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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?"
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.
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.
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
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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.
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.
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.
Yup. In the future TV listings will list release times, not broadcast times. You'll be able to watch whatever you want after it's released just by doot dooting it up on your remote. Video on demand is what the market has always wanted, and it's what we will ultimately get.
cat * >> sig
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.
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.
With team of, say, 20 people it would be possible.
There are already multiple webcast radios like that. For now the technology is the worst barrier for moving from sound to video, but it seems like the most obvious next step. Work? Sure. Start lower profile, 3-4h once a week, gain some fans, more people will join in, extend it, get sponsors, maybe grow into a real station...
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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.
Not just younger viewers. I'm going to enter my 30s, and my much older parents even are getting ticked off at coverage. Take, for example, sports coverage. Even between two major channels ESPN/ESPN2 and NBC, there were a lot of tennis they didn't cover despite having exclusive agreements. How do you manage to screw up an asset you paid big bucks for?
TV is becoming less popular because, as with most things in decline, it has not adapted. Even when they get in viewers, they manage to piss them off. When you don't it's a surprise and people stay loyal. See SciFi network during Farscape heydays, CN more or less with Adult Swim and anime (although they piss off people a lot, see below), and OLN with the Tour de France. Do a good job, people stick around.
With convenience and market cannibalization, TV viewing is going down. Take DVDs. DVDs sales are up because of the convenience of viewing them, the quality, and that you can get the shows you specifically want. I don't need to get HBO. I just wait for the Six Feet Under DVD set to come out. No mess, no fuss, no paying for extra channels, I watch on my schedule, even if I want to watch 3-4 eps an evening.
TV not coming out with cutting edge shows of interest? See first to video releases.
What did TV do when Tivo and the like hit? Instead of stepping up with better and more shows, they increased annoying advertising and dropped the content quality. Stuffing promos during shows in the corners and the like. That makes me watch less TV, esp. less in real time and I do more Tivo'ing.
Worse, TV seems to have gone over from creating good, creative content to reality TV. Most of the shows people seem to be watching are reality shows and home improvement shows, covering car expos and the like; shows that are now, with the latest news, design, etc. This is probably why reality shows, talk shows, still remain strong today. People aren't going to buy the latest DVD set of CNN's best, the best of Wolf Blitzer, Joe Millionaire 3. They're once and done TV.
But even this content is on the end road because many people go online to get their news, expo coverage, etc. Despite channels like G4 and what was TechTV, most computer folks get their info online. As bandwidth goes up, I fully expect people to further abandon TV for feeds.
The TV networks forgot that while reality TV gets ratings and is cheap, it's not a strong vehicle for their business. Getting viewers is the current battle, but getting consistent viewership brings in the dough. Original content does that. When they abandoned original, cutting creative content (which HBO and Showtime has taken up much of this slack), people went elsewhere, e.g. DVDs. Worse for TV companies, people went online, which however small, increased online revenues. Suddenly, CNBC and news outlets are talking about Yahoo entering the content creation business, something not really heard since the bubble burst. The traditional networks no longer have the money or the interest in new creative content, meaning that whenever Yahoo or the like do step up, TV share will further reduce.
Even if you do buy the whole ratings business, TV has abandoned niche markets and their viewers. Even those areas which were niche, like sci fi, has been mollified for the masses. The whole Farscape drama pissed off a lot of viewers, some I know still refuse to watching anything on SciFi networks in real time because of this. They tape or download what they here is "good" material many times, saving time and the aggravatin of getting attached to a show that is probably going to get cut despite promises otherwise.
For me, I became an anime fan in the last 5 years predominately due to the Cartoon Network. I don't go to anime conferences or cosplay or belong to a local club. But I enjoy the material.
Once hooked, CN become inadequate. Not really because of the material they show; it still remains THE channel I watch the most besides CNBC. However, the number of times a mont
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!
Hmm, I don't think that scheduled shows for sports events, awards, etc. will be done away with entirely.
I have the DVD sets for a lot of good shows ( Simpsons, Family guy, etc. ), but I'd prefer just flipping to a channel that has some random Simpsons rerun on instead of popping in one of the Simpsons DVDs which would involve no commercials, or waiting.
I'd sometimes rather not choose which episode I want to watch, I just want to pick one out of random, and I don't want to use some quirky random-show picker, which would have the same effect.
It's just mentality, I get a different feeling when watching a show on TV than from a DVD. It's much like going to the theatres instead of watching a movie in your home theatre system. Regardless to how good your system is, it just isn't the same experience.
You're right. However, this could be a bad thing. It decreases the amount of common currency between people (perhaps relative strangers). In the UK with only 5 (3 in the 70s) main channels, people can discuss the latest TV series/programmes because everyone's watching the same stuff. Plus, how many times have you watched a programme that was on, just because it was on, and you found it interesting, but you would not actually chosen to watch it?
The result of total choice will ultimately lead to the increasing cultural isolation of people. It is an exact opposite of what it promises.
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.)
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.
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.
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.
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 sounds kinda like how I use TV now that I have MythTV and a good TV tuner card on my home PC.
TV now comes to me -- rather than the other way around. The only problem is that I watch a lot more TV now that I have TV that I like whenever I want it.
Lately, I've realized that I neither know nor care what channel a particular show was on. Do I care what TCP port Mozilla used to download this slashdot page? Not a bit. Same thing.
I still think that 500+ channels is very likely though. Instead of trying to turn your channel into a kind of "portal" (exhibits A and B: MTV and VH1), I think the trick will be narrowcasting. They're doing this in Europe already. Kerrang, a UK rock/metal magazine have their own channel devoted to...rock and metal videos, and not much else.
Couple with true a la carte ordering, you'll see channels proliferate wildly IMO
Linux, you magnificent bastard, I read the fucking manual!
I'm pissed at how little of the Olympics will be broadcast. The network covering this years events has like 7 cable channels which means they have potentially 1,200+ hours per week to cover the events yet they will only have that many hours of coverage over three weeks, and much of that dedicated to the "major" events.
What's worse is that the stupid licensing agreements make it impossible for them to webcast niche events to those who would pay for them because then some channel in zimbabwe that wasn't going to broadcast the event anyways isn't getting their money's worth =( Oh yeah and the events are hard to keep up on because the participants are bared from reporting on their OWN participation on a weblog or similar self publication.
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
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!"
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!
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.