Tuesday, February 25, 2014

New TV channels - does more mean less or can we use the extra capacity to enrich lives?

This year ITV has a new female slanted channel ITVBe  and in 2015 a new pay to view service ITV Encore.
The BBC is going to provide a Plus one service for their main popular national TV and The co-production between BBC and The Arts Council  known as The Space is meant to relaunch before too long.

We (that's Londoners)  will soon (March 31st is the date for the service to start) have the long awaited London Live Local TV and that's not taking into account the constantly increasing IPTV services that are getting screen space on Smart TVs and the new wave of STBs like Now! TV.
Five for sale?

Oh yes and the Local TV service is going to open up a further two 'quasi national' TV  channels which will provide further choice to the happy viewers.

Does this fragmentation worry Jolly Richard Desmond? Well the conventional wisdom is that having removed the excess fat and returning the network to profit he's going to sell off the 5 portfolio before too long.

Well what do we want from our TV that we haven't got and can it pay its way? Perhaps we could see some major Educational and Arts  initiatives that could seek to  address an appetite amongst some for life long learning - The Open University is looking to make more material available and has now what is known as  a MOOC (Massive  Open On-line Courses )  provider in Futurelearn.

The big advantage of broadcast is that the cost doesn't really increase with more viewers educational delivery for young and old could be delivered at next to no cost  and  broadband can offer the chance of  enriching the experience - any ideas out there?




 

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