TV distribution is moving online. Just chat with anyone who has spent some time playing with both Hulu and Netflix and they’ll confirm that they’re compelling platforms. For a low charge of approx $8 a month, US residents can access an all-you-can-eat service with thousands of movies and TV shows streamed live to your Connected TV, or a connected device (ie Boxee Box, Apple TV, Wii, PS3, Xbox 360). With so much entertainment available at such a low cost, what is the value of a $100+ cable TV subscription?
Cable companies in the US are keen to stop any ‘cord-cutting’ from taking place. With most of the US cable companies also operating as ISP’s, they may just have the power to control the switch-off. The Wrap today reports on ISP’s in the US introducing data caps to curb the increase in data transmitted online. The side-effect being that such data charges are likely to also curb the cord-cutters. With streaming video lower quality than cable TV’s HD offerings, Netflix (for example) might be cheap, but it’ll also continue to look cheap.
US data allowances are beginning to echo what we experience here in Australia. Whilst data costs continue to be prohibitive and few services offer quota-free access, IPTV services are going to be experience relatively low take-up rates.
The television revolution is upon us. It just isn’t going to be cheap for sometime.
5 Comments
Knowing the price gouging we get in OZ on all things, the $8US will covert to about $120AU.
The link “The Wrap today reports on ISP’s in the US . . . ” goes to [insert dodgy URL link] — how is that relevant?
ONE HD broadcasts NASCAR, which I watch religiously, and a race will typically total about 25-30GiB of MPEG2 data. At three hours per race, that’s more than a movie, perhaps twice as much. That can be pared down quite significantly without a preceptable reduction in quality by using a MPEG4 codec such as x264/h264. Let’s say it would be about 10GiB for a HD movie in x264. $70/month ADSL2+ plans come with 100-200GiB of data. That’s a lot of TV to watch.
One must also remember that much of the cost of internet plans in Australia is due to the fact that it most of the data is from overseas, and that costs money. The NBN (NLBN?) may well provide impetus to content providers setting up shop locally, instead of transmitting data across the pacific, which would mean lower costs, or higher data limits.
Apologies for the dodgy link. I pasted the wrong URL into the field. It’s corrected now – there’s nothing to see here.
Kevin, while I expect that a Netflix-like service likely would cost more locally, they do run a very cheap service compared to US cable. Should it ever launch here, I wouldn’t expect the costs to the wildly excessive.