TV’s future

As I’ve been saying for some time, television is about to go through a radical change. It’s going to be great for producers but tough times for broadcasters who are in danger of becoming an unwanted middle man between producers and viewers.

The SST had an article on this.

Sky TV chief executive John Fellet said “I think where the market’s going is where people will want anything everywhere at any time,”

Absolutely. People want to watch the news when they get home or are free, not at 6 pm exactly. Instead of browsing 20+ channels, they want to be able to watch a night of Yes Minister without leaving their living room to hire or buy a DVD.

An interesting quote from Miki Szikszai, head of emerging technology at Telecom, who is is testing a set-top box combining broadband internet and digital TV. It does everything MySky does, and then some. The key extra feature is the internet’s ability to allow video on demand – TV or movie content accessible almost instantly via download. The system works on internet connection speeds of 2 megabits a second – within the range of a normal broadband connection.