Slashdot Mirror
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?"
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!
Comment removed based on user account deletion
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!
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.
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.
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... --
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
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
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 would rather have a system that groups by shows instead of channels...
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.
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.
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.
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".
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.
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
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.
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?