don't use VOD, that's how you select your programmes.

However, once the majority of people get more used to VOD, and assuming that programmes remain on there for longer (particularly the 'catch-up' programmes) their method of selecting programmes to watch will become different.

By the way, I have never said that the population will just voluntarily stop watching scheduled channels to achieve your 100% figure. I have said they will reduce to the extent that these channels will no longer be viable.

The transmitter switch-off is the most likely time that this change will be made. There really is no point in just shifting existing broadcasting methods to IPTV when programmes can be accessed in a more modern and convenient way.

---------- Post added at 09:53 ---------- Previous post was at 09:48 ----------

Originally Posted by Chris

One of the most perennially amusing things about all the streaming threads on Cable Forum is your tendency to see inflexibility in people who simply challenge your own, famously inflexible opinions.

Nobody else here is ruling anything out - they are, however, making a better fist of weighing probable outcomes than you appear to be.

I tend to agree with those who believe that ultimately Netflix’s debt pile will be too great to sustain. Its market cap at the moment is around $140 billion which is ludicrous, and more than a little reminiscent of the dotcom bubble, with its tendency to value companies on their future earnings potential rather than their track record. Its debt, at $12 billion, may be only a fraction of its market cap at the moment but if there’s a sudden correction in the share price that could change quickly.

There is undoubtedly value in the business but that just makes it a takeover target once it is valued appropriately. Don’t imagine for a second that a larger, well established media company wouldn’t snap it up should the price be right. I think the chances of the Netflix brand surviving to 2035 are very slim. Its content, and its subscriber base - which at the end of the day is all that stands behind the logo - will in time be merged into something bigger.

Of course, all of that assumes that Netflix do not have any plans to accommodate different scenarios. Although it may not be the preferred option, I am sure that Netflix must have strategies for the better monetisation of their assets if necessary.

You say I am inflexible in my views when I am simply challenging the fixed beliefs that keep coming through on these threads that nothing will ever change. I am only pointing out the logical outcome to existing trends.