The beginning of the end….?
The begining of the end (for terrestrial TV)?
Interesting news last week from our friends at ITV (not that news…we don’t do tabloid…)
ITV channels will now be available on newer LG Smart TVs without an aerial connection!
That’s live TV entirely streaming based and with an EPG (guide to you and me) through the ‘LG channels’ feature. Samsung already has this through their ‘TV Plus’ option.
BUT….(and it’s a big one)
The issue is that when smart apps originally began rolling out only certain makes had certain apps. This led to the rise of the firestick, chromecast, Roku stick due to their wide compatibility for what consumers wanted (Freeview….catch-up….not really complicated)
The ‘Freeview play’ standard on TVs eventually, sort of, resolved this as we knew all those sets had BBC/ITV/4/5 Catch-up for sure.
Freeview Play- a reasonable solution…until it someone decided it wasn’t.
But now…who knows?
Hopefully the major TV providers will agree on an industry standard as an online TV platform for live TV- as it’s in their interest at the end of the day- for new TVs going forward.
However it seems likely that TVs will need adapter streaming boxes to access live TV until this becomes the norm- even for currently ‘smart’ ones.
So what about SKY and BT…
➜Sky has missed the boat with SKY Glass and their puck - as streaming live TV looks to be the coming norm! As has BT with their new wifi only box. 18 months earlier and they would have been bang on the money
➜ Any ‘recording’ capability of any PVR (recorder) is now problematic as most channels don’t want live stream content to be recordable for piracy reasons. This makes an internet only box…not great…
➜Their current system of linking missed content to already free apps is handy (as it was when Youview did it years back) but after the first year an extra charge from SKY is needed to remove adverts. Let’s not forget that the point of SKY for many was exactly that back in the day…to skip adverts.
➜Pricing is up in the air. We’re now looking at SKY, BT and Virgin ‘bundling’ different services and making it extremely complex to work out where value is.
➜For example, we could be looking at a regular customer having to view up an internet cost, Sky TV cost (depending on package), multiroom costs, advert removal costs, additional costs for extras (including for HD??) ….the list goes on. It makes direct comparison problematic for Joe public to say the least.
Predictions , predictions….
So what now?
Streaming is here to stay. The beaver is out of the box.
There’s still a demand for live TV without scrolling through reams of content choices.
Passive watching is how many of us enjoy content these days.
The move to IPTV (internet) will shake up the sector and hopefully lead to increased competition.
Once smaller of foreign providers see the potential of charging smaller amounts for similar services the big providers will have a target on their backs….
Watch this space!