death of the net predicted by deloitte -- film at 11

Mon Feb 12 13:51:35 UTC 2007

On 12-Feb-2007, at 12:03, Brandon Butterworth wrote:

>> I think you're presupposing that the concept of "channels" is
>> something that will persist.
>
> For some time.
>
> There's quite an industry with an interest in maintaining that. It
> probably won't vanish until the current generations die.

It could be argued that channels are already simply a transport  
mechanism for on-demand content, at least to the growing population  
of users who choose to pay extra for PVR/TiVO functionality at home.  
And, interestingly, the people pushing the PVR functionality at users  
here are the satellite and cable providers; there's no third-party,  
packaged solution for the non-technical user.

You might imagine that these PVR-pushing cablecos are expecting the  
death of channel-oriented content, and are preparing for it by  
seizing control of the set-top box. Having a general-purpose computer  
installed in half of Canadian living rooms, pre-cabled with AV and  
CATV, with an IP address and a 80GB hard disk, presenting an on- 
demand-like interface that consumers are familiar with seems useful  
if you're anticipating a head-to-head competition with the likes of  
Apple.

[Perhaps my viewpoint is skewed because channel-delivered TV content  
in Canada is horrible; it's almost as bad as American TV. I seem to  
think that broadcast TV in the UK more tolerable, although I haven't  
really seen it since I left the UK in the mid 90s so perhaps I'm just  
deluded.]

> Channel based and discrete delivery of content (radio vs records,
> tv/cinema vs vhs/dvd) have coexisted for some time.
>
> If one loses ground it's not a problem unless you take sides.

Cursory consideration of your examples above provide clues as to  
which way the scale is tipping; radio has for a long time been a way  
to promote record sales, and the video stores here are now half-full  
with boxed sets of TV series on DVD.

It looks to me like people increasingly want their content on-demand,  
and that there's a growing industry supplying that demand. While I  
don't doubt you when you describe an industry whose bottom line will  
benefit from the persistence of channel-based content delivery, I  
don't think those companies are the only ones in the game.

Joe