Micro Persuasion: TV's Future is an Ad-Free, A-La-Carte Model.
As the technology gets more sophisticated and the generation that grew up with the Internet , iPods and always on connections become adults, I see a day coming when a lot of TV content will a) be paid for and b) consumed ad-free.
Now, some content will always remain free and ad-supported. However, in the future - as technology progresses - you will have to pay for the best programming, even if it's carried by ABC, NBC, Fox or CBS. These shows will be sold a-la-carte, as subscriptions or in packages and they will all be delivered over the Internet protocol. Once purchased you will be able to watch these shows on any number of portable devices/phones, a computer or on your Internet-connected HDTV.
Of course, this view is a common place and the 'future' is a big place and anything is possible but before you run off and start thinking that TV is under radical threat and likely to be 'transformed' anytime soon you should read Mark Cuban's piece, "Think the Internet will replace TV? Think Again"
Cuban hammers the point that the infrastructure is just not there to support the vision that Rubel puts forward. Cuban calls it a paradox - the more we use the Internet to download video the more the inadequacies of our infrastructure will become evident:
...There is a huge misconception that bandwidth will just continue to experience unlimited expansion for every broadband household. Its what we are used to with hard drives, processors, all technology. It gets faster, cheaper, bigger. Thats not the case for the next decade with bandwidth.
...TV is going to be TV, delivered like TV for a long time to come. (I consider IPTV to be regular TV). There wont be enough bandwidth for it to be any other way.
The problem is that our consumption of digital media at home will continue to grow. The bandwidth we want to consume will many times exceed the bandwidth available to us at that time.
... For the vast majority of us, there wont be enough bandwidth for at will , unlimited downloads.
...
We will reach a point in the next few years where we are complaining about internet speed all the time.
As far as the idea that everything we will ever want to watch on TV, the concept of unlimited video on demand from the internet ? The videos will be out there, stored on the net somewhere. The problem is, you wont be able to download them and watch them whenever you want.
Added to this very large (possibly insurmountable problem) there are many other advantages that TV currently has that will counter any pressures to change:
- Producing high-quality programming is very costly. That requires big audiences and advertising dollars, essentially.
- People like to watch TV on television sets. Computer screens might be getting better but its not the same as a big wide-screen in the living room with surround sound.
- People like to graze on TV; channel-hopping etc. That's still hard to do on the Internet.
- Kids have grown up on the Internet but they still watch lots of TV.
- People expect to watch TV for free (less so in the US than in Australia), after ten years in Australia only about one-quarter of households are subscribing.
- Most people are not computer literate (some even find iTunes a challenge).
- Lots of people can't afford the sort of computer equipment and broadband connections that make the Rubel vision possible.
- Plain old resistance to change and saturation - people are time poor already they are not looking for new (expensive) forms of entertainment.
All this is not to say that change won't happen and affect TV, it already is. But the idea that, as Steve says, "a day coming when a lot of TV content will a) be paid for and b) consumed ad-free", is more wishful thinking than anything else for the next few decades.
And, a little thing called Net Neutrality in the US that won't have that vision appear anytime soon.
Posted by: Jeremy Pepper | 17 May 2006 at 02:45 PM
Mark Cuban has some valid points, however BPL and WiFi are so very close to breaking through with BPL reaching speeds of 225Mbps that we should be able to support the downloads needed. In addition BPL allows for a complete home network by simply plugging into your standard wall outlet allowing for internet programming to be watched on your big screen via the home network.
Posted by: kevin | 26 January 2008 at 05:22 AM