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?"

Comments

What do I know?

[pikine]

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).