TiVo : Medium term strategy for virgin media

[muppetman11]

Originally Posted by OLD BOY

I am hoping that the Netflix deal is the first big step towards getting access to a world full of programmes in the future.

Netflix itself will get better as they buy up rights to stream programmes in the UK and eventually it will look like the US version.

In five years' time I think the scene will be drastically changed and we will have a huge choice of material available to us from a range of different sources.

This is the beginning of the end for linear TV, which I believe will start to contract in the not so distant future. Sky Atlantic won't matter any more!

(Did I just say that??)

We already have access to a world full of programmes , why would broadcasters choose to do deals exclusively with OTT providers when it would seriously limit there reach ? As an example I read only the other day that Discovery distributes its content to over 330 million global paying subscribers compare that to Netflix's 32 million global subscribers its easy to see why broadcasters still choose to distribute their content via pay TV platforms across the world , I agree On Demand is becoming more popular all the time however in my opinion linear is going nowhere anytime soon.

[OLD BOY]

I think what we will see is no significant increase in the number of linear channels in the fairly near future, and then first gradually, and then more quickly, there will be fewer of them.

The future is video on demand and streaming and you've only got to look at the VM figures on the number of people viewing through VOD now compared with just five or six years ago to realise that this is going to be the way of the future.

It is always difficult to accept that things we have grown accustomed to will change out of all recognition, but I believe that it will. The only reason people channel hop and put up with all those advertisements is habit. Once people wake up to the time they are wasting when they could be viewing better stuff via their recordings, on demand and streaming, they will convert.

In twenty years' time we will probably be down to a small number of public service channels and channels broadcasting live events and news. The demand for existing commercial channels will decline rapidly once the change starts to take hold.

[OLD BOY]

Originally Posted by steveh

Given that NBCUniversal own Picturebox and Sony Pictures / Walt Disney own Virgin Movies On Demand you would have thought they would be directly able to produce a more competitive offering themselves.

To be fair, I think there is a very decent choice on Virgin Movies. However, I wish they would offer it on a subscription basis. The problem with PPV is that if you are 20 minutes into a film and you clearly aren't going to get into it, you have wasted your money if you decide not to watch any more.

I would rather pay my subscription money to Virgin than to Sky for their film channels.

[muppetman11]

Originally Posted by OLD BOY

To be fair, I think there is a very decent choice on Virgin Movies. However, I wish they would offer it on a subscription basis. The problem with PPV is that if you are 20 minutes into a film and you clearly aren't going to get into it, you have wasted your money if you decide not to watch any more.

I would rather pay my subscription money to Virgin than to Sky for their film channels.

The reason there's a very decent choice on Virgin Movies is because they are selling the movies at PPV stage , these movies cannot be shown at this point as a subscription package until the first pay TV window which is usually picked up by Sky Movies , so to answer your question VM Movies don't offer the movies as part of a subscription because they have the PPV rights.