[opendtv] The Guardian: Cord-cutting: beginning of the end for linear television
- From: "Manfredi, Albert E" <albert.e.manfredi@xxxxxxxxxx>
- To: "opendtv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx" <opendtv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sat, 18 Jul 2015 00:41:36 +0000
Craig Birkmaier wrote:
OPTION
noun
1.
the power or right of choosing.
Better, Craig, look up "banality" or "platitude." Basically a trite or insipid
remark. What we are talking about here is trend lines. Are the trend lines
staying with, or migrating toward, a larger volume of linear TV viewing? Or are
the trend lines instead going in a NEW direction, less linear viewing and more
on demand? Do we get all excited about a new linear-only delivery standard? To
say "options" amounts to a platitude, right? Everyone knows "options" exist.
The question here is comparative volume of use. Where you put your resources,
looking ahead to the future instead of behind?
I have never said linear is more convenient.
You said exactly that. You said, which I quoted Wed, 15 Jul 2015 00:47:08 +0000,
But the average TV viewer still watches many hours of linear
streaming TV every day. Most of this is NOT by appointment, but
just convenience.
Obviously, a linear stream can only be watched by appointment (unless you
record it, which defeats "convenience"). Your were explaining that YOU used
linear streams for convenience, as background noise, not for watching. Remember
now? And I said you can use VOD just as easily, for that noise-generating
purpose. Can we avoid this denying what you say, Craig? It gets to be a real
nuisance having to dig it up again and again and again.
Okay, so here's the article. I think that broadcasters can make themselves a
bigger Internet role than just what Zambelli says, but his points are the same
as what I've been trying to get across. Where is the trend going? Or do we
stick with that banality "options"?
Bert
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http://www.theguardian.com/media-network/media-network-blog/2014/jul/07/cord-cutting-internet-tv-netflix
Cord-cutting: beginning of the end for linear television
Alex Zambelli
Tuesday 8 July 2014 03.21 EDT
Cord-cutters are on the rise as internet-only becomes a feasible alternative.
But what are the implications for network identity?
When The Onion published "Area Man Constantly Mentioning He Doesn't Own A
Television" in 2000 it could not have predicted that less than two decades
later the once outlandish idea of cancelling one's cable/satellite TV
subscription - now popularly known as cord-cutting - would not only be
considered perfectly reasonable, but that owning a TV would no longer be needed
either because most TV shows could be played on a PC, tablet or mobile phone
instead.
Arguably the cornerstone of the cord-cutting revolution was set in 2007 when
Netflix, after many years of being a successful DVD-by-mail rental service,
launched the Watch Instantly streaming service in the United States. Since
then, Netflix has become the global market leader in premium video streaming
services, and in the last few years it has also expanded its business into
original content programming (House of Cards, Orange Is the New Black) - thus
further blurring the line between traditional broadcasters and streaming
service providers. Amazon/LoveFilm, Apple, Hulu and many others have also
jumped into the fray, further establishing cord-cutting as a feasible
alternative to traditional broadcast television. Most recent market analysis
reports have shown that cord-cutters, while still in a minority, are steadily
on the rise. In fact, one of the reasons why the cord-cutting movement isn't
growing as rapidly as it could is because many of the companies providing
cable/satellite TV service are also the same ones providing internet service,
creating a conflict of interests that has led service providers to bundle TV
and internet services together in an attempt to discourage cord-cutters and
save the bottom line. But evolution cannot be stopped.
Since the 1930s, when television was born as a mass medium, content production
and distribution have always been closely related. Content intended for
television distribution was scheduled to air in specific time slots regardless
of whether it was produced live or recorded in advance, a concept known as live
linear television. If you wanted to watch Seinfeld in the US in 1994, your only
choice was to tune into a local NBC affiliate TV station every Thursday at 9
pm. Today's streamed video, on the other hand, can be viewed on demand, at any
time, at any place, without needing to be pre-recorded or scheduled in any way.
Video on-demand (VOD) services such as Netflix and Amazon are slowly and
intentionally changing our viewing habits. Netflix has not only acknowledged
binge watching as a trend among its customers, but moreover has fully embraced
and leveraged it in the distribution of its own original programming. By making
all episodes of its new series available at once, Netflix in one swift move
changed 80 years of broadcast history and ushered in a new era in content
production and distribution.
No longer is it necessary to wait a whole week until Thursday 9 pm to see the
newest episode of your favourite TV show - now you can see it all at once, at a
moment's notice.
While many broadcasters have attempted to replicate this experience by
providing their own video on-demand and catch-up services, most customers
prefer the à la carte model offered by companies such as Netflix and Amazon
whose VOD catalogs indiscriminately provide access to a wide variety of TV and
film content without time restrictions. One perhaps unintentional consequence
of such content aggregation is that it effectively strips the content of its
broadcast identity and thus eliminates the original broadcaster from the
content distribution chain - at least from the customer's point of view.
For example, most fans of the animated series Archer who watch that show
primarily via VOD are probably unaware that the show originally aired on FX
Network on Mondays at 10 pm. And why should they know or care?
Without pre-produced shows to pad linear TV schedules, broadcasters are likely
to increasingly rely on live news and sports to draw in audiences. But would
broadcasting live events alone be enough to justify the cost of programming and
distributing entire linear channels? In a future where most viewers get their
content from aggregators such as Netflix and Amazon it might in fact be more
financially viable for TV broadcasters to stay out of the distribution business
altogether and focus on the part of the business they do best: content
development, original programming and live event production. In a
not-too-distant future a broadcaster such as the BBC might exist solely as a
production company with no distribution infrastructure of its own, responsible
only for producing news, scripted entertainment and live coverage of national
sporting events - all streamed to your favourite device by some third-party
content aggregation service.
It will possibly take another decade for cord-cutters to become the majority,
but rest assured that the moment some Netflix-like service is able to offer us
all our favourite TV shows, movies and live sports at any time, at any place,
on any device - that is the moment we can begin sounding the death knell for
live linear television. To the generation of children being born now, flipping
TV channels will one day seem as foreign as rotary phone dialing.
Alex Zambelli is a Principal Product Manager at iStreamPlanet.
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