[OLD BOY]

Originally Posted by Stuart

Actually, Netflix are currently experimenting with advertising on their own programmes. It's not to much of a stretch of the imagination to think they might look at extending that to other programmes (assuming licences allow them to). It's also not too much of a stretch to imagine they may not allow skipping. So, the future you (and the article) appear to be speculating about may not include programming without interruption..

You are, of course, assuming that the likes of ITV cannot or will not compete with Netflix et al. I'd be surprised if they don't.



This is where I feel the article is wrong. It's comparing Apples and Oranges. Most UK households have a licence. Those that don't either don't need one or are unlikely to buy one whatever the TV licencing company do. As such, the revenue from the licence fee is unlikely to increase much unless the government authorise a massive increase, which they are unlikely to do.

The on demand TV market (and to some extent the linear pay TV market) is nowhere near the same level of saturation , so they have a *lot* more room to increase revenues.



Those figures do sound impressive, but let's put them in perspective. They are combined figures from all the subscription on demand providers, including Sky, Netflix and Amazon and they have doubled, but they are still under half the programming budget for ITV (£1.04bn) ITV's revenue was £2.96bn (so, around 6 times the combined revenue for the streaming services.

In 2012, Channel 4 spent about £450m on programming. The BBC spent around £2.276bn on programming last year..

On a side note, while I like Netflix and Prime Instant Video and use both, that article presents the study as being so pro streaming, I'm wondering who paid for it.

It may not seem much of a stretch for Netflix to take advertising, but remember that they have explicitly stated that they will not. Given this, I see no reason for concern that this is what will happen, you've heard it from the horse's mouth.

I have not made any assumptions about ITV except that they are likely to have to close some or all of their channels down in favour of on demand/streaming services. Although there may be an advertising option for those not willing to pay subscriptions, I believe that they will offer a subscription service and any advertising on there will be on the index pages, through programme sponsoring and product placement.

The comparison on the figures was for information purposes I believe. It was designed to show that the total number of people watching TV had increased marginally whereas viewership of streaming services was increasing significantly. A great amount of this must be at the expense of linear channels.

I think you are grossly underestimating the increasing presence of Netflix and Amazon and other providers that we can expect to come into play over the coming years. Netflix alone has some pretty good new series coming on stream on a regular basis at the moment. It's as much as I can do to keep up with them. I'm still getting through 'Orange is the New Black', 'House of Cards', 'Angel Black' and so on, and they are still adding new Netflix originals such as Sense8. Forget ITV's expenditure and the BBC's expenditure (which will probably be curtailed by the Government), it is the results in terms of programmes you want to look out for.

I suspect that most American series will be scooped up by these providers in the short to medium term. This probably explains why Sky 1 is going downhill rapidly with very little worth watching these days.

Seriously, there is an obvious problem here and I am a little surprised that you cannot see it. Advertising will cease to be a dominant feature as an income stream and this will put the broadcast channels in a very difficult position. I am sure there are some answers, but I don't believe that linear channels are going to last much longer in their present form. Live TV (mainly news and sport) may be an exception to this for the foreseeable future, although I wouldn't bet on it.

---------- Post added at 12:42 ---------- Previous post was at 12:37 ----------

Originally Posted by muppetman11

Wonder why Sky has invested millions into Sky Adsmart then ?

I think it is due to the fact that they are desperately clinging on to the linear channel model upon which Sky relies, and to reduce the potential move away from broadcast channels by advertisers, they are offering a way of making ads personal to the viewer. This will be attractive to advertisers and may slow down the move away from this medium.

However, I think the diminishing revenue trend will continue over time, with the caveat that no-one can foresee the unexpected in terms of developments that no-one has yet anticipated. They will need something big to arrest the anticipated move away from this method of viewing.

---------- Post added at 12:44 ---------- Previous post was at 12:42 ----------

Originally Posted by telegramsam

Tv companies might well use more live tv programs that encourage the viewer to interact such as BGT where you vote for your favourite act? That`s one way live tv can win over on demand I guess. And of course football matches are always better watched live in my opinion

Well, maybe so, although one would have thought that Challenge TV would have come up with that ages ago.

I think there is money to be made out of exciting game shows using interactivity, but I see no sign of anyone testing this out.

What happened to Sky Poker, by the way?