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Originally Posted by TVWatcher
Though arguably BT and TalkTalk's YouView is already the simplification you talk of - one EPG with streamed channels sitting alongside DTT and both alongside paid and free catch-up and VOD.
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No, I'm talking about something, which as yet, doesn't exist. Which is real intelligent tv that merges linear and on demand together.
But as a sidenote, I did lobby the politicians years ago when they were talking about building a digital terrestrial network and urged them to ditch that idea in favour a nationwide fibre optic network instead.
I basically wanted a open cable network, where you could use your own equipment and which used open standards. So, in that respect it would've been similar to what freeview and youview is today.
---------- Post added at 19:38 ---------- Previous post was at 19:25 ----------
Quote:
Originally Posted by TVWatcher
Yes. Cable's different. That's why I didn't include it and said "DTT / DSAT".
Question is, would building out a VoD system to cope with all the simultaneous requests for EastEnders, the Champions League Final, Doctor Who etc be cheaper for Virgin - and the channels who they pass some of the costs on to - than the currently seemingly inefficient method?
I don't know the answer which, again is why I didn't include cable, but if it's not cheaper why would Virgin make that switch? And if it is, can they persuade enough of their users that they want to watch shows as VOD rather than as linear streams?
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I think watching the main shows like Eastenders on linear channels is going to go on for a long time. And I said before in this thread, perhaps a handful of main terrestrial channels will survive.
I think the imminent threat from on demand services is to the hundreds of pay tv channels that are not on Freeview and aren't widely available beyond Sky and VM. That will be the first battleground.
Spiderplant is the person who knows the best about VM's tv network. Perhaps he may see this thread and chip in. I cannot say with certainty whether it would be cheaper or not for VM to move away from providing masses of linear channels to using mainly on demand services instead.
But as I have said earlier in this thread, you had satellite and cable tv that started to cannibalise the main channels. And now with on demand services like iplayer and netflix, they're starting to erode the viewership of the pay tv channels.
Something has to give somewhere. There cannot all be hundreds of linear channels all happily going about their business and Netflix, Amazon etc all making money too. There has to be casualties.