Skip to main content

"Broad"casting to get narrower

Many people have been talking for many months on the impact that IPTV will have on the television space.

Most of the discussion revolves around the various levels of nple play (Tri and Quadru) and what this will bring to the consumer in terms of bundling and choice around other forms of content.

There was an interesting article on the BBC a while back and further details can be found at Broadcasting & Cable that shows another dimensional benefit.

For some time Sky in the UK have been able to provide on-demand movies. Fiber-to-the-Home technology in the US and Japan have allowed for some aspect of on-demand TV programmes as well. The statement from the BBC, I saw something else yesterday buy cannot find a suitable link to share with you, was that it was their intention to be able to provide more than 80% of their programmes as downloads by the end of 2007. There would be a finite period of availability post broadcast, sorry Paul no Long Tail [yet], and the service would be payable.

This is a service I would pay for, being an Expat I do sometimes miss BBC programmes, and use.

It leads me to think about the future of "Broad"casting though. If many people begin to adapt to delayed viewing and proscribe their viewing schedule will this force many broadcasters to follow the download route.

Why not go one step further and become a majority "Narrow"casting operation, let most of the people choose their programme and schedule most of the time.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Crisis Connections

What the flood situation in Thailand has shown once again is the power of social networks to fill the void of communication. In recent times the role of Facebook, Twitter, and Blackberry messenger has been shown in good and bad light.  The same methods that released the Arab Spring have also been used to coordinate the London Riots . Love them or loathe social networks are here to stay and what the floods show is how they keep people connected.  Some will say there should be no communication void if central government is on top of its game, but with a situation that can change so rapidly, and over such a large area the traditional press certainly struggle to keep the public up to date. Twitter and Facebook have been saviours for those of us outside Thailand at this time.  With roving reporters and connected people like Patee Sarasin and Jetrin out doing and tweeting many more people are kept up to date. Equally useful is the ability to time shift news updates through TV ch

The Loki Planet Guide

The mighty Om thinks that WiFi location based services will be the next kickstart in the industry. I agree that this could be the killer app, the SMS of WiFi/Max, that could really be a key integration point for Muni nets, FON networks and the newest WiFi enabled handsets. He mentions Loki so I went off to have a quick look. It seems pretty interesting and it made me revisit a previous idea for book readers . Combining LBS with a brand like The Lonely Planet would be a pretty powerful partnership; apply the whole thing in a PDA or some other WiFi enabled device that makes book reading easy (something like Nokia's 770 ) and you have your own tour guide in your pocket that is as close to being smart as you can get. It will be able to know which country you're in and allow you to subscribe to the guide for that country, or mini-guide for that city. Once walking around the LBS granularity would enable a smart book mark to move you to the section of the guide for where you

Muni, Muni, Muni

2006 is going to see an explosion in the activity of Municipal, Muni, Networks. This article from the BBC states that IP access is becoming a basic amenity, in the same way as water and electricity. Philly is the next to be online; with a 135 square mile network being built out by Earthlink and turned on next year. Not far behind is San Francisco with, you've guessed it, Google as one of the prime bidders. They believe they can take their successful advertising revenue stream to provide free IP access to the proletariat. On a brief aside the partnership of Google and NASA, can we expect to see Google in Space? With the benefits of WiFi access to schools, hospitals and police forces around the US it won't take long for a few well publicized examples of how access helped them for the ball to start rolling. I would agree with Paul that the secret to success is a partnership with the existing carriers. Otherwise the likes of SprintNextel could easily freeze the new comers out. Th