[OLD BOY]

Originally Posted by jfman

This absolutely was not the unique selling point of streaming. Something as absurd as “you can pay a price premium to skip ads just as you can with a hard drive recorder” would have been so ridiculous it’d have been noted.

Your perverse views don’t line up with the facts. The Netflix CEO originally stated that Netflix would not have ads. So clearly, that was the original intention - a library of content, uninterrupted by ads. That’s how DVDs worked, remember, and Netflix replaced Blockbusters.

You are also incorrect in stating that this supposed USP was that you could ‘skip ads’. This is incorrect. You don’t need to skip ads if the ads aren’t there in the first place. The USP was clearly the vast video library at one’s fingertips, which you could select from just like Blockbusters, but without getting out of your armchair. Other streamers such as Amazon Prime were set up on a similar basis, without ads.

As time has passed, and after shedloads of money have been spent on content, and debts have mounted due to the initial investment and the need to continue to create more and more originals of a suitable quality, the streamers have hit on the idea of cheaper subscriptions with ads that people can opt for, increasing their customer base while increasing yield still further with the money gained from commercials.

Note that the absence of ads on the premium package has been preserved, and with time I hope the streamers will provide a more limited library with ads free of charge to increase their audience and revenue from advertising still further.

Originally Posted by jfman

This is not how competitive markets work, OB. So long as rational consumers in the marketplace continue to use their eyeballs to watch television rational capitalists - ITV, Five, Sky - will have no reason to cannibalise their revenue streams to indulge your completely arbitrary date.

So why are the broadcasters already encouraging viewers to switch to their on demand offerings then? You can watch a whole series in one go on demand, whereas you have to watch it over a period of days or weeks on scheduled TV. If the broadcasters were not meaning to encourage people to rely on streaming, why would they not add an episode at a time to align with the conventional TV channels?

Channel 5 has even taken to making the first episode of a series available on its channel and telling us that to see the rest, we have to go to the streamer.

Open your eyes, jfman. What you keep saying is impossible is already happening.

Originally Posted by jfman

The fact you perceive this is an “issue” at all is testament to the perverse prism through which you view the television market. The fact that other people, having no discernible effect on anything at all, can rationally consume television other than in the manner you prefer, leaves you incandescent with rage clutching at every straw from every blog going. Opining about everything from 5G to World War 3 just to switch off a broadcast mechanism millions of people - including subscribers to streaming services - consume on a regular basis despite time shifting and on demand being around for decades.

You are the one perceiving it as an ‘issue’ - you are the one who made the point that I was answering.

I am well aware that at present, many people consume TV through the ‘linear’ channels as well as through streaming. I am also well aware that a lot of people currently watch scheduled TV only. What is your point? What I have been saying is that in the future, that choice may not, and probably will not, be available. People can’t watch on a service that has been pulled.

I don’t know why you perceive me being in a ‘rage’ about this. You’re the one relentlessly picking over the bones on this subject like your life depended on it. I could ask you why you keep carrying on with this same old argument. You may disagree, which is your right, but you are so determined to have everyone believe that I am wrong, you just can’t leave it alone, can you?

I am opining over nothing. As long as I have choices, as I have now, I am happy. The demise of ‘linear’ TV is simply my view of what I see as where this is all leading. You don’t see it. Fine. Watch and learn.

Originally Posted by jfman

And the reason they brought it back was nobody watched it!

We have covered that already, and you may recall that I said right from the start that they pulled the channel too early. That was a tactical mistake on their part.

Originally Posted by jfman

I was extremely pleased with that response, to be honest. Imagining things doesn’t bring them into existence by sheer will.

How bizarre! I would say back to you that imagining that a service will be in place forever just because you want it to be so doesn’t make it happen either.

I’m not making anything happen. I’m observing. You are burying your head in the sand with your fingers in your ears singing “La la la” at the top of your voice.

Originally Posted by jfman

Another straw man. However you are correct in one narrow respect - the arbitrary and needless removal of digital terrestrial would deprive television services millions of households that either cannot get, or choose not to subscribe to, internet services capable of carrying streaming services.

The viewing preferences for the public as a whole are a matter of public record across linear, on demand, etc. through ratings and Ofcom surveys.

I understand the value of content in a technologically agnostic way, not that I expect rights holders would necessarily approve of me taking up services not targeted at the UK.

I don’t sit there and be a slave to whatever the Netflix window wants to promote to me because 20,000 or less people watched it in the UK in the last 7 days and make an assumption of quality on that basis.

You do like your straw men, don’t you? You see them everywhere. You must have watched too much Worzel Gummidge back in the day. PS - he’s not real!

You say the move to digital only would be ‘arbitrary and needless’ despite the evidence that transmitters will be used for other purposes in the next decade and that most homes are now connected to broadband. It is also what the broadcasters are pushing for. Transmitters and satellite transponders are expensive, and it costs more to run ‘linear’ channels than it does to add content to a streamer.

It is not a matter of ‘what the public want’ which you keep repeating over and over. It’s what the broadcasters decide - why don’t you get that? People cannot tap into a service that doesn’t exist.

The rest of your point is rather vague - I don’t get the point you are making. Nobody is a slave to Netflix, but many people are slaves to the schedules.