Brian Butterworth wrote:
Another way of looking at TV is that is the delivery of audio visual
services using high capacity omnidirectional technology.
I think you mean broadcast.
Clearly, in 1980, you absolutely cannot do 'video on demand' for everyone.
The playback technology diddn't exist, the networks diddn't exist, the
end-user terminal would have cost more than the house.
In 1990, little had changed.
By 2000, you could just about do it, with huge amounts of investment -
tens of billions?
In 2010, it's an annoying amount of infrastructure, and there are many
bottlenecks in some parts of the country.
In 2020 - several megabit bandwidths will typically be available to most
peoples phones, and certainly not a problem for several peoples streams
to the home.
In 2030 - 'Now - your grandparents used to all sit down at the same time...'
Going from now to then is going to be the fun part - and the only
certainty is that lots of people will lose their shirts along the way,
and government will feel the need to 'do something'.
In 2030, I don't see any drivers that will lead away from the majority
of the market being pay-per-view in some form.
This does not quite mean the death of channels.
For example.
7AM on a monday - the new Dr Who - series 24 episode 13 becomes
available for bidding.
There are several sorts of rights that purchasers can buy.
They can buy regionally exclusive rights - for example - a channel can
buy the right to show Dr Who in the UK over the next 3 days for all
their users for 5p/copy, with any other channels paying 20p/copy if they
wish to show it during the 3 days, and individuals paying 30p.
Individuals can also purchase the rights to watch - if you want to watch
on monday, it's going to be more expensive than if you wait 8 weeks.
It can be cheaper for you to purchase a channel package, which will have
adverts targetted at you as digital product placement in the program -
the dalek will have a B&Q, Lidl or Ikea toilet plunger on it.
You may even have premium and non-premium channels - where the
non-premium channels pick up everything after a week.
Then, you will I suspect have the government effectively bidding on
certain classes of program, the 'crown jewels'.
I'd also expect some programs to be 'shareware' - where viewing is free,
and you can pay what you like at the end.
If the program makes money, it keeps getting made.
And many other forms of distribution.
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