Wildly naive statistics: 50.8 million PC-TV tuners by 2011
Today on the IT Facts Blog there was a statistic from In-Sat that claims there will be 50.8 million PC-TV tuners sold worldwide by 2011. Why is this wildly naive? It assumes that people will still be getting their television by way of terrestrial signals, satellite, or cable. I.e. good old fashioned wastes of bandwidth.
No, by 2011 anyone who has a fast enough connection will be getting their “TV programming” over the Internet. No “tuner” required. It is the ultimate delivery mechanism: infinite channels, a world-wide audience, your choice of on-demand or streaming, extremely low startup costs, and you don’t have to go through any regulatory hurdles to start broadcasting or receiving video. All it takes is either a PC or a video appliance (like the Neuros OSD) and you’re good to go.
Update: jer insightfully pointed out in the comments that Internet-based distribution also removes competition for timeslots. Internet-based video distribution drastically increases your potential audience, but not having to compete for timeslots has the potential to both increase ad revenue and might allow shows that “can’t compete” on regular TV to continue operating since they don’t have to worry about competition. Here’s some examples of (great) shows that might not have been canceled if they didn’t have to compete for timeslots:
- Family Guy (returned to the air after DVD sales went through the roof—oops!)
- The West Wing
Wikipedia actually has a page talking about this phenomenon dubbed the, Friday night death slot
3 Responses to 'Wildly naive statistics: 50.8 million PC-TV tuners by 2011'
Leave a Reply
on May 10th, 2007 at 8:13 pm
Not only is it infinite channels, but infinite TIMESLOTS as well. No longer will shows have to compete with other whatever powerhouses the other network’s program for a given slot. Shows can stand on their own, and in theory will require less viwers to support them.
on May 11th, 2007 at 7:42 am
I never thought of that angle. You’re right… Not having to compete in timeslots is a huge advantage.
My perspective on it was mostly a consumer-oriented view. Which, IMHO, is what matters most since it is the consumers who ultimately “consume” the content. This shift to Internet-based distribution is going to change _everything_ for everyone and any organization that clings to the old business models will suffer the consequences.
I think I’m going to update this post with a bit more information thanks to your insight.
-Riskable
http://riskable.com
“If our leaders are elected by way of gold
It should be expected that they’ll be bought and sold”
on May 15th, 2007 at 8:11 pm
Yeah, that’s the big paradigm shift that will really mix things up.
DVR usage is kind of getting to the point where timeslots are less relevant, but the networks are trying to hang on by bumping timelots over by a few minutes so that people can’t record another network’s “next slot” offering. This drives me nuts, and just encourages my using use of Democarcy and tvrss.net.
There is already quite a lot of user-generated content in Democracy’s “guide,” but I really can’t wait to see what happens when more commerical content producers jump on the bandwagon. Even if they create clever shows and inject them with ads, the timeslot-free “only interested people” model could really net them some eyeballs. Imagine underwriter supported pilots, where it doesn’t cost anything extra to get the show in front of tons and tons of people. Once the money is spent, the show can then be found by people months or even years later, whn they can subscribe if interested and immediately be exposed to months or years worth of advertising as they watch the shows.
The future is going to be extremely exciting.