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How Many TV Channels Will There Be In The Future?
The Importance of writes "MediaPost reports that, for the first time since it has been tracked, the average number of receivable television channels per household has stopped increasing and even decreased a bit. Perhaps we're not going to hit that 500 channel future people used to talk about. TV executives are, of course, worried about this and want answers. Is this just a temporary plateau or the beginning of a long-term trend? Will DVRs reverse this slide or are they part of the problem? Are we heading into a channel-free future or do channels still have value?"
Is the matrix just one channel?
StrategyTalk.com, PC Game Forums
A million billion!
I could do with about 2.
This may be because TV is becoming less popular as a whole. Much of the younger generation spends its time on the internet now, and many just download their favorite TV shows. Losing a sizable percentage of viewers would easily facilitate a drop in available channels.
You're right, I wouldn't steal a car. But if it were possible, I sure as hell would download one!
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the MPAA and TV publishers will heap so much shit onto technical requirements to watch TV that everone will just decide "fuck it, i'll go download some porn and read a newspaper"
Snowden and Manning are heroes.
500 Channels and there's nothing on!
I think I think, therefore I think I am.
People still watch television? I thought it was just for watching dvds...
Who has time to even browse the content of that many channels? It's too much information, most of dubious quality to begin with. With the fact that more people have to work longer hours just to make ends meet in the current fascist system, there is less time available to watch.
Maybe pay people more for less work and then they'll have more time to watch your extra channels!
In the future the line between TV and the internet will not exist. I watch all my news on the internet (mainly because I _don't_ have a TV)
--
The TV execs who were busy inventing new specialty channels are likely worried, but folks over at the traditional major networks might not feel so bad about a decrese in channel numbers. More choices pull audiences away from the mainstream primetime shows where the major networks want as many viewers as possible (just like everyone else does).
As channel numbers grow advertising dollars must be getting fragmented as well. Harder to sell ads on new channels when advertisers are already trying to cover as many markets as they can.
In the future there'll be 10,000 channels and still nothing on.
TV Programming as we know it will be obsolete. All video will eventually become streaming to individual televisions so that humans don't have to modify their schedules for shows. The only real time people will watch real-time broadcasted shows are for the new episode of a sitcom, a sports event, or a special/awards show.
that you can't decide whats on them.
or 1 'channel' that _you_ decide what's on it.
which one is going to be the better choice? I'd go with the "insanely big medialibrary at home that gets updated over the net constantly and you can watch whatever you please whenever you plase" solution('resourceful' people can have it today already..).
excuse me I'll go back to laughin my ass off at some monty python episodes..
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
Does it really matter how many channels there are? I mean, there's a fixed number of people in the world, but every channel means someone is spending more on content for it, driving up costs, since you can't really get more viewers than there already are. Variety is nice of course, but isn't 500 channels overdoing it? What do "TV executives" stand to gain from more channels?
All of them.
the tv channel broadcasts YOU.
but there will be only one restaurant.: "Taco Bell was the only restaurant to survive the Franchise Wars. Now all restaurants are Taco Bell." Lenina Huxley - Demolition Man
"Would you, could you, with a goat?" Dr Seuss
"Ive got 36 channels of shit on the tv to chose from...."
speaking for myself, tv just isn't interesting. I find actually doing things to be more fulfilling. And it may be time for a shake out.I predict the 'traditional' networks will either have to die or reinvent themselves.
putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+
Isn't 7 HBO's and 5 Showtimes and 100 PPV's enough?
:)
They don't seem have enough programming to fill the channels that are existing. Try surfing around 2:00 AM - Do we really need 200 more Infomercial channels?
I guess they could make do with a few more p0rn channels, though
-- You are in a maze of little, twisty passages, all different... --
42
Let me tell you something. Porn is the fastest growing genre in TV programming at the moment. I can't even begin to start how much Time Warner makes off them. Porn is big business!! Obviously you all know that. But follow the money, it's about capitolism. ANd no..I dont get free porn at Time Warner (Yes, I work here). Wish I did though. heh
Life is not for the lazy.
In reality we have a muddy middle of the same-old same-old. TNT, TBS, USA, Spike, AMC, WOR, WB, etc. etc. And let us not forget the hours and hours of infomericals--dick enlargers, real-estate schemes, exercise machines, magic cookers, golden oldies, blah blah blah.
Cable is a bore.
The market has a finite size and each television viewer has a finite set of interests and viewing time. It's only reasonable that given a certain minimum viewership to maintain a TV channel, there may not be a market for the smallest niche content. You will likely only see one "Food" network for a long time for instance. The broader the topic, the more widely sustainable competition becomes, since broader channels tend to appeal to, well, more viewers. The more practical limit is bandwidth. For satellites, there's only so much data that the transponders can transmit. The more channels they add, the higher the compression ratio for MPEG they end up using and the more customers complain about bad quality. For myself, I'd rather see fewer channels in higher quality than a channel devoted to ever conceivable subject that at least 5 people want to watch.
the word "channel" is a paradigm of the past. We should start calling them streams or something different in order to break out of the old mindset of the not-on-demand programming model. The industry should be freed to try new things ... which is already happening, but sllllooooowwwwllly.
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I thought that the idea was that eventually we'd select the content that we wanted which would then be delivered via broadband technology to each user at the time that we wanted to see it. No more of this lousey, "what's on at 8:00?" stuff and if you wanted to see episode 34 of some show you'd just call it up.
Honestly, there's so little on TV that I want to watch anymore. I get my news via Internet so I can select which stories I am interested in and I can get a lot more detail than the 30 second spot news items that seems so prevalent nowadays. For movies, I go to the theater or rent/buy a DVD. The latter allow me to watch when I want and even pause if I need a break for an incoming phone call or to go to the toilet or refrigerator.
"Do the Right Thing. It will gratify some people and astound the rest." - Mark Twain
"Do the Right Thing. It will gratify some people and astound the rest." - Mark Twain
Who is trying to get directv, dishnet, C band, and FTA Kuband setup, already has basic cable (and is busy hacking digital cable), not to mention that I've getting things ready for broadcast (finally putting out a decent antenna)... let me say that this is just stupid BS.
Then again, since I'm not paying for any of the above (cable maybe, I do have cable internet), this won't do anything to alleviate the concerns of media marketdroids. Oh well.
The way I figure it; the more channels you have, the longer it takes to find out there's nothing on. I enjoy my 4 channel peasant-vision. Plus high-speed internet takes precedence anyway. And who needs a phone? Seriously.
I suggest you ask the friendly beureaucrats at the FFCC (I'll let you guess what the extra "F" stands for) and fatcats who own networks and tv stations.
with today's trend of Reality shows, movies i've already seen, and increasing repeats, I find i am not watching half as much tv as i was 10 years ago (when i was 8). All i'm interested in now is a good hour of of M*A*S*H, Stargate SG-1, StarTrek, or the 6 o'clock news. even then, i commonly miss thoughs shows to fit in more computer time.
You are confusing me with someone who cares.
57 channels and nothin' on.
I had digital cable for 2 years, after having standard for the 3 before. At first I marveled at how many more channels I got - 5 Discovery channels, sports out the yin-yang, all that.
Then I realized it was just more crap to have to flip through to find anything worth watching. I wasn't watching "more" TV than before - in fact, I was watching less.
I'm back on standard cable now and the only thing I really miss is the on-screen channel guide.
This wasn't interesting enough for the slash editors to publish. Go figure. My opinion, as a internet TV operator is that all TV will move to the internet, just as rabbit ear television moved to cable. Nuff said.
Since TechTV was purchased by comcast is become nothing but a network about games and porn and the relation of the two.
They still have lame show hosts with the repetoire of words of a Teddy Ruxpin - but at least G4 (comcasts end) brought a little more appealing looking hosts.
G4TechTv is so bad now, I axed it from my dish and picked up DIY instead.
Yell & scream & rant & rave... it's no use... you need a shaaaave ~ Bugs Bunny
I@m currently watching Channel 828, which is N8 Output, and 838, N8 Omnibus. I was watching Chanell 260 earlier, News Quad 2, with Reuters, APTN, AP and EVN on. That's just on the ring main, give me a router dest and I can route about 2000 video signals to my screen!
500 channels? Piddly.
It's a sinusoidal relationship. Companies jump at a shot to create new channels and get TV market share, only to flood the channel selection and get weeded out over time for lower ratings. Then, once TV-Darwinism slims the herd, more companies will put $ into the fray and the rise and fall of channels will occur again. Heck, even if channels are on the fall right now, they're bound to rise up once "dedicated HDTV" channels start popping up (which they have already in limited #s for the time being).
People are certainly still watching plenty of TV, though. Heck, most net addicts I know have a TV positioned so they can surf the web and gorge on the idiocy of MTV's Newlyweds at the same time. DVDs and TVRs may chop into the amount of advertising we watch, but until a simpler, cheaper mass-market means of watching TV shows without commercials comes into play, I don't expect the current model of "choose a channel, watch some commercials and we'll entertain you" will slip anytime soon. Tivo and DVR products are certainly simple enough, but let's wait until every poor schmuck in America has one before we really forecast the death of television.
I'm not sure about that "500 channel future" which the TV executives were hoping for... However, I've got 632 channels right now and think I won't ever do anything else but eating, sleeping, and yes, pressing buttons on the remote...
--
"Two things inspire me to awe -- the starry heavens above and the moral universe within." - Albert Einstein
Mind you, this figure includes all channels in all countries, including channels displaying only information (weather, program guides, etc).
Glad I could help. If you have any more questions, let me know.
There are more premium, or extra, channels it seems, and channels such as espn classic sometimes move into the extra channel category. Well, extra money paid out means im more likely to go with what i already have... I only watch the same 3 or 4 anyway.
if the companies want us to have more money, why do they keep creating channel tiers that limit what we get with the basic service.... oh wait... dumb question
I wonder if, when the net broadcast and broadband technologies grow some more popular, people will start 'en masse' their own homebrew TV channels. Say, a team of 10 ppl team up, and every sunday and thursday from 1PM till midnight broadcast their own TV over the net.
:)
1PM-2:30 - Jam Session - our band. Good non-commercial rock
2:30-3:00 - Gamer's Box. Something about cool games we've played recently.
3:00-3:30 - Best of Demos - our best games of the week recorded. Also tricks and tutorials.
3:30 - 4:00 - Website Picks. Some of our favourite newly-found.
4:00 - 5:00 - The Board! - Skateboarding on the backyard. New tricks.
5:00 - 6:00 - Random Weirdness. (interesting stuff caught on camera by one of the guys who walks around the town with the camera a lot)
6:00 - 6:30 - Theatre of Madness. (a show)
6:30 - 7:00 - 20 questions. Talk show.
7:00 - 7:30 - By Kids For Kids.
7:30 - 8:00 - News.
8:00 - 9:30 - Best Picks Of Old Movies (abandonware style)
9:30 - 11:00 - More Rock
11:00 - 12:00 - Adult Talk And More. (say, a dare to the best sluts of the school to show their stuff on TV
45 5F E1 04 22 CA 29 C4 93 3F 95 05 2B 79 2A B2
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It seems that bundling actually reduces choices, and therefore reduces competition. Reminds me of MS.
You are being MICROattacked, from various angles, in a SOFT manner.
One that everyone watches, and one that you need your 1337 tinfoil hat to recieve. No more static!
In the future I wouldn't be suprised to see vast number of channels as costs for having a station decrease. Right now most channels just show reruns and cheap talk shows and they do alight. The real question is going to be if the "big" channels try to push for legislation to make it more expensive for people to compete at creating a new station. Right now most of hte major stations are "family oriented" and remove anything that might be scary or objectionable from daytime lineup. The cable tv channels are much smaller and generally cater to a specific subset of the audience. Because of the internet I can see channels like these being able to target their specific subgroup much more efficiently and thus become more successful. I wouldn't be suprosed to see 500+ channels in the next 20 years.
During any given week, between ALL of the channels, there will only be 3-4 hours of quality television.
I get about 15 channels over here, perhaps it could increase for people who get more channels, but I garauntee the increase will _NOT_ be linear.
Most shows on TV are fairly cheap, in every sense of the word. Even when a good show come out the network usually squeezes the life out of it and then tosses the dry carcess aside.
I think they created a lot of these new channels because they figured that more specific programming would cater to more specific people. Didn't work out. People still won't like shows just because they're on a different channel. It turns out people just want good TV, not cheap TV.
Perhaps if the media began to create more quaility programming, rather than keep playing to the lowest common denominator, I might actually watch TV. However in recent years I've abandoned it, like I abandoned radio years ago.
May the Maths Be with you!
Given that there are a finite number of viewers - and the market is pretty much saturated, who would be the extra eyeballs to expand the market?
Whether TV is paid for by advertising or by subscription: that finite number of people fixes the total amount of cash that's available for making programs.
If there are more channels - then there must either be vastly more reruns - or vastly lower production costs for new shows. Neither of those are very acceptable to either viewership or advertisers - both of whom want new, high quality shows.
I don't understand how anyone ever thought this would be a sustainable model.
www.sjbaker.org
IMHO, TV is dead technology. Why TV if broadband Internet connection is available? I didnt use TV for 5 years or more. When i want to see real quality movie I go to the cinema, everything other is better available on the Net. Looking around me, i see only old people watching TV. And unemployed people. I see no future fior TV. It will blend with the Net probably anytime soon.
SHE does throw dice.
my boss from england enlightened me to this.
the reason why there are now such crap ads on TV is because of the proliferation of channels. there are so many channels that are hurting for advertising revenue, that they'll put anything on.
Yeah, it stands to reason that a central server and place the box and recording stuff back somewhere else. Then rather than channels there will be giant lists of every episode of certain shows. Such as what if I want to watch the old show "Freaks and Geeks". From an econimic standpoint there is a demand for this show, but, not enough to dedicate a channel to it.
In the future, I'll be able to just request this show. And only a few things will be real-time. Also, filler crud will be worthless. No sence ramping up to bogus stuff. If I order a movie from pay per view (commercial free), I'll have access to it as long as I have my sat service.
There won't be commercials. I'll just pay like 5-10 cents to order up an episode of an old show. $1 dollar for a crappy old movie. $3 dollars for a crappy newer movie. But, once I order it I'll get access to it whenever. Or order entire seasons of shows for like $2 or so.
I could just tell it I want to watch every episode of Babylon 5, and just veg out for a few days.
As a side note, if you know where to go to download stuff, it's kinda like this now. I don't actually have TV but I watch all the shows I want, when I want. Just save me the bandwidth of bothering and charge me a dime.
It is no longer uncommon to be uncommon.
TV is one of the worst things to happen to the world. The average American has an attention span of about seven minutes. Why? Because it is about about seven minutes between commercial breaks on TELEVISION!
Combine this with the mentally retarding content and you get a public that buys M$ products.
Kill your TV!
as luddite couch potatoes upgrade to digital TV and such. But more and more shows will be net-downloadable, either from those who produce the shows (like PPV, but it'll be "pay per stream" as well as selling DVD's of the show), or as pirated editions, much like mp3's have been in recent years. Such shows won't need traditional broadcast or cable "channels" because the Internet is becoming more and more of a content distribution channel.
TV, computers and the Internet may well merge soon, when you can schedule Tivo to record a show with the remote and you don't have to know whether it's delivered over cable TV or DSL.
Tag lost or not installed.
forty-two.
While we will probably be able to see anything we want at any time in the not too distant future, the compelling reason to even plant one's butt in the chair is often missing.
Content! If there is no appealing content, there is no reason to watch. Even some that is appealing is only marginally so.
Even some of the 'educational' programs that I like suffer from the same issues as the local news.
1) They tell me what they are going to tell me.
2) Tell me.
3) Tell me what they've told me.
Really, you only need to tell me once. In my opinion, what is limiting 500 channels is that there really aren't 500 channels worth of content.
Don't even get me started on Fox's decision on Firefly.
Precisely. I really want to watch this year's Tour de France. However, is is aired on OLN, a channel that is deep in my local cable provider's digital lineup. In order to get that, I would have to fork over the $ for a digital cable package I couldn't possibly care for AND pay $ to lease the digital cable box. Yes, lease it.
I considered asking a friend to record the TdF broadcasts but decided the hell with it. I'm now considering dropping cable TV altogether and repurposing my MythTV HTPC for something else. Not even the fun of running a MythTV box is worth what I see (or don't see) on TV anymore.
Unless the major media find some way of controlling the Internet, television will become obsolete. Nobody trusts the networks to deliver objective news; 99.9% of the stuff on television is crap.
The Internet gives people the ability to get what they want when they want, kind of like Tivo, but as innovative as Tivo is, it's still at the mercy of the cable companies who continue to wrestle for control over what the viewer should have access to.
As soon as the technology makes video-on-demand more practical and homogenous, TV will die, as will the major networks.
Then we'll employ sophisticated content distribution schemes, similar in nature to RSS allowing users to create their own "channel" of content they are interested in. By the time corporate america realizes that this is a formidible force, it will be too late, but then the fearmongering will begin: regulation, control, jockeying for manipulation of the backbones and NAPs, but still end users will (hopefully) fight for their right to publish and get whatever content they want online.
I don't spend much time watching TV. I have a small set near my computer and I mainly use it for background when I'm surfing (like now.) More channels is always a good thing, provided it doesn't raise my cable bill too much. But no matter what's offered, I'll probably stick to my usual watching habits.
:)
The History Channel - 90% of my TV time.
Comedy Central - for Reno 911, Chappelle's Show, The Daily Show, etc.
FX - I never miss The Shield. It's not an option
Fox - I try to catch the Simpsons and That 70's Show.
I'm also interested in The Horror Channel. Maybe one day, my local provider will carry it.
none
There would be only one channel: FOX, drama, comedy, porn, soft porn, hard core porn, superbowl, nhl, wbna and the redneck games (bound to displace the olympics)
Tell me about it...
:-). In order to have broader appeal the niche channels end up expanding their coverage until they start to clash. I find there is quite a bit of overlap in programming between Discovery, History, Nat. Geo. and the Learning Channel.
Here in South Africa we have just had the Sci-Fi channel cancelled as of July 1st because it is no longer financially viable in Southern Africa.
What would they put on 500 channels? I can already choose from about 6 24-hour news channels that are all showing the same footage of the latest big event.
Will 80 or so 24-hour news channels really be useful?
Furthermore, as you pointed out, the niche channels can't get enough viewers because the appeal isn't broad enough. (Hence the term "niche" I guess
Oh look, the Discovery Channel has a spot on "Extreme Engineering - Bridges". And what's on History? The building of the Golden Gate Bridge. Go figure.
F U NE X N M? Son: "Dad... How do you spell 'hourly'?" Dad: "0 * * * *"
I would rather have a system that groups by shows instead of channels...
Cable TV Companys are ripoffs, especially in small to medium sized towns where they are the only available service, (monopoly?) (basic cable is about 40 bucks a month)
for basic cable (no HBO & etc) i get channels 2 thru 62 with a few missing inbetween for the primo channels available for extra - (HBO & etc)
or i can get digital cable and get about 120 channels for more money (55 bucks a month) and add HBO & etc for more money...
these kinds of companys are after one thing $$$ and more $$$$$$, they are all the same -interested in one thing $$$$$$ companys like cable TV service, Telephone serivce, and an un-named software company headquarted in Redmond Wa. that has problems with thier web browser on a regular basis...
Too many.
:)
Or not enough.
Depending on your habits.
Seriously -- personally, I expect the concept of "channel" in general to wane. People want shows. Not channels, "line-ups," or must-see crapfests where several crappy shows try to slide in on the coattails of the decent one.
Note the popularity of downloading specific show episodes (suprnova is a great example, and there are dozens more with amazing levels of specialization.)
Why should anyone care about the channels themselves, much less the count? It's the shows we watch, not the channels.
Think about it.
everything in moderation
And the cinema/DVDs are (ostensibly) commercial free. Hurray! Although, in the last year or so, I've gone to a couple of theaters I don't normally go to and have seen a crapload of commercials aired before the movie. @#&*%@#
Commercials are the reason I gave up TV. I despise advertising. If I want information on a new product, I'll go out and look for it. And that was about 6 years ago...from what I've seen, the situation has only gotten worse. Not to mention the plague that is reality TV. Remainds me of how the Romans got their kicks, shortly before their empire collapsed.
Occasionally, I still turn on PBS or, if I'm at my parents' (who have DirecTV), I'll watch Turner Classic Movies, etc. Commercial free.
As an aside, I did a marketing survey for a friend's girlfriend, who was in college studying marketing [God-have-mercy-on-her-soul.] She told me that the result was that traditional advertising had about a 6% effectiveness on me, by the test's rating system. I'm an advertiser's worst nightmare
A preposition is a terrible thing to end a sentence with.
nt
There won't be ANY channels in the future. There will be programming sources we'd probably consider as networks under today's standards, but there won't be broadcast schedules with programs being shown at specific times of day. It will all be on-demand programming, eventually.
Well how about some good content on the existing channels? How about a Sci-Fi channel with little actual SCI-FI. Animal Planet and the Discovery channel line up show the SAME 5 episodes OVER AND OVER... Gets OLD quick.
Gates TV: All Bill all the time!
Congress has talked about doing away with bundling, letting subscribers pick and choose channels. If that happens, watch the crud channels die away as no one subscribes to them - accentuating this apparent trend of fewer channels.
The ironic part is that those channels that may not get the audience now may in the future under a law like this thrive, driving other channels out.
Something else that I find ironic is such a scheme would promote a free market in cable channels - quality would matter again. If Congress doesn't pass this law though I suspect it will only be because of contributions from 'free market' capitalists heading these cable companies.
alright not on the normal scale, but sattelite TV carries over 600 in the UK, and the number keeps going up. 200 of them are free. Since the government intends to switch of analogue TV entirely by 2010, it is likely that the number of channels on the Freeview (free DTV-Terrestrial) platform will reach 60. The key thing is this: the expansion of TV channels has the possibility of being huge, the expansion of TV networks cannot be. If you expect the audience to be spread more and more among the number of channels, then to make money from advertising revenue you need more channels. More capacity = more channels wanted. More chanels = less revenue per channel = more channels to get revenue. Extra choice is mainly an illusion, since the channels will still have the same budget, and so therefore the good programmes will be spread out among more channels. Expect more reality TV and reruns. To demonstrate against what I know. UK Analogue TV = BBC1 BBC2 iTV1 C4 five UK Digital TV = 8 BBC Channels: 1,2,3 and 4 News 24 and 2 kids 3 iTV Channels: 1,2 and News (also iTV 3 has been anounced) 2 C4 channels: C4, E4 (also More4 has been announced) my point is that as more channels appear, most of them will be from networks that already operate with less channels on main tv there is not that much more choice to be had on digital tv, just more choice as to when you view it if this is to become the only reason for more tv channels (more time choice) then I expect once we reach about 200 channels that everyone can get (either Sattelite becomes standard, or the Freeview DTV-T gets more channels) then yes, it'll become unrealistic to offer more channels, and TV-on-demand will be the thing. I don't know, but I like live tv, because you can discover programmes that you wouldn't normally watch but are good just by turning on the TV, and some shows will only work "live".
Joseph Farthing
http://josephfarthing.com
maybe you should ask "do we really need TV as much in the future?"
Maybe now since the number of channels has come to a plateau, so will the cost of cable. The price to keep all 100+ channels on my dial (most of which I never watch) has gone up 45% in the last 2 years, and theres still nothing on ...
Without gettting the extra digital channels, the local cable system has about 83 channels. Of these 83 channels, 24 channels are cable local origination, Spanish language, Infomercial, Program Information, and Religious channels. This leaves 59 channels that most people would watch, which includes the local broadcast channels and CSPAN. Even with 59 channels, there is frequently nothing on that is worth watching. Starting sometime during the night and ending about 0600, almost every one of the 59 channels has infomercials on them. The cable company inserts infomercials on off-the-air channels and many of the cable networks go to infomercials in the wee hours of the morning. I haven't figured out the number of non-infomercial English language network programming available during a week, but I am sure that the number will be a fraction of what would appear to be available based upon the number of channels that we appear to receive.
Just thought I should add, not all TV is as attrocious as reality TV. I love Stargate SG-1, for example. I just don't like to watch it on Sci-Fi and have 5 minute interruptions every 10 minutes. (Well, wouldn't if I subscribed to cable/satellite.) I download all the newer episodes and own several seasons on DVD.
Which actually brings me to another point. I know a lot of people who spend an extra $15 dollars a much just to watch, say, the Sorpranos. Now, If you didn't subscribe to HBO, you could use the same money to buy and own those episodes on DVD. Oh well.
A preposition is a terrible thing to end a sentence with.
Because you have to buy tv channels in packages, and the strange niche ones don't get included until you are paying like $100 a month, which not many people want to pay.
The local cable provider where I live allows you to get digital channels seperately (analog channels are still only available in packages). The requirements are that you have basic cable ($24/month) and a digital cable box ($8.95/month). Then you can get as many digital channels ($2.50/month/each) as you want. Or you can get more channels at a lower rate per channel. This is what they really want. The more services you buy from them, the more of a discount you get overall.
Who the fuck wants to watch TV when every hour is filled with 25 minutes of some dancing seagulls selling car wash, yokels yelling at me to buy their soap, and other such drivel.
I was watching a movie on TBS, commercial break came on, so I lit a smoke, pulled up AisleRiot - finished the smoke, finished the game, and the damn commercials were still running.
TV Execs - find a better avenue of revenue or watch the product (our eyes) disappear - we've had enough of your shit.
Average Number Of TV Channels Receivable
<snip>
2002 102.1
2003 100.4
I can see an easy explanation to why this number has stopped at about 100... People simply don't want more than 100 (or 99) channels to avoid having to press THREE buttons on their remotes to select channel.
Besides, who has the energy to hit "channel+" 100+ times to cycle through them all?
Be an elitist - read Slashdot at +4.
More channels?
I'm still waiting for a brightness knob that actually works. The vast majority of shows and channels in general are garbage.
And have you noticed that a lot of the ads are resembling on line spam more and more? How about a version of spamassassin for the tv?
Personally I believe there will be a fundamental change in tv in the next 10 years. Digital recorders will make it easier to capture just the shows you are interested in (hopefully with a nice feature to automatically eleminate any ads). As such the idea of a "channel" may start to disappear. Rarely are there two shows back to back that are worth watching. And for movies I usually wait for them to come out on DVD and buy that instead of going to the movies or waiting for it to come out on HBO or one of the other pay channels. This allows me to watch the movie when and where I want.
So with DVR's allowing us to record and view broadcast episodic shows at will and DVD's providing a better movie experience the standard broadcast TV stations will have to learn new tricks.
I can only hope that this will lead to actual higher quality shows (possibly with out ads) which enough people will be willing to pay for on a per episode basis. Almost like waiting to buy the DVD of your favorite TV show such as Stargate SG-1.
Compare this to the state of radio today. There are many people now who love to download/buy/rip the content themselves and set up their own playlists, but there are still others who just like the convenience of using the "playlists" already set up for them-- radio stations. Likewise, in the future, I think people will be able to download/buy/rip tv shows, while others will just want to lay back and flip on the tube and take in whatever the stations feed them.
When I flip on the web there are as many channels as there are websites. If I want a channel I register my domain name and set up hosting - BOOM - direct to consumer "channel" that I completely control. Technology and savvy consumers have leapfrogged television concepts.
However, pay-per-channel would case some of the crammed-on spinoff networks such as NickToons, Cartoon Network's Boomerang, and ESPNews to falter. There just wouldn't be enough demand for those to continue.
Sure, some new niche networks would form based on demand, but others that nobody asked for would be checking out.
..how many IP addresses will there be?
Who needs CBS, if I can just tune my tv to hdtv://csi.tv/latest-episode?
(Implementation of the hdtv: protocol is left as an exercise for the interested reader).
150 Opening BINARY mode data connection for slashdot.sig (129323052 bytes).
I've done without TV for years now. I have a TV set that I use to play games and watch videos, but the only time I 'watch TV' is for the SuperBowl and the Oscars (I like good films).
In general, pretty much everything on TV is crap. If the cable companies offered true a la carte service, so I could get only the 2 or 3 channels I want without having to pay 50 I don't, then I might reconsider.
'Oh, a tv. Can we watch a while!'
'No, dear, we better just leave quietly. I hear that it makes you fat.'
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
But here's what it has to be in order for me to pay money for satellite/cable:
1. Channels are sold "a la carte". If I want only Discovery and Food Network I should be able to purchase just them.
2. Paid (i.e. non-free) channels DO NOT air commercials. You can't have it both ways, folks. Either make the programming free or don't air commercials.
3. Pay per view stuff is a BUCK per movie, not 4.95. Set the price at whatever you want for events (sports, etc.), but movies can be rented locally on DVD for a buck a night. Therefore $4.95 is an unreasonable price.
Clueless studio execs are always years behind the times.
They don't get it. What we want is to be able to push a button and episode 28 of "I Dream of Jeannie" plays. Then after that, we push a button and Star Trek episode 52 plays.
Find a way to show us a commercial while we are doing that and they are back in the saddle again. Hell, since they will know who is logging in to do the download, they can better target the ads and never again does a MALE have to see a tampon commercial. So they would actually be MORE EFFICIENT and their sponsers will love that and pay more!
Channels exist because in the old days, it was the only way to do it. Now there are better ways but as always the studio suits are used to doing it the old way and can not even conceive of it changing.
They should adapt their business models to modern realities and modern consumer expectations and stop crying. (And above all stop sending their bought-and-paid-for lapdogs like Orrin Hatch to Washington to burn the Bill of Rights in order to protect obsolete media business models.)
TV has been obsolete for a while now, and I for one am better of for it, at least slightly. The internet can be almost as absorptive an activity, and not much better in many respects, but is at the very least an active, as opposed to purely passive activity. In my case, no TV for about 5 yrs now has done wonders for my ability to think independently, and has the added benefit of creating a cultural rift between myself and the failing american infrastructure. Really though... What will happen when we all have to begin deciding what culture means to each of us, and the common bond of toilet-duck, and budweiser commercials is no longer there to cement our social tendencies and enforce a common slang? Will we be forced to have enhanced vocabularies and proper grammar? Will we be more likely to draw our own conclusions about things, or will there still be some sort of streaming central media to guide our fragile minds along and prevent social dysfunction? I, for one, would consider it a marked improvement if people were forced to seek out more interesting topics of conversation than Buffy's most recent exploits, and/or which one of the "Friends" is pregnant this week. Then again, I'm comfortable building, and revising my own values, and worldviews on any subject I come across. Will the majority ever be comfortable with this practice?
Of blankness, I know nothing.
I think commercials are the underlying reason people are tuning out and finding other ways to get entertainment or news. Networks have simply gone off the deep end, and for a 1 hour scheduled show, nearly 22 minutes of it is commercials.
.5-1 hr. ads for VHS/DVDs of their productions.
:)
What really gets my goat is that if you **PAY** for cable or satellite, which has to be 90% of us, you're **PAYING** to watch commercials, which under the model I understood to be "commercial television", commercials are supposed to be **PAYING** for the programming.
Seems like you're paying twice, once for access, and again for your time to endure the commercial. There are predictable stations that seem more like demo DVD/VHS sales stations rather than full fledged broadcast stations. Discovery Channel(s), History Channel and Sci-Fi seem more like
There have to be twice as many commercials on those "networks" than with say TNT, USA, AMC. Plus they have commercials plugging other shows. How many times in a 30 min scheduled viewing period must you be reminded that in the next half hour, Show X or Y will be 'Coming up next!" Once, twice? Try 4-5 times.
I can't really complain though since TV commercials have driven me to spend more time here
What will die along with this will be the 30-second stand-alone commercial. Instead product placement will probably become dynamic like the virtual billboards now shown in stadiums (ie the soda can in the hand of the star will appear to be whatever beverage bid highest for that slot in that market.) Or more tie-ins: "Click *here* to buy the soundtrack to this episode!", "Click *here* to buy the outfits" & "Click *here* to book a vacation here!"...
Another obvious revenue source will be more subscription services. However instead of buying blocks of programming in the form of channels the market will probably move on down to the program level. Want to watch the first run of "Star Trek: The Series XXIII"? That'll be a buck on your bill. Tomorrow it'll be half that and next week will be the freebie broadcast.
An advantage of this will be the ability of really niche programming to become a la carte.
For instance I've had my TiVo waiting a few years for a rebroadcast of Gerry & Sylvia Anderson's 70's British TV show "UFO" (the series bridging "Thunderbirds" & "Space 1999"). However hopefully in tomorrow's TV universe I'll be able to get it distributed when I want for a few bucks, or cheaper if I'm willing to be put on a wait list and get it once a critical mass of subscribers have signed up.
That sort of fan-base marketing could become very important. Small time productions that used to never get beyond their own community will slowly become available to more folks. Want to watch the local access programming in the Madeleine Islands? Sure, that'll be $5, they'll make back $1. "Wayne's World" will be open to everyone.
But "channels"? That'll be so old-school, like "long distance calls" and "analog media".
I don't read ACs: If a post isn't worth so much as a nom de plume to its author then I wont bother either.
Now I just need to build a channel-to-girlfriend converter and I'll be set!
Just have a look at Nullsoft TV wonder how many more people will create thier own content on the Web.
r cu its/01tube.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/07/01/technology/ci
Bundled channels are easier to manage for the cable company, unless you have an addressable settop box. These boxes cost quite a lot of money. I don't expect congress to pass a law that will require your cable company to install a box for every person that wants 4 major networks and 1 or 2 extra.
Now that I think about it - the cost will just be past on to the subscriber.
If there's one.
What the hell IS a "channel"? Just another metaphor for a file folder?
Oh, yeah, I can dig having a "Sci-Fi Channel", a "Playboy Channel", a whatever, to some degree. At least I know the overall genre it refers to. But a CBS? An ABC? An NBC? A TNN? What the hell is that? A conglomeration of crap mixed in with one or two (if we're lucky) useful media.
Someone once told me while window browsing, "I'm always amazed at how much stuff I DON'T want to buy." The same is true of the media. Obviously someone wants to buy it because it gets made and sold. But then most humans are morons, so this is no surprise.
It's a database issue. I want to find the stuff I like and ignore the stuff I don't. Give me a database with appropriate metadata, a good - REALLY good - search function, and links. Screw channels.
Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!
I don't know about other people, but I view channels simply as a feeder system. I have a long list of shows that I've programmed into my VCR to tape and I watch what I want when I have the time. For people with PVRs and the ability to record programs the system might think you're interested in, it must be an even better way of watching television.
I honestly believe that quality of the best programs has risen further than anything we had in the past but that the average quality has gone down because of all the channels that have to be filled up, obviously creating a situation where a lot of dreck is being produced. Under that paradigm, there is no reason to even bother with the notion of 'channels'.
If you watch TV as I and PVR owners do, then there are obviously a lot of channels you have no need for. Women's TV? Spanish/Italian/French etc channels? E!? Sorry, don't need them, don't want 'em. I could ditch half the channels I have and wouldn't even notice.
I probably haven't explained myself clearly but I think that's one reason why the number of channels people are subscribing to are shrinking.
You want to know who isn't running Firefox 2.x? They spell it "definately" and "rediculous".
But the niche channels try to be all things. A science fiction centric channel should stick with science fiction and worry about their core viewership. What did SciFi channel do? Cut their original shows, come up with a bunch of lame "reality shows" involving dreams and scaring people, etc.
I think it's brain drain. TV networks are still run as pure businesses; most creative people are going into other arenas, like online content and gaming. While the immediate affects may be good, the networks lose market share to other more responsive outlets.
People migrate to channels as they get used to them. TV networks have forgotten this. The only channel I've seen that seems to "get it" and stick to their formula are the WB and Turner networks (TNT, TBS, Turner Classic movies), and they still manage to make really odd decisions (e.g. Angel and Buffy for the WB).
The new networks seem to have this insane obsession with mixing things up to get viewers. This may happen, but it typically alienates the viewer that is already watching, so you get abandoned and categorized as flakey in your content as well as scheduling.
A simple example of this is when SciFi networks abandoned a flagship show, Farscape, because they were trying to gain female viewers. While admirable, they forgot that there are 24 hours in a day and they could do multiple things and gain more viewers by compounding their assets. They didn't have to trade off one show for another, yet they did.
So they pissed off the Farscape viewers, which actually had a good number of the female audience they were driving for, annoyed their male audience, who are the predominate viewers of science fiction in general, and just utterly mucked things up. Their saving grace is that they latched onto the Stargate series but are pumping that for all it's worth and it was not, until recently, original to their channel; they've hardly put out much original content that's worthwhile (the 2nd Dune series and Battleship Galactica (which wasn't all that bad) are the only exceptions I can think of, but they were all mini series, not many good original shows).
and viewing will be mandatory.
Did you mount a military-grade, variable-focus MASER on an unlicensed artificial intelligence?
Ok, so set up themed packages.
I have no interest in sports. I would be happy not to have any sports networks. I would, on the other hand, enjoy a suite of comercial-free movie channels (Sundance, IFC, TCM, etc), but basic Comcast cable in my town has lots of sports and -- with the exception of AMC (which seems to have started running channels some time in the past few years [is it obvious I'm not a frequent teevee watcher?] and so doesn't appeal as much as it used to) -- no movie channels.
Likewise, I could do without Fox "News", though I'd be willing to have them along with a suite of similer info-tainment channels (CNN, MSNBC, BBC News in a perfect world, C-SPAN, etc). My wife loves the home improvement & home makeover channels (since when did TLC not show perpetual reruns of James Burke's "Connections" series [really, is it obvious that I'm not a teeveee watcher? when did they kick him off the air and turn into the "all home makeovers all the time" channel?]), so she'd be interested in a package of those networks.
*****
In other words, there may be a middle ground between the channel package system we have now -- in which most people end up paying lots of money to subsidize many channels they don't want in order to get a couple of channels they do -- and the possibly untenable situation you describe -- where everything is a la carte and, while cheaper, it's likely that spinofff channels would have a real challenge.
With themed clusters of channels -- sports, news, movies, music, home life (home improvement, cooking), children, international (non-English channels for immigrant communities), etc -- people would be able to get the kinds of channels they want and new channels would have ready audiences.
I'm curious what the bottleneck is preventing these sorts of things. Is there a technical issue, where (say) bandwidth consideration in putting all these channel packs on the same trunk of subscription lines, or is the barrier simply economical & logistic on the business end of the cable companies?
DO NOT LEAVE IT IS NOT REAL
Cost per regular cable channel at Shaw Cable in Edmonton, Albert, Canada (within package of 65 channels called Full Cable Service): $0.66 CAD/mo.
Cost for ATN, a specialty Hindi language station sold separately: $14.95 CAD/mo.
There are several forces working against all the things most folks would like to see: low cable pricing, individual channel ordering and higher quality programming.
The most important is that a handful of broadcasters supply all the programming. For example, A&E, Discovery (all 5), History, TLC, etc. are all providing by one broadcaster and this broadcaster cuts 'deals' with Shaw to buy all their channels en masse.
With regards to price, is Shaw going to sell these individually to subscribers? Not likely, or they will find that a few of them are dead ducks taking up valuable space on the dial and not creating income. Make everyone pay for them and you ensure that you get your money's worth from your investment in programming from the broadcaster. From the user's perspective, paying 0.66/mo for a bunch of channels, some of which you watch and some you don't, is likely a heck of a lot more cost effective than paying 14.95 a channel for the six you do watch individually.
With regards to selection, packaging everything means that specialty channels with too few subscribers to keep them viable are still in the dial. Allow everyone to pick and choose and pretty soon we end up with nothing but Warner affiliates and the NFL on Sunday because they are the only channels with enough subscribers to stay alive.
With regards to quality, having all those channels supplied by one broadcaster means that to maximize their investment, they will run the same show on as many channels as they can handle. This lowers the cost of the broadcasting from that provider as a whole because they aren't paying a pretty penny to purchase 100% discrete programming for each channel (and, thus, lowers the cost for Shaw to buy it and then the cost for those channels for the subscriber to pay, too), but it means that we see repeats upon repeats some days. In a lot of ways, quality programming and low cost are mutually exclusive.
Some thoughts, anyway.
Which is kind of unfortunate. One can subscribe to C-band satellite, there is actually a standardized scrambling system, and you can chose your suppliers. Sure, you pay more up front, but I added up the costs for all the channels I wanted, and I think it was the 20 channels I wanted for $15 a month. You can pick and chose which satellite to pull in from too since the system redirects the dish if you pick a channel that's carried by a different satellite. So you have dozens of available satellites in the visible portion of the Clarke belt with up to a couple dozen channels each.
It's too bad that C-band is heavily regulated against by housing associations and zoning boards.
Some of the best channels are the ones no-one watches... Trio is a great example, they show fantastic documentaries, failed pilots from the 70's and 80's, re-runs of classic David Letterman... VH1 Classic, too, all retro-videos, often of cult bands you'd never see on VH-1 proper. When no-one is watching, when the channel is just there to "park" for future use, they can get away with a lot more oddball programming. Unfortunately if the audience increases, the executives take notice and ruin everything.
(BTW, I work for Spike TV, the ailing "Network For Men." Why is it ailing? Perhaps because an inordinate amount of high-level execs are middle-aged women who have no idea what their target audience-- 18-30 year old men-- want to see.)
When TV first came on the scene, it was predicted that radio would go away. When the VCR was invented some thought that cinemas would vanish. Neither has happened. Even oldfashioned books, magazines and newspapers are still very much alive.
Just because a new way of distributing information and entertainment appears, doesn't mean the total demise of the previous technologies.
The Internet is just another addition to the distribution methods than lends itself for certain unique purposes and the needs of certain people. The Internet and the underlying technologies of computers allows individuals and groups of limited means to express themselves and make their message heard by a large audience.
This ability of the smallest voice to be heard may be the thing that worries those who want to control the distribution of information. It's that small voice, that may have the courage to say that the emperor has no clothes on, that the powers that be would like to silence.
All theory is gray
people still own TV's?
well.. ok I sopose I can..
I still own my commodore 64
It doesn't matter how many channels we have, there still will be nothing to watch. From the album "The Wall" (1980) - "I've got thriteen channels of shit on the TV to choose from..."
God made the natural numbers; all else is the work of man - Kronecker
I have dish network. Theres like 10 shopping channels, 6 religious channels and everything late night nearly goes to "paid programming" for some magical pill or device to give me slimmer abs or spray on some hair or something. And people don't want to watch tv? As soon as the networks give me package subscriptions to watch a series on the internet without commercials for a _reasonable_ fee. I'm all over it. I'm already feeling fresh and since I don't have the appropriate slot for a tampon, that'll spare me.
re we heading into a channel-free future or do channels still have value?
I swear to god, I'll kick in the balls the first person to mention a "paradigm".
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
Yeah, but you're already paying $33 a month! I hardly see how this is a good deal. If I were to be offered as many channels as I wanted for, say, $5 a month, then I might get two or three and that would be that - as long as I only had to pay $15 per month, period.
Condemnant quod non intellegunt.
If Congress doesn't pass this law though I suspect it will only be because of contributions from 'free market' capitalists heading these cable companies.
I used to think like that, until I worked for a Satellite TV company. You'd be surprised at how many people who just wanted to pay for only one premium channel used to call in and switch from HBO to Cinemax, to Starz to Showtime every day to watch the shows/movies that they wanted to see.
Imagine if EVERYONE was able to do this. You'd never be able to get a live person to answer the phone and your bill would go up because of the additional staffind needed.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
http://csntv.org/
http://notanumber.net/
Sorry to state the obvious, but even main stream media outlets like the New York Times (reg. req.) are aware "over 100 independent television stations streaming over the Internet, covering almost every imaginable interest."
I really think the amount of content and diversity continues to increase... just not on television as we knew it.
Seriously, how long before channels like "Fox" and "CBS" cease to exist, to be replaced by channels named after entire TV franchises? Hell, TNT *is* the Law & Order channel!
Condemnant quod non intellegunt.
On a panel at a Jupiter conference in 1994, my business partner, Ellen White, hit the nail on the head. She commented: "I don't want 500 channels. I want one channel that's all mine." The point was -- and still is -- that the "channel" concept sucks. There's enough CPU cycles floating around that my "entertainment box", whatever that is, should be smart enough to show me Red Sox games and NOT show me tampon ads.
The PBS's affilates were some of the first to upgrade to HDTV compatible transmitors. Accoring to PBS, "As of June 2004, 261 PBS member stations are offering digital broadcast services, covering 87.44% of all U.S. TV households."
But my best guess is that we'll have about 1000 channels to watch very shortly, but the consequence of that is 20 channels will be showing you The Matrix at the same time, while other 150 or so cover most hollywood movies all day long; another 300 provide the same right wing news coverage. 50 will be music video channels with the dumb VJ's who don't know what they're talking about. Another 150 will be pure music channels that lets you watch some outdoor scenes or whatever over the music. 300 for sports such that, from time to time, 50 of them will be broadcasting the same game, just with different commentators. Maybe another 30 or so from colleges with a communication school to run their own TV station.
Of course, main-stream programs like Friends, Sex In The City, or The Simpsons can be watched from either the movie channels or the right wing news channels during news breaks. That's because nobody watches the news. Those who would have watched the news now turn to the cheesy reality TV shows. By that time, the reality TV shows become the source of real news, and news report becomes political propaganda for governments to justify their raising war against more poor middle eastern countries, and to persuade their people to boycott Chinese goods, influence, and the people (this hasn't happened yet, but the US is just about to start getting nervious about the developing China).
I once had a signature.
I dont watch tv you insensitive clod!
The problem isn't technological, it's pure economics. It's just not worth it to fill that many slots of programming. Unless you want to do what PPV stations do: show the same thing all day on a channel. I mean, where could you possibly get content to fill 500 unique channels of programming?
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
Watch THX 1138 again and you'll have the answer
Technically it won't be a "channel" like we think of today. Instead, we will turn on our "TV" and watch whatever we want when we want. Instead of "PVRs" and TV schedules, everything will be on demand. However, I expect people will still await the next episode of their favorite show and will be tuning in as soon as it's released to the on demand system. Maybe it won't be so different after all - at least not at first!
180 channels + 11 Starz Movie channels + 8 or 9 local channels (nbc, abc, cbs, etc)...and still I watch like 4 of them mostly and then listen to the Sirius Radio stations on Dish now too...do I need 500+ tv stations? No...give me fully on-demand TV...that is the future if you ask me.
Unstable Apps: Our Android Apps Don't Suck
Paying $50 for TV per month is retarded. I use rabbit ears instead ($20 one time expense). It lets me watch 9 channels which is more than enough.
Y'know, you blow up one sun and suddenly everyone expects you to walk on water.
of time.
This site is rapidly becoming not worth visiting.
You are all a bunch of techno-masturbators !
Two: SciFi and TCM. You can have the rest.
I hear ya. I feel like I'm really getting taken by paying for all these channels, while only actually watching four or five shows on a regular basis.
Everything will be taken away from you.
Here is what I see in the next decade:
#1 1000 Channels to subscribe to, different SAP channels for different languages so it can go global.
#2 On demand video, this will mean that a media provider will have each show or movie stored digitally and can serve the show or movie on demand at any time the viewer wants to see it. An additional fee will be charged for this service.
#3 Digital Video Recorders will replace VHS Tapes and DVD disks. Instead of disks, memory sticks or memory cubes will be used which can store gigabytes of information on them. Your Computer or Digital Video Recorder can read these sticks or cubes. There will be a new form of copy protection added to the media format used to store these shows and movies on the cubes and sticks.
#4 Movie Theaters will change from the movie film format to the digital movie format. Using sticks and cubes, the movies will be in a much better quality. This will also allow a much faster time to be released on home video than DVD or VHS tapes would be converted. This will be done to foil the Internet Video Pirates by releasing the movie in a quicker time and a better quality. A video screen format will be used to reflect light off the screen in such a way that digital cam corders cannot record it, but the human eye can see it.
#5 We will see partnerships of movie companies to cable and satelite companies.
#6 Cable and Satelite will find they are competing with Wireless media companies. As the WIFI and Cell phone technology gets cheaper, companies will be providing the same programming via Wireless means in various neighborhoods. Soon the technology will be so cheap and so fast than normal shows and movies can be transmitted over it. Also the wireless service can be used for cell phones, broadband Internet conections, security systems, and Voice over IP home and business phones.
#7 Media companies will provide shopping, something so revolutionary that you can pause a movie or show and click on any object on the screen and bring up more information on it to buy it or find out more about it. This will give new meaning to commercials, were the whole movie is one big commercial and anything in the movie can be ordered or gotten more information on.
#8 Once wireless and satelite compete with cable, there will be a big price war. The Federal Government might have to step in to regulate things.
#9 Wireless media means you can take your receiver with you anywhere there is service for it. Not as messy as adjusting a dish or getting cable hooked up again. It will revolutionizethe media business.
#10 The cost of having your own cable/satelite/wireless channel will go down, more organizations and people will start to offer more of them, giving the viewers more of a choice. If Howard Stern gets banned from one channel, he can simply start his own channel, for example. There also will be music channels for bands that want to have their music listened to without going through a recording company.
Remember, Slashdot does not have a -1 disagree moderation, and no, troll, flamebait, and overrated are not substitutes.
it should be like the internet.
most of it pr0n, followed by goatsecx channels
By the way, which one is Pink ? Hm?
Then the Satellite TV company you worked for had moronic management. Make it a "minimum 30 day subscription" or "only one change per month" or something. Of all the possible abuses, the one you mention seems to be the easiest to thwart.
Advice: on VPS providers
> It's too bad that C-band is heavily regulated against by housing associations and zoning boards.
:)
. html
They say you can't have it, but they are wrong. According to the FCC, no law or rule against placing a dish on your own property can be written. Yes, that's right. You can have a satellite dish and tell the homeowners to fuck themselves. Federal law beats neighoborhood law
Link: http://www.fcc.gov/cgb/consumerfacts/consumerdish
My other car is first.
If I look at the satellite radio offerings, I see many channels with the same content. I see no foreign language content, no foreign radio stations, nothing diverse. 50 R&B, 50 Rock, etc. Why would TV be any better? I see far greater content on the Internet. Perhaps on TV, there might be some Spanish language content but where is the Chinese? Where is the Hindi? I would pay for any satellite radio delivery that included a Mandarin broadcast station. Where are they for the USA? Nowhere. Welcome to the Hotel Hell California. Ad Nausium.
I have nearly the same level of dislike for them as you. It's not even so much what they're trying to sell, but the fact that they do so in such an insulting manner. If the norm was to just put the product on display and give actual facts as to why I might want to lay down money for it, then I might actually be interested in seeing them. But instead they try to sell image, or use the most pathetic and intelectually mind numbing humor imaginable.
Everything will be taken away from you.
I find there is quite a bit of overlap in programming between Discovery, History, Nat. Geo. and the Learning Channel.
There's a learning channel again? Who carries it, I'd love to subscribe.
Look at it this way: - The more channels you have, the more buttons you need to press - You have more options, so you will have more favourites - Commercials cost less because less people are watching them(Lets see, instead of 100 channels we have 500, so that could be a LOT less people watching your commercials) - There is more factors that could prevent you from having over 100 channels.
Over 100 channels are dedicated to music. No, not MTV or VH1 type music channel, but a channel where there is a static screen, and music plays 24 hours a day. Its like satelite radio, only this one has crappy programming and nobody listens to it. As near as I can tell, Sattelite (and cable) music channels, and mostly used to increase the channel count significantly on digital networks without using up a lot of valuable bandwidth.
Even those who arrange and design shrubberies are under considerable economic stress at this period in history.
Per Channel? Screw that, give me per Show.
Actually, I kind of wish the TV watching trends would freeze right where they are. Right now, I get a bunch of high quality (picture-wise) channels from my satellite & I TiVo a whole bunch of stuff. So it's commercial free TV for me at my convenience.
The problem is, if everybody was like me, we'd have to start paying more for programming. As it is, everybody who is forced to watch the advertisements is currently subsidizing my TV watching (Thanks!!).
Considering all of this, I do see all of us eventually migrating to either a per-channel or per-show based pricing scheme. And eventually I hope we all just receive our shows over the web, through some iTunes-like service (iTV??) Think of it as a download based TiVo.
Eventually, we will have an almost unlimited number of 'channels', one way or another. It is bound to happen, whether it is real-time video on demand linked to a robot with 100 million titles to choose from, or 100 million streaming channels to flip through, doesn't really matter.
Oh well, what the hell...
Yeah, but you're already paying $33 a month! I hardly see how this is a good deal.
Exactly. It's a horrible deal. The CRTC (equivalent of the FCC) forced cable companies to offer channels unbundled but they didn't force the prices along with the ruling. Oh, and I forgot to mention that the digital cable box can be bought for $100
Has a video version of shoutcast avalible. Last time i checked what was avalible (which was only like a week after it was released) it was mostly simpsons and porn, i doubt much has changed, but i bet the porn selection is better.
"Sic Semper Tyrannosaurus Rex."
- because even with the 900+ channels in my area, there's nothing on! - seriously though, it seems like broadcast TV is going down FAST!
Digital Satellite TV in the UK is heading that way. It can't be far off now. 383 TV Channels and 87 "Digital Radio" channels available through the Sky TV Digibox.
Conor "You're not married,you haven't got a girlfriend and you've never seen Star Trek? Good Lord!" - Patrick Stewart
Channels are brands, and brands equate to specific styles or types of content. The way of presenting content to now, via broadcast TV, has been temporally linear.
When we figure out an awesome way of delivering content to the masses that doesn't rely on waiting for a specific time and date on which to receive that content, the concept of a "channel" *may* disappear in favor of something similar to iTunes for your TV set.
But the channels, as brands, will survive. NBC will continue to make sitcoms. People (slashdotters at least) will say "Oh, a new show from Sci-Fi. I'm gonna check that one out."
And there'll be previews of each show available, and if you *want* to, you'll be able to stream all the content from a particular brand, so you can sit there all day and not have to move-- just like now. There will probably be a whole menu full of streams, that will make the "on-demand" act just like TV acts today.
So no, I think the channel isn't going anywhere. It'll just change a bit in synch with technology.
Then the Satellite TV company you worked for had moronic management. Make it a "minimum 30 day subscription" or "only one change per month" or something. Of all the possible abuses, the one you mention seems to be the easiest to thwart.
If you believe this, you have never worked for a large company doing customer service.
In the case of my former employer, it cost them approximately one dollar per minute to have a customer on the telephone. Cheapskates who want to haggle often get what they want because it's cheaper to give someone a $5.00 credit than it is to have a 30 minute telephone call with them. The goal is to take the call, resolve the issue and move on to the next call. Because of the economic considerations, I've seen people get $60 worth of porno PPV removed from their bills because it was cheaper than proving that the charges were accurate.
With a 30 day minimum, people will call in on the 28th day and haggle. This WILL increase costs for the providors, in turn it WILL increase your bill.
The ability to pick and choose individual channels sounds great in abstract, but when it's implemented it makes things worse.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
I'm in Canada too, and this is really interesting to me. Are you saying that the CRTC says that cable companies have to sell channels individually with no other purchases? CAN I get one channel for $5 if I wanted to?
Condemnant quod non intellegunt.
When TV first came on the scene, it was predicted that radio would go away. When the VCR was invented some thought that cinemas would vanish. Neither has happened. Even oldfashioned books, magazines and newspapers are still very much alive.
Just because a new way of distributing information and entertainment appears, doesn't mean the total demise of the previous technologies.
You have a point. However, I think the significance of your point is questionable. I would argue that television DID kill radio. Radio as a focal point of news and entertainment as it was prior to the proliferation of television is no more. It has been replaced by television. Radio still exists not because it hasn't been encroached by television, but because there are a few "convenience issues" that make television impractical where radio works -- the most obvious of this is in vehicles. What do people do when they come home? Do they turn on the TV or the radio? The vast majority turn on the television. Radio is dead as a mainstream means of communicating, informing and entertaining the populace at large. The last few nails in the coffin were laid down by companies like Clear Channel that have sought to make the medium even more soulless.
Television is heading the same route, primarily due to it's ironic ability to oversaturate itself and its own value as a productive source of information and quality entertainment.
Anyone who has had the pleasure to own a Tivo unit recognizes that such technology has the capability to "save television" but because of the outdated desire of media companies wishing to control the content their listeners have access to (or more importantly, the terms and limitations of how that content should be accessed), they're going to kill the expansion of Tivo and the last hope for the medium.
The Internet is definitely NOT like radio or television - there will always be a place for radio and tv, but when I say it's "obsolute", I don't mean people won't listen or watch, but the value of the medium to the people will be greatly diminished in lieu of newer technologies that give consumers more choices. More channels of CRAP however, are not more choices.
There is a fundamental paradigm shift now occuring in television that earlier occurred in radio, that isn't as prominent on the Internet. That's the homogonization of content. Radio became too formulaic and narrow in the demographic market it sought to attract; the same thing has happened to television, leaving a larger-yet-more-widely-demographically-dispersed group of people feeling disenfranchised that are now turning to the Internet as their new source of information and entertainment. And this trend is increasing, which to me, indicates tv is obsolete.
Quantity is no substitute for quality. People have been paying more and more money and see that with each 'upgrade' they get little usable benefit, just more features. Right now I have just over 300 channels, and not a damn thing to watch.
On the other hand, the boom in video on demand services and PVR's demonstrate that what's out there is more than adequate when people are given the chance to filter out all the crap. The industry isn't exactly pleased about that either. With emerging anti-technologies like the digital broadcast flag, the industry leaders demonstrate how it's easier for them to force consumers to stay in their old business model instead of evolving it to fit new distribution methods.
What we need to defeat the broadcast flag and bring free TV stations to the world, is a TV sized monitor which our computers can wirelessly transmit images to anywhere in our house. And a wireless keyboard/mouse which we can use in the living room so we can browse the data on the PC and play something back. The PC would still stay in our rooms because nobody wants to browse the net from their couch... it's hard to read.
This will also require that the PC allow multiple video outputs and multiple keyboards and mice so that you can have one PC which everyone in the household can access from a TV in the living room, or a flat screen LCD on their desk in their room.
Once we have this... Once this becomes widespread, it will spell the death of traditional news stations, it will allow for anyone to make a "tv program", and it will make things like tbe broadcast flag impossible to implement unless alternative operating systems are outlawed and nobody can figure out how to crack MS Windows.
The trend I've been noticing is that when all these specialized channels came out they tried to stick to their intended content. Such as TLC, The Hitl^H^Hstory Channel, etc. But now most seem to be following the 'reality tv' trend. TLC is now mainly some flavor of home remodeling, Discovery, The History Channel have also followed suit with their own versions of reality.
I think the overall channels will decrease since you can't make enough money if you're too focused on one subject.
"Nobody knows the age of the human race, but everybody agrees that it is old enough to know better." - Unknown
Am I the only one who thinks it's a chore to lay down on the couch and find something to watch when there's 500 channels?
No one watches scifi channel anymore because they stopped producing quality original shows. Cancelling Farscape was just one of many mistakes.
There were two shows, Lexx, and the Invisible Man, that were a little goofy, but good too. Those are both cancelled now too. Now they have more pseudo-reality shows and more reruns.
Thank god they get those big name mini-series' twice a year to save their asses (Taken, Battlestar Galactica). (Thats sarcasm)
Speaking of mini-series', the Farscape mini-series is set to air at the end of this year.. roughly Oct-Nov. I would highly suggest getting the first season on dvd. Those who haven't seen it don't know what you are missing!
John Susek
That's easy! Exactly four.
Here's the list:
Show me on the doll where his noodly appendage touched you.
Although exactly where we will have arrived is anybody's guess.
--- Ban humanity.
Yeah except most C-Band dish's are 5-10' across, significantly larger than the 1m exemption that the FCC gives. In fact the only C-Band dish I am aware of under 1m is the phased array type used for RV's. The exemption was basically written for the DISH Network/DirectTV type applications.
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
It's called TLC and I've never seen a cable network that didn't have it. (I've been all over the west including California, along the east coast, and live in the midwest, so the Missippi states are about the only ones I don't have first hand knowledge of)
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
The Learning Channel (TLC) is on channel 34 where I live (Rogers Cable).
"I'm not impatient. I just hate waiting." - My Dad
TV is dead and doesn't know it yet - the question will soon be -- how many p2p sources are there for programming?
A year ago, I cancelled my cabletv and cablemodem in favor of DSL and mini-dish satellite. But because of the incompetence of the satellite installers all I ended up with was DSL -- no satellite. But at about that same time I discovered some p2p networks that specialize in relatively high-quality (video and audio) redistributions of broadcast and cable tv shows. With access to that, I found that I don't need much TV, what I do "need" I can still get over the air -- usually in hi-def and easily recorded as a transport stream to my pc.
Now, I fully realize that the current televisions shows produce little to no revenue from this p2p distribution. But there is the potential for all manner of revenue models -- from the obvious like embedded commercials to the more sophisticated like my personal favorite theoretical revenue model, the street performer protocol. All that needs to happen is for the content producers (and by that I do not necessarily mean the MPAA and other like minded companies that are mostly old-world-bottleneck distribution systems, but rather the actual guys who make the shows, director, producer, heck even the writers, actors and crew) to start experimenting with these new forms of revenue generation, kind of like TMBG is doing in that other article today.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
I'm in Canada too, and this is really interesting to me. Are you saying that the CRTC says that cable companies have to sell channels individually with no other purchases? CAN I get one channel for $5 if I wanted to?
No and no. I'm not totally clear on exactly what's in the ruling, but I believe it only applies to digital channels. And since the last I heard, Rogers requires you to get basic cable before they'll let you subscribe to anything else, you need to subscribe to that too.
So if you wanted say TechTV (now G4TechTV), you'd need to pay $24/month for basic cable and $2.50/month for TechTV. You'd also need to either buy a digital cable box for $100 or rent one for $8.95/month. So if you only wanted to get TechTV, you're paying $26.50/month plus $100 up front or $34.50/month without the up front cost.
Congress has talked about doing away with bundling, letting subscribers pick and choose channels. If that happens, watch the crud channels die away as no one subscribes to them - accentuating this apparent trend of fewer channels. The ironic part is that those channels that may not get the audience now may in the future under a law like this thrive, driving other channels out. Something else that I find ironic is such a scheme would promote a free market in cable channels - quality would matter again. If Congress doesn't pass this law though I suspect it will only be because of contributions from 'free market' capitalists heading these cable companies.
You have a point, although it is only half right. The fact is, there is only a limited viewership to go around. If the number of channels increases, the budget of each channel must decrease or the cost must increase. You may have already noticed that the budge of the big networks has gone down, and they are increasingly focusing on cheap programming, such as reality tv and game shows.
Bundling is just an efficient way to support channels that have limited viewership. Chances are, the distributers pay less money for these channels as well. Even with the popular channels, it is more effective to distribute the cost among those who are willing to pay $0.50 for the channel as well as those who are willing to pay $2. Obviously the costs still go up a bit, but the distributors are gambling that you would rather pay $3 for 1 channel you want and 3 you might watch occasionally instead of $2.50 just for the one you want.
-a
for millions of US residents who happen to live in rural areas. The Feds have cleverly sold off the UHF frequencies above channel 50 and those areas which have been re-transmitting regular tv on those channels are effectively out of luck. In my area of central Washington state the retransmission of Spokane broadcast television channels ceased in January of 2004 when the owners of those repeaters simply turned them off rather than attempt to relicense. Of course, those who live in cities can get cable and there is satellite. But free tv in rural America is only a memory now for many and soon for most.
What is even more amazing is that no one seems that upset about it.
No one ever had to evacuate a city because the solar panels broke!
What you just suggested could happen when home users get broadband Internet access that has 60 megabit per second or faster download speeds, which is not far fetched especially with the arrival of direct fiber optic data access on the last mile connection to private homes on a large scale by 2010.
At 60 mbps or faster download speeds and using a modified version of the DiVX video codec (which has DRM added), a broadcast-quality TV show that would take hours to download today using cable modems could now be done in a few minutes! =) That means you could download multiple shows to your home entertainment center mass storage system for playback in about half an hour or so.
In such a scenario, the whole concept of prime time programming becomes obselete; the only shows you'll see in real time are sports, news, award shows, live concerts and shows that choose to run in real time such as American Idol.
According to a popular book, in Future America there will be 1 channel that will WATCH YOU. And sometimes broadcast hate minutes, and show the face of Big Brother.
--Coder
In a PVR/DVR world, the only thing that matters is where my unit knows to get shows from. Right now it has two television tuner cards in it, and pulls shows from cable TV.
But there's not reason why it couldn't get on the Internet and download MPEG's of shows. All that matters is (a) I get advertisements for various shows, (b) I select some for recording and (c) they are recorded and shown to me on demand. That's all folks. Whoever can do that for me can make "television".
There's no reason why you couldn't start an indepedent company to produce shows and just post all their shows for download each day at midnight on the web - as long as they got, for example TiVo, to add support for retreiving their shows, they'd be viable.
No more recording Gomer Pyle while watching the football game, but they'll be screaming "Surprise, surprise, surprise" when the TV industry tanks on the 'broadcast bit'.
Free Software: Like love, it grows best when given away.
people doing other stuff (i.e. homework) while watching tv appreciate the constant stream of information, commercials, shows, etc. if i had to interact with a crappy dvr interface every time i wanted to watch another episode of texas justice (lol) or some other afternoon show, i would go nuts. maybe adaptive dvr units that would download new shows on the fly based on the users habits would solve this, but thats a bit creepy...
Investing forum
*i'm not not licking toads
... just as the QWERTY keyboard and 'dialing' a telephone, however, we still use the old keyboard and 'dial' telephone numbers. Channels will remain while their definition and/or use will adapt to changing technological demands. The concept of a channel is becoming more like that of a directory, organizing files (topical video programming) in a file system where early tv channels were competing networks, each carrying more or less similar program line-ups. In any case the 'channel' is hardwired into all of the physical equipement AND softwired into software interfaces ... both will have momentum into the foreseeable future. Long live the TV channel.
Committee for Symmetric Distribution of the Future
RIAA: People are downloading what they want off the internet and not buying the shite we shovel onto them through our old distribution channels! Save us!
MPAA: People are downloading what they want off the internet and not buying the shite we shovel onto them through our old distribution channels! Save us!
Cable TV: People are downloading what they want off the internet and not buying the shite we shovel onto them through our old distribution channels! Save us!
These are people who just got run over by the cluetrain. It came, it tried to deliver, but the station was empty because the receivers were sitting on the tracks having their lunch break. It's really a shame, because if they were paying attention they would know that their customers have been complaining to them for years about how they're not getting what they want, what it is they want, and how it should be delivered.
And now they want the government to save them. Puhleeze.
"No problem. I have the capacity to do infinite work so long as you don't mind that my quality approaches zero."-Dilbert
What the heck are you talking about slashdotters?
I live in Poland and I receive four boring channels, and even my tv set is capable of programming only 59 channels, not 500. But in fact, who needs 500 channels?
There'll be *no* channels in my house, I don't have a TV. I have better things to do like look at internet porn -oops i mean interesting new articles.
If programme distributors, such as Rupert Murdoch's BSkyB operation in the UK, were forced to sell their wears on a channel by channel basis they would hike their charges hugely.
What most people don't realise is that the distributing companies get paid by the channel operators to transmit thier content. Less channels == less income for BSkyB.
Not only this, but by bundling the costs of the charging infrastructure are greatly reduced. It doesn't matter if the viewers don't want 200 knitting channels which spend 18 hours of the day as shopping or text a scantilly clad woman programmes as the advertising blurb can tell the punters that there are n channels available to them (where n is a large number). They can make the excuse for their high subscription charges as "Well, you are getting hundreds of channels for that money."
It's not in anyone in the media's interest, other than the old, higher quality channels, to restrict this "growth."
In the end the growth will be curtailed once the advertising revenue is spread so thinly and evenly that no more money is available to run any new services. It will also mean that over the x00 stations there will be nothing worth watching unless you're into cheap shows displaying the base values of the lowest common denominator. No-one will be able to afford to make any good programmes anymore, well, unless they're a premium channel only the rich can afford.
Thankfully, in the UK we do have the BBC which, although it has gone more for ratings than for quality over the last 15 or so years, is at least keeping the base quality level for the "main" channels higher. I'm sure that without it there would be far more programmes such as "The World's Greatest Dog Poo" on the other channels.
Agrajag: "Oh no, not again!"
I'm not so sure that we will ever be rid of bundling (all the time cable is around, anyway ;).
...UPN#[n] or whatever.
;)
I mean, it'll be illegal to force you to buy all of the channels, but they'd probably just spread their shows over more channels... instead of having [n] good shows on (say) UPN, you'd get the spread over UPN#1, UPN#2,
(I just picked UPN cos its the only one I can think of right now... I'm a cable-less Aussie anyway
I used to think like that, until I worked for a Satellite TV company. You'd be surprised at how many people who just wanted to pay for only one premium channel used to call in and switch from HBO to Cinemax, to Starz to Showtime every day to watch the shows/movies that they wanted to see.
Imagine if EVERYONE was able to do this. You'd never be able to get a live person to answer the phone and your bill would go up because of the additional staffind needed.
Do you actually need a "live person" to handle this? It sounds a good task for a machine. No doubt all the "live person" is doing is acting as an interface to a machine anyway...
What people will choose to see when they are not looking for specific content will be branded content bundles on a basis of experience / trust / reputation, i.e. people who like Fox will be more inclined to give a new show from Fox a chance than literate people would.
Tech Public Policy stuff
When no-one is watching, when the channel is just there to "park" for future use, they can get away with a lot more oddball programming. Unfortunately if the audience increases, the executives take notice and ruin everything.
e.g. by removing whatever it was which made the channel attractive to viewers in the first place. The issue of execs who don't understand their audiance appears to be common with broadcast TV. Whatever the details of the technology used to broadcast.(BTW, I work for Spike TV, the ailing "Network For Men." Why is it ailing? Perhaps because an inordinate amount of high-level execs are middle-aged women who have no idea what their target audience-- 18-30 year old men-- want to see.)
But things would be little better off if the execs were middle aged men.
With themed clusters of channels -- sports, news, movies, music, home life (home improvement, cooking), children, international (non-English channels for immigrant communities), etc -- people would be able to get the kinds of channels they want and new channels would have ready audiences.
This sounds good until you realise that this is still an arbitary bundling. With plenty of scope for different opinions abou what belongs in which bundle.
What would they put on 500 channels?
:-). In order to have broader appeal the niche channels end up expanding their coverage until they start to clash.
That is the real question, lack of content.
I can already choose from about 6 24-hour news channels that are all showing the same footage of the latest big event.
Possibly slightly out of sync, due to differences in travel time for the signals. You'd thing all these supposedly independent news channels would cover different news...
Furthermore, as you pointed out, the niche channels can't get enough viewers because the appeal isn't broad enough. (Hence the term "niche" I guess
Which could easily wind up reducing the number of viewers...
Too many channels on tv are repeating movies and programs that have been seen a dozen times on their own channel and you turn to their sister network a few weeks later and it is premiering again.
Their are too many shows locked in the vaults and someone is controlling what goes out. Ever notice that different channels many times have the same actor for the entire month, in different movies. It happens way to many times to be a coincidence. Oh yeah they just happen to be out in a new movie in the theatre, HMMM!
We need only one channel, and that channel is VOD. With Video on Demand, you just watch what you want, when you want. Many cable providers already have this for their PPV, Premium channels, and more. It's awesome.
As the father of DNS put it, one day everything will be an URL. I can't imagine that in the future we won't have thousands of channels that require URLs instead of referring to numbers as once was done with IP addresses so long long ago. Amazingly the infotainment medium of the Internet has surpassed television in that regard so that realistically the two will merge and television as we know it will just be another service on the Internet called up by the URLs we all know and love. I just hate to think of the Goatse commercials on the Slashdot channel.
"Beware of he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart, he dreams himself your master."
Exactly 5,113 channels, of course.
If Congress is going to do this, they must also address the issue of bundling when channels are sold to the cable/satellite operator. So long as ESPN (just to use as an example) is allowed to require the operators to purchase the entire catalog of ESPN channels in order to get ESPN proper, it is silly to require that the operator unbundle that group. Major changes in the structure of "wholesale" pricing will also be needed. ESPN currently charges the operators on the basis of the total number of subscribers; if that charge is $2.00 per sub per month, but only 50% of subs take ESPN under a la carte, the operator must charge $4.00 to those subs in order to break even. And it seems likely that ESPN would raise its rates to the operators even faster than it has in the past, since it will have to offset losses in advertising revenue: current rates are set on the assumption that ESPN is available in all households that get more than the minimal service, an assumption that is not true in an a la carte world.
In an ideal world, the cable/satellite companies would be enablers, who charge both the subscribers and the networks for access to delivery pipe, and subscribers would buy content from those networks that they were interested in. We are so far from that model today that I worry that tinkering with any one part of the system runs the risk of making things worse than they are.
I'd like to see the ability to buy channels individually, *and* pay-per-view any program on any channel. If I only watch the occasional show on a channel then why should I pay the full subscription cost? I should be able to pay for a specific show. Maybe even offer season tickets to see an entire series.
http://blog.nexusuk.org
I don't have a tv at all. I'm pulling the average down.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
What does it matter, they're just going to ship those callcenter jobs overseas anyway.
Like we really need 3 more golf channels, and 6 football channels, and a dozen more shopping channels.
If someone is passing you on the right, you are an asshole for driving in the wrong lane.
Well, yes, in this case. You'd think the people making development and programming decisions would be somewhat in touch with their target audience, especially at a fledgling network.
Do you actually need a "live person" to handle this? It sounds a good task for a machine. No doubt all the "live person" is doing is acting as an interface to a machine anyway...
Eventually the wetware won't be necessary, but that day isn't today.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
The channels that have value are the "theme" channels: stuff like Discovery, the Sci-Fi channel, Comedy Central, HGTV, TechTV, etc. If I am bored, want a good laugh, but don't know any of the shows currently on, then chances are Comedy Central has something funny. If I am bored mid-day and want something interesting, then TechTV or Discovery would be a good choice. Theme channels are where you can go to learn what shows you like to watch, so that you can TiVo them later. Conversely, I see the networks being less and less important as PVRs get more and more popular. I can see all the major shows going into syndication based models, with product placements.
One for the conservatives, one for the liberals.
Non, je ne veux pas coucher avec toi ce soir.
We will not need to surf channels. Content can be selected with voice activation.
I basically agree with you except I'm not sure what your definition of "obsolete" is. It seems that each medium has strengths and weaknesses. "Obsolete" to me has the idea of no longer being useful, and in that definition, none of the older media really fit. There are times when I want to read a book, but there also times when I listen to a recording of someone reading that book. There are times when I will want to listen to an old time radio drama and there are times when I want to see the newest video with all the fancy effects and action.
Most stuff on the shelves of Walmart doesn't interest me and neither does most of the stuff on the media, but I do like the fact that that there is such a wide variety that COULD be had if I wanted it.
All theory is gray
- Pause, fast forward, rewind, check
- Still ads, but you can fast foward through them or use 30-second skip
- Can't really help you there, all I can say is don't watch the crap you don't want to watch.
- Same as above
- Check. If you just thumbs-up and thumbs-down shows you like and dislike, it'll get pretty good at recording suggestions for you. If you want more control you can do some really nice things with wishlists.
Seriously, the TiVo is exactly what you're begging for. It lets you watch exactly what you want on your schedule, instead of when some executive somewhere thinks would get the best ratings.Visit me on #weirdness on the Galaxynet.
We'll never need more than 640 channels.
I work for Spike TV, the ailing "Network For Men." Why is it ailing? Perhaps because an inordinate amount of high-level execs are middle-aged women who have no idea what their target audience-- 18-30 year old men-- want to see
I don't think it matters if they knew or not - what their target audience wants to see couldn't be shown on US television anyway.
Come up to Canada. On any given day, you can watch much racier stuff than will ever get shown on US television. Then go to Europe, and you'll see it even more.
If you think that SpikeTV's problem is the programming not matching their target audience, blame the FCC first, and management second.
Why blame the FCC?
SpikeTV's not a broadcast channel, the FCC has no say.
TLC is *not* the learning channel, and they haven't called themselves that for several years. When they were the learning channel, they had shows like "Connections", "The Operation", and "The Secret Life of Machines".
They don't even pretend to have educational content now; they're marketing themselves as the reality show channel and they have crap like "Trading Spaces", "Clean Sweep", and "What Not to Wear". They are sub-fox in their level of sensationalism too.
When fox did their "magic secrets revealed", it was TLC that did matching shows pretending all the tricks were real and supernatural.
Now if there's any channel called "The Learning Channel" or showing any of the 3 shows I listed for it, I'd be very interested in knowing about it.
I also used to get TLC on my StarChoice dish -- the same channel Rogers offers on channel 34. They do not call themselves The Learning Channel.
Just because a new way of distributing information and entertainment appears, doesn't mean the total demise of the previous technologies.
Neither does it mean they necessarily stay around.
The Vaudeville circuit, which gave performers like the Marx Brothers and Abbott and Costello their start, was mortally wounded by radio and film; telvision delivered the killing blow. The circus is a pale shadow of what it once was, and the tent revival is now just a footnote.
New technologies also can force deep changes in old media so much that they could be thought of as different beasts altogether. TV has changed film; gone are the days of the newsreel and the serial. Broadcast TV is still changing in response to cable TV, and both of them are still trying to figure out what to do in response to the internet.
The whole notion of channels is just a primitive hack to allocate scarce bandwidth. The unit cost of bandwidth to the home has dropped by more than 10x over the past decade, and there is enough innovation in the pipeline to keep it dropping for at least another decade. Between an abundance of bandwidth, smart networks, and smart terminals with big storage capacity, channels may not exist in the long term, except perhaps as a convenient way for humans to manage the flood of content available to them.
will not exist because computers are quickly taking over the role of multimedia entertainment systems. Why have a TV, stereo and a collection of video game consoles when you can have one computer with a big flatscreen monitor?
TLC stands for The Learning Channel.
Lots of businesses have simplified their names to three letter acronyms: IBM, HMV, KFC, etc. It doesn't mean that they're not who they used to be known as.
"I'm not impatient. I just hate waiting." - My Dad
My problem with that is the cost model. You end up paying for each show you download.
I'm not 100% convinced that in the long run I don't end up paying out more.
I have a PVR (bought from my cable company, no archival capability, don't care) which I use almost exclusively for TV. I currently subscribe to about the biggest package of channels my cable company gives.
I just use my PVR to pick and choose from some of the specialty channels. If I just had a big sea of alphabetized shows I'd never have a chance of finding anything.
At least on my specialty channels I have the stuff broadly sorted into easy categories.
I'm not 100% sure I had a point, just thought I'd chime in.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
I am going to go ahead and guess that DVRs and tivo-like devices are going to increase the number of channels we currently have. Currently, at even a hundered channels, it is difficult to digest everything that is on and actually find something to watch. Tivo removes the whole experince of trying to surf all of the channels that are available with most cable packages. You no longer have to know when something is on to watch it, all you need is the name of the program. What will the effect of this be? I predict that more people will want more channels and more content. Without a device like tivo you can easily suffer from information overload trying to find something to watch. With tivo, it is simple and easy to watch exactly what you want, when you want. It is trivial to navigate and digest all avilable channels. Because of the simplicity involved, people will be able to handle, and demand, more content and more channels. Q.E.D. right?