[jfman]

Originally Posted by OLD BOY

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.

This seems like a needlessly pedantic interpretation of what I indicated. To the end user it would have looked the same. Regardless, it was a myth. Bait and switch from the streaming services that are inserting unstoppable ads and charging price premiums to avoid them.

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.

In other words - as many forum members indicated to you at the time - the low cost streaming future that you prophesied was a complete myth.

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.

Price premiums, price rises. All trying to salvage something from an inherently unsustainable business model.

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?

Why wouldn't they? Unskippable ads. They're quite happy to deteriorate the viewing experience to improve the bottom line. It's got nothing to do with viewers preferences.

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.

You keep telling me to open my eyes yet when I tell you what is observably true in the present (broadcasters using both linear and streaming) you tell me that's irrelevant - which is it?

Why would Channel 5, keen to promote it's content, readily give up it's position of being beamed free to air into 28 million households?

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.

But why would rational profit seeking capitalists seek to cannibalise their own revenue streams in this irrational manner?

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.

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.

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.

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.

You really don't understand the free market do you? If someone ceases to provide a service that people someone else will step in to satisfy customer demand if it is there. The broadcasters needlessly cannibalising their revenue streams is putting the egg before the chicken. In a competitive marketplace - which television undoubtedly is - these marginal gains will absolutely be the difference between content providers surviving or not.

No broadcaster on DTT is going to readily give up these positions. It's free money, raises their profile and complements their streaming offering.

I'm not sure how you can claim to be completely indifferent given the words you are devoting to this despite no indication from the regulator, the BBC, ITV, Sky or any of the other major broadcasters that they have plans to cease their broadcast linear television offerings. Even if they did, there's no indication they won't attempt to create a linear-over-IP offering to cement their own status at the top of EPGs as everyone switches on their television.

You say 'watch and learn' as if you have a track record of being correct.