Quote:
Originally Posted by TVWatcher
As I said to you weeks ago, linear broadcasting is cheaper for the broadcasters than investing in the kit needed to stream or offer on demand access to everyone at the same time.
There is no foreseeable credible businesses case under which they'd move from fixed costs of broadcasting their output via DTT / DSAT to pumping it all out from hugely expensive data centres.
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In some cases its cheaper yes, especially Freeview. But take cable, as an example, which as a reminder is two-way technology, not one-way like satellite mostly is.
Virgin Media currently, at least in my area, have 48 transport streams or channels available.
Most of these streams can carry several tv channels each, or broadband data as well as some TV/EPG data.
That 48 streams/channels are being "broadcast" into every home in East London that has cable irrelevant of whether the houses are watching all the channels or not. Obviously, no single household is simultaneously watching hundreds of linear tv channels, watching on demand shows and using the internet all at the same tv.
Probably each household at a maximum needs a dozen or so channels, say 20 if you're being very generous and allowing for future 4k services. So, there's at least almost 30 channels of bandwidth being wasted. That's not cheap and it isn't efficient.