UK TV market developments
The UK has a varied and sophisticated TV landscape with a mixture of Free-To-Air and Pay TV operations. Today a number of significant changes were announced that will create further pressure on Sky and Virgin.1) Freeview announced a campaign to drive customers from pay platforms to the 'free' service - much is made of the fact that in Pay TV households the vast majority of viewing time is spent watching the main channels BBC, ITV, Channels 4 and 5. In a time of austerity this may resonate with some hard pressed subscribers.
2) BT announced it has purchased ESPN in UK/Ireland, BT Vision continues to enhance its' sport offering. It appears that in future the ESPN channels will only be available to BT Infinity subscribers. Not sure how this will work for those who do not have the possibility of BT Infinity service. BT Sports is in acquisitive mode but the numbers will need to add up and viewers will need to ultimately foot the bill, this is likely to be a tough battle Sky is renowned as a formidable competitor and many sports centric viewers are likely to be regular viewers of other sports like cricket and Formula 1.
3) VOD Professional today has reported that ITV set to support micro-payments on the new itv Player delivered content - ITV is stepping up the move to other revenue streams principally leveraging its archive here - this is a brave move with so much content free or on subscription it will take a change in viewer behaviour to make this pay.
The other big leisure option in the UK (apart from TV) is perhaps Religion which is Crofton's big idea Number 63
Religion is generally a belief in one or more gods and tends to expect 'faith' from the followers.Community is also very much tied up with faith - although some religions hold that they are open to all (Christianity and Islam spring to mind here)
Religion has elements of Cultism - typically rituals and meetings -worship are held in in a sacred consecrated place.
The fact that Communism lack the spiritual dimension means that some commentators do not accept it as a religion.
