Exploding TV: Who needs a tower?
LostRemote chronicles the fall season’s evidence of TV’s explosion:
* ABC streams its primetime shows.
* ABC offers free iTunes downloads of season finales.
* NBC streams its primetime shows.
* CBS offers shows free on video-on-demand.
Tags: Exploding_TV
September 15th, 2006 at 2:46 am
Let’s not forget that Fox affilates are streaming shows too:
http://www.lostremote.com/2006/08/15/fox-station-sites-streaming-network-shows/
September 15th, 2006 at 7:47 am
And absolutely none of that is at anywhere near the quality necessary to watch on a TV, much less an HDTV.
September 15th, 2006 at 9:10 am
Mitch: Absolutely none of that matters.
September 15th, 2006 at 9:27 am
Mitch: The quality will get there faster than any of us suspect. I’m in the broadcast business and any of my colleagues who read this and don’t get that ’someone just walked over my grave’ shiver is doomed.
September 15th, 2006 at 9:29 am
Steve-
why do you say that? Don’t you believe the qualitative limitations of streaming video will also act to limit audience potential to these streams? In the age of the $1,000 42″ flat screen, seems to me that audiences are seeking a better visual experience, not a worse one.
September 15th, 2006 at 10:00 am
Paw,
There are a lot of TV’s that sell for less than $200 as well. Not everyone is looking for a Home Theater.
Many of us just want the stories, the events, the news.
September 15th, 2006 at 12:26 pm
If technical quality was the controlling factor, nobody would ever (1) listen to AM radio, (2) play their music on their iPods, (3) buy paperback books, or (4) watch movies at home on television instead of on a big screen in a theater. There’s always a tradeoff.
And as Mike said, the quality will get there faster than any of us suspect, anyway.
September 15th, 2006 at 5:43 pm
Shawn-
You are absolutely right - there are plenty of good cheap analog TV’s available - all of which provide better picture quality via a cable or satellite system than streaming video does today. Of course it will improve over time, but it’s not there yet and that’s going to limit the audience potential to those streams TODAY, especially for primetime series episodes, which is the topic of this post.
Grouch-
Of course there’s a tradeoff - in this case, it’s the choice between scheduled TV viewing at a certain level of quality and on demand viewing at a lower level of quality. It’s not necessarily the controlling factor unless I choose it to be - my point is that more viewers would choose the on demand option once the image quality level is comparable. Unlike Steve, to me it matters.
September 18th, 2006 at 9:28 am
Pity all the companies that just spent millions putting up digital broadcasting facilities at the insistence of the FCC while the bulk of the audience is busy getting programming off of various sorts of wire (copper or silica). They’re the ones really getting stiffed when the producers distribute direct to the audience.