The Future of Pay TV Services

[DGMurdockIII]

Breakthroughs in digital media technologies have converted media consumers from spectators into participants. This transformation has impacted all aspects of the media value chain, from content creation through delivery to the consumer experience itself. The interactive nature of the broadband Internet has set high consumer expectations for other media outlets, particularly video services, and for all manner of personal communications.

These trends have resulted in significant changes to the pay-TV landscape. Older technologies such as cable TV are facing off against newer entrants such as telcos providing IPTV services, and cable, IPTV and satellite providers are all trying to figure out how to deal with Internet video operators who can go direct to consumer without investing and maintaining their own delivery network. This report examines the impacts of the growth of IPTV on satellite and cable providers, and how all of providers will react to the growing threat (and opportunity) of broadband video.

Read more: http://pro.gigaom.com/2009/05/the-future-of-pay-tv-services/#toc#ixzz0MVf0DOa8

[gatherlight]

I'm not going to subscribe/pay to read the report on that link,

But... It appears to me that Comcast will be the biggest looser. Every friend that I know who uses their services is experiencing lots of ups and downs in the speed which proves un-reliable for Boxee software and other type competitors. As more people download video, everyone on the block slows down. This is the reason why they are trying to filter and manage packets of data and Congress has been all over the Net Neutrality topic of trying to keep Corporations from owning the Internet. Comcast has tried to make offerings of "On Demand" videos to give them a similar experience of what we have with Boxee and Netflix "watch now" features , but they look like hell as they simply can't fill their cable lines with true 480p or higher streams.

I think to stem the flow of Cable cancellations, many cable operators will start to offer more a la-carte options in the programming. DSL providers IMO have the biggest to gain as it provides a steady dedicated stream of bandwidth which will be required as multiple TV's in the house start streaming content off one connection.

Bottom line.. traditional cable tv operators are pretty F'ed, unless they start buying up wireless companies like Clearwire or cell services that can eventually stream high bandwidth.