Monday, September 01, 2008

The end of broadcast TV

Seems like broadcast TV should be in its death throws. I give it no more than 7 years. I imagine within 5 everyone else will chime in with its death. I wonder how Dish/Comcast/DirectTV/etc... will fight back. Will they try to lure the RIAA into banning places like hulu.com? Or will they hold out hope that people will want to see their shows as soon as possible instead of waiting for them to come online? At what point do they stop coming out in broadcast form first? Seriously, between netflix, hulu, veoh, and mtv.com I don't really need cable. I have enough entertainment with just those sites. That doesn't even include iTunes and the paid providers. The tail is growing in this area and it will only be a few more years before it becomes mainstream. Not only that, but the monitization ability is already there through commercials, so it is a viable model. I do hope it doesn't get bogged down by commercials though - and I hope the commercials become personalized. Just because I'm watching The Hills doesn't mean I want to see a cosmetics commercial...however, my eyebrows do look a bit...nevermind.

2 comments:

Mark Staggs said...

People have already been saying this for a few years. I don't think it'll happen until broadband becomes good enough (it still sucks in most places within the US) to make HD content quickly, easily, and affordably downloadable to the masses.

And, looky who just put a max limitation on bandwidth even for the super-high-speed subscribers: Comcast.

Tanton said...

Yeah, Comcast has had an internet TV project off and on for over 10 years. Definitely the potential has been recognized, but it has never crossed over to become accepted mainstream. For example, the potential of internet music has been around since ftp sites and mp3s; however, it took iTunes for the mainstream population to truly understand its potential. I think we're still a bit away from that level of acceptance.

Comcast is definitely reeling from their attacks by satellite providers. Now, it looks like they are beginning to understand the competition that will come from internet video providers such as hulu. It will be intersting to watch as their major competition changes from Satellite TV providers to DSL providers.