Now notice the number of TV channels. It's obviously on the low side as compared to what it would take to compete in the US.
Mike:
While I don't necessarily disagree with your basic premise underlying this conclusion, I don't think it is necessarily "non-competitive" in the US. If you stop & think how broadcast video will morph due to the amalgamation of consumer viewing habits, how many channels does one really need to get the value expected from such services. Does a consumer really need 200 viewing channels? If a consumer could SELECT 50 channels with which to subscribe to from his provider, is he/she more likely to be "satisfied" than the consumer who instead receives ALL 200 channels, the lion's share of which goes on unwatched all, if not most of the time. Can you see the waste here in terms of bandwidth?
IMHO, the step up to VDSL is about bandwidth. And IMHO, I don't think VDSL is going to be deployed in a true broadcast manner where the goal has been to either fill the airwaves, or fill the cable pipe with as much content as possible in order to make the economic model as profitable as possible? While there may be some irony in this statement since it is the goal of any operation to maximize profits, it certainly hasn't worked for the MSOs in this country, if history is any example.
IOW, maximum content shoved down a pipe, IMHO, is not going to be the model for profitability in the future. Its going to be about REACHING that consumer. Hypothetically, if I am an advertiser, and I target a consumer who SELECTs the channel (& programming) I plan to advertise on, in competition against 50 other channels filled with competing programming, & not necessarily w/i the same time slot due to the advent of hi-quality video recording (ie. TIVO, ReplayTV), wouldn't I be willing to pay that provider a higher advertising fee than the provider who "stuffs the channel" with 200+ channels of unwanted & unviewed content.
The bottom line of my point is that the broadcast model of the future is going to be much more sophisticated, much more targeted at the right consumer that a 50-channel solution may not necessarily be inadequate to compete. IMHO, it boils down to quality, not quantity, when it comes to content that will be delivered into tomorrows digitally connected home.
JMO. |
