Quote:
Originally Posted by harry_hitch
Your argument regarding advertising budgets, is flawed. Companies will never be able to afford advertising without the money added into the price of the product. All monies from sales are syphoned off into various difference pots, and whatever is left is then profit. If there was not a pot for advertising (before profits) the ad budget would come out of the profit. No business could sustain itself operating this way. If a tv company raised the ad fees each year, the shop would be ruined in a few short years.
Put simply, the ad money comes from us when we buy products.
With regards, commercial adverts, again I will ask why would you not just manage your viewing schedule?
With regards doing away with the license fee, how are the BBC supposed to operate?!? Goodbye MOTD etc, it was nice knowing you. How would I be able keep up to date with The Ashes by listening to the wonderful TMS commentary. Bear in mind I refuse to pay for SS and would not want to pay a fee for the awful highlights from Channel 5? What if I like original British programs, and did not want to watch repeats on Netflix etc or American shows?
Doing away with the license fee would indeed free up money for Netflix and Amazon (or any two other streaming services) only. How are people going to afford anything else if they can still only afford two services though? Their TV watching will be pretty limited bearing in mind there will be no BBC, ITV, C4, C5 channels broadcasting FTA because the license fee will no longer be around and people will have to pay for ITV etc, and we will still be paying for the adverts in front of the shows and on the websites. So in my eyes, your thoughts involve people spending considerably more money than they do now, for much, much less. You may be right, it may happen, but how do the less well off survive in this market?
It's nothing personal OB, I do disagree that streaming will become better than linear tv in my lifetime though. I just enjoy a good debate - as you have probably figured out by now.  .
Fair enough with the DVD's I love the service though. Cheap, effective and better stability than streaming, with much better insight into the films. I tried renting Gone Girl Saturday night, but surprise, surprise there was an issue with on demand. How in this day and age, in a strong VM area, can I have an issue with on demand, esp. with the years of experience VM have had delivering on demand services? Madness.
No, I don't think you can get the lot on one device. |
You may have read too much into my post. My reference to advertising budgets merely acknowledged that companies budgeted for advertising, and I wasn't suggesting that the money would come from anywhere other than the price of the product - I'm not quite sure how you read this into my comments.
Yes, I can manage my viewing schedule; in fact, this is what I do now. But this isn't about me, I am looking to the future and what may be decided by those who control these things.
I envisage that BBC and ITV will be funded in future with more limited advertising and more by subscriptions and programme rights. ITV is already reducing its reliance on advertising for its very survival and has been incredibly successful in developing its income streams by way of new studio productions and sales, for example.
In the future I can see BBC, ITV and Channel 4 (not sure about 5!) having their own streaming sites, although they could get together to share the cost of setting them up and running them. We already have the On Demand players, of course, but they may no longer be free services and may contain much more content.
The BBC will certainly not be able to trouser so much money as they do now, but they will still have a decent budget with limited advertising and the sale of programmes abroad and to other UK sites who want to have their offerings available on their sites as well.
Original programmes would not disappear - Netflix is showing the way to developing their own material as well as making a decent profit into the bargain.
Regarding affordability, I would imagine that most people with limited resources would be signing up to Netflix and the on demand (or successor) services for their existing terrestrial feast. I can't see them also getting Amazon, although they may choose to do that rather than Netflix, or some other combination. Those of us with money would probably subscribe to all the sites that can offer us the variety we want. Some of these would be subscription, some pay per view.
Incidentally, I do envisage a much better choice of streaming service providers in the future. It would be wrong to look at things as they stand now and believe that it will still look the same in ten years' time. If the choice is there, and it's free of constant advert interruptions and its viewable when you want to view it, what is there not to like?