When will scheduled broadcast TV become obsolete?

[PTR 444]

With most recorded TV programming now available on catch-up on-demand services, one must wonder when the time will come that broadcast TV becomes completely obsolete.

In a way it already is, since many television sets are now internet enabled and one can watch most programming on the main channel’s catch-up services, rather than having to wait for the scheduled broadcast time which might clash with something else. Looking to the long term, I can see the future of TV simply being like an internet browser where turning on the set comes up with a menu showing different broadcasters. Selecting one would take the user to their programmes or a paywall first for a non-advertising broadcaster such as the BBC (the TV licence would be abolished to honour this). As for controls, I can see future designs being more like a Wii remote with users moving a cursor to select options, removing the need for numbered channel buttons as these would be selected on-screen.

There may be a very niche market remaining for live programming, but apart from that I can’t see a case for keeping the TV transmission networks switched on any later than the end of this century, unless of course something unexpected happens that renders the internet obsolete before then.

 

[yorkie]

Except for sporting/live events, it is already obsolete for many people, especially youngsters.

Even for live events, the traditional concept of TV has been superseded.

 

[GusB]

No doubt I'll be accused of being a Luddite, but I still watch linear TV at certain times of the day, and the reason for that is that I don't actually have to scroll through loads of irrelevant stuff, or search for what I want to watch.

Sometimes it's just nice to veg out in front of the telly and see what happens.

 

[Scotrail12]

I guess I'm an outlier for my age (nearly 21) since I still like watching some shows live. Strictly & I'm A Celeb are the two main ones that I enjoy but I don't care for watching either on catch up. It doesn't feel the same. I think that reality shows like them can't really be adapted for streaming. There are less people watching shows like that live now but the audience is still sizeable enough for that type of show to remain on live TV for a while yet.

Despite that, for the 9 months of the year that those two shows are off air, I turn on my TV very rarely.

I would say that news is consumed differently by different generations and I think the traditional way of presenting news on TV is going to fade out. My parents often have a live news show on their TV, usually Sky News. I personally wouldn't sit down to watch a news bulletin programme. I feel like my generation would be more likely to get news online.

 

[Ashley Hill]

Out of all the channels I get with Virgin I only watch about 10 of them regularly. BBC1,ITV,C4,E4,Gold,Yesterday and Quest being the most watched. I can access YouTube on it but it’s more convenient using my phone for the music. We tried Netflix on a free trial once but didn’t find much to our taste on it.

 

[87 027]

I am sure that the traditional broadcasters would love to ditch the expense of maintaining their dedicated transmission infrastructure (terrestrial/satellite) and move to an internet-only broadcasting model. This would level the playing field against the Johnny-come-latelys such as Netflix and Amazon Prime who have completely freeloaded on the back of existing broadband networks without contributing a penny towards their development and maintenance.

 

[birchesgreen]

I can't remember, outside of news and sport, that i watched a TV programme "live" to be honest.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Already is for me. I watch via a Fire Stick and the Players, I don't have an aerial plugged in.

 

[Snow1964]

I am sure that the traditional broadcasters would love to ditch the expense of maintaining their dedicated transmission infrastructure (terrestrial/satellite) and move to an internet-only broadcasting model. This would level the playing field against the Johnny-come-latelys such as Netflix and Amazon Prime who have completely freeloaded on the back of existing broadband networks without contributing a penny towards their development and maintenance.

It is not quite a freeloading, might save cost of build or upgrading a transmitter. But need to build and maintain a huge data centre instead.

Some of the popular TV events and shows have 10m+ viewers. If each starts viewing a fraction of a second at different times that is lot of data to be extracted and sent out.

Compare that to amount of equipment needed to send it once to a transmitter.

 

[AM9]

I think we need to discriminate between streaming live and streaming recorded/archived programming. With the continuing pressure on uhf bandwidth, I thought k the linear broadcasting channels will migrate to real-time* streaming as has already happened for much o broadcast radio. There will be a basic news/education/entertainment service from the three main national broadcasters (BBC, ITV and C4) for some time to cater for a decreasing audience with inadequate access to internet bandwidth. Sky already seems to be reducing its dependence on satellite channels bu promoting products like Sky glass and online access to many channels.
" BBC sounds has already managed to get the delay of live broadcasts down to less to than 20 seconds.

 

[Bantamzen]

I am sure that the traditional broadcasters would love to ditch the expense of maintaining their dedicated transmission infrastructure (terrestrial/satellite) and move to an internet-only broadcasting model. This would level the playing field against the Johnny-come-latelys such as Netflix and Amazon Prime who have completely freeloaded on the back of existing broadband networks without contributing a penny towards their development and maintenance.

Freeloading? I would hardly call either Amazon or Netflix freeloaders, the former have some of the largest cloud storage solutions on the planet and the latter are becoming very good at providing high quality content that puts traditional broadcasters to shame. Whatever else you think of these companies, they have not got there without considerable investment of their own.

 

[Richardr]

People would have written the same about radio when TV came in. Broadcast TV will continue, as others have said, if only mainly for live TV, especially sport and news.

Most of the top-rated programmes still get the majority of their audience watching real time, albeit of course at massively reduced numbers than a couple of decades ago.

 

[route101]

Anyone else find it overwhelming with Netflix and the like, the amount of stuff you ' have' to watch'

 

[dosxuk]

No, the opposite actually - I currently get Netflix for free with a phone contact - and find the amount of content I would actually want to watch so underwhelming that there is zero chance of me subscribing when this contract ends.

 

[PTR 444]

No doubt I'll be accused of being a Luddite, but I still watch linear TV at certain times of the day, and the reason for that is that I don't actually have to scroll through loads of irrelevant stuff, or search for what I want to watch.

Sometimes it's just nice to veg out in front of the telly and see what happens.

A way around this could be for on-demand services to introduce a “scheduler” feature, whereby the user can create a plan of what they want to watch next, then the desired programme starts from the beginning as soon as they turn on the TV set. I don’t think this would be difficult to implement since most email and social media sites now have a scheduling feature where you can delay the posting of content to a desired time.

 

[Howardh]

Anyone else find it overwhelming with Netflix and the like, the amount of stuff you ' have' to watch'

Nope, the more they shout "unmissable" then I'm totally going to miss it.

 

[PTR 444]

Except for sporting/live events, it is already obsolete for many people, especially youngsters.

Even for live events, the traditional concept of TV has been superseded.

Sporting programmes and events don’t necessarily need to be terrestrial or satellite in order to be shown live. Like with YouTube and Facebook Live, improvements in streaming bandwidth mean the future would be more likely having these uploaded onto the streaming platform in real time, which users can select from the menu to watch live.

 

[Howardh]

Sporting programmes and events don’t necessarily need to be terrestrial or satellite in order to be shown live. Like with YouTube and Facebook Live, improvements in streaming bandwidth mean the future would be more likely having these uploaded onto the streaming platform in real time, which users can select from the menu to watch live.

Perfect example is that (almost) every county championship cricket match is shown "live", mostly via youtube. Not only that, clear pictures in hi-definiton and rarely buffering.

Also my local non-league team regularly streams games as above (for a fee!) - unthinkable juts a few years ago. My main gripe is there isn't a dedicated web-page which will direct you to legal content that you didn't even know existed. If that content requires a subscription then you should be able to do that for an individual match/day etc. The likes of Sky and BT make that very difficult.

 

[birchesgreen]

Anyone else find it overwhelming with Netflix and the like, the amount of stuff you ' have' to watch'

No, you don't have to watch anything, you just watch what you want. I tend to ignore the TV critics these days, if you watched everything they said you "should" you'd need about 20 eyeballs.

 

[Peter Sarf]

My way of watching television is to switch on, watch News 24 for a bit while having breakfast (sometimes spot the repeats after an hour). Turn TV off and have the radio on if indoors pottering. Maybe TV back on again when the sun has set. Evenings I am often subjected to what her indoors wants to watch (mainly Strictly Come Dancing). I detest the number of adverts on many channels so a freeview plus box is an idea. Otherwise I hunt (often fruitlessly) for something that takes my fancy. Even though I am a techy I have never programmed a video because I never recorded anything. I just never bother to remember what I might want to watch.

Surprising that I do not plan TV viewing but I only watch TV when I have nothing better to do. Actually Forums like this have swallowed up a fair amount of viewing time. So the view last century that TV killed conversation might be un-done by internet forums !.

 

[PTR 444]

The long-term outcome I can see for television is this:

Fewer mainstream terrestrial channels (possibly as little as 5 with only one BBC and ITV), showing mostly live entertainment shows, sporting fixtures, shorter (but more frequent) news updates and shows specifically aimed towards the 60+ age demographic. There might be merit in having one 24-hour news channel though.

Everything else - dramas, documentaries, comedy, films, children’s shows etc only available on catch-up and streaming services. For most programmes, all episodes would be released in one go to allow binge-watching, although there may be some shows where a “one episode released per week” approach might be better - The Great British Bake Off for example.

 

[dosxuk]

I don't see it at all - things like Love Island or Bake Off attract huge audiences, with people arranging their daily lives around when those programmes are going to be on. That therefore attracts huge amounts of money from companies wishing to advertise to those audiences. Even if on demand became the standard, those sorts of appointment to view programmes will still be scheduled.

Don't mix up the method of transmission with the style of access. Eventually broadcast television will be replaced by internet streams, but that doesn't mean that all the programming will be delivered on-demand. Likewise there's no requirement for live television to be broadcast over the air (arguably it's a lot more efficient that way, but that ship has sailed) - what it does need though is a schedule to live on - even pop up internet sites only carrying one team's sports still have a broadcast schedule.

 

[Bletchleyite]

No, the opposite actually - I currently get Netflix for free with a phone contact - and find the amount of content I would actually want to watch so underwhelming that there is zero chance of me subscribing when this contract ends.

Despite the name it is mostly about US miniseries, which I don't really go for. I find more to my liking on Prime Video and the BBC iPlayer.

 

[GusB]

A way around this could be for on-demand services to introduce a “scheduler” feature, whereby the user can create a plan of what they want to watch next, then the desired programme starts from the beginning as soon as they turn on the TV set. I don’t think this would be difficult to implement since most email and social media sites now have a scheduling feature where you can delay the posting of content to a desired time.

Why?! It works fine as it is now!

 

[adc82140]

There will eventually be a huge reduction in broadcast channels. Perhaps down to a dozen or so. The turning point will come when even the most rural of places has broadband capable of reliably streaming in HD. We're not there yet. For years the Sky platform has been the home of "channels" that were probably a good idea for a TV show, but not 24/7 output. There will be a steady reduction in these outfits as they realise that being a content provider to others may turn a bigger profit. Amongst the bigger players, Disney were the first to make the big change to on demand only. I suspect that the Discovery Network channels may head down the same route sooner rather than later. The current financial squeeze may accelerate this, as advertising budgets get cut across the board.

 

[dk1]

I hope it never does. I like the whole structure of it all.

 

[Dai Corner]

Somebody said there's 'pressure on UHF bandwidth". I'd argue the opposite; that there's not enough decent content to fill the airtime available. Hence channels rerunning old programmes in the hope that enough people will watch them to attract enough advertisers to pay the rights holders and infrastructure providers and still make a profit.

I only watch broadcast TV for News, Rugby and Snooker. I prefer the catch-up services and particularly small-scale content creators on YouTube.

 

[Ediswan]

Somebody said there's 'pressure on UHF bandwidth". I'd argue the opposite; that there's not enough decent content to fill the airtime available.

I suspect @AM9 was referring to competition from other users for space within the UHF band (rather than competition to be on DVB-T):
UK Competition For Frequencies Squeezes Out Free To Air Channels

Freeview has been the commonest way to watch TV in the UK since at least October 2012, when the digital switchover was officially completed, though many viewers would have been using it for years by that point. For a while, it’s been clear that some of the radio spectrum previously occupied by the service’s transmissions was reallocated to 5G mobile services at the end of June 2022 under an initiative the people responsible refer to as the 700MHz Clearance Programme.

 

[DelayRepay]

I quite like linear TV. I'll often put it on in an evening, half-watching it while I'm doing something else. Sometimes I don't want the hassle of scrolling through iPlayer or Amazon Prime looking for something that takes my fancy, I want someone else to pick for me.

The other thing is the big shows like Strictly and Bake Off create a 'buzz' that people talk about the next day. You wouldn't get that if they just released all the episodes at the same time onto the iPlayer.

I also like to watch the evening news bulletin. Again, I want someone to do the hard work of packaging it all together for me instead of me clicking around the BBC news website. Rolling news could go as far as I am concerned, but the morning and evening programmes should stay.

 

[Dai Corner]

I suspect @AM9 was referring to competition from other users for space within the UHF band (rather than competition to be on DVB-T):
UK Competition For Frequencies Squeezes Out Free To Air Channels

Indeed.

I suspect it's becoming more efficient to use the bandwidth for tv-on-demand via the mobile networks than broadcast.