Sign of the Demise of Traditional Broadcasting? AFL Hints at Cutting...
Dan
Special Text
Brisbane, Queensland
12069 posts
http://www.theage.com.au/afl/afl-news/demetriou-hints-at-afl-tv-20110815-1ius3.html
The league's chief executive has provocatively suggested that instead of allowing television networks to broadcast matches, and then keep the resulting advertising and subscription proceeds, the AFL could stream matches directly to customers of the national broadband network.
The plan would be in keeping with an AFL strategy to increase its profit margins, which has included creating an in-house media division to offset the profit-diminishing influence of middlemen. Thoughts? Personally, I see this as one of the first signs of the death traditional broadcast model. Once content creators can transact directly with their customers, TV channel broadcasters become relatively obsolete.
I mean, there'll probably always be people that would rather have entertainment spoon-fed to them, but for those of us that know what we want to consume, being able to skip those middle-man broadcasters for a better price can only be a good thing.
Not just in terms of Sports, but all tv programming. No longer having to pay for a dozen channels you don't want just to watch the one or two shows that you do will be awesome.
Please don't derail this into another for/against the NBN thread, empowerment of content creators is simply a beneficial side-effect (and imo an inevitability) of greater broadband penetration/ubiquity, the NBN factor just means it could be arriving here a bit quicker now.
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Spook
Brisbane, Queensland
32714 posts
this is a fucking awesome idea.
you may deride the afl as aerial ping pong for dudes in tight shorts, but they sure know how to run their sport.
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arkter
Gold Coast, Queensland
17 posts
This post has been removed.
Reason: Off-Topic
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glynd
Melbourne, Victoria
318 posts
free to air struggle to play games live these days anyway. I'm all for it.
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deadlyf
Queensland
1944 posts
I see a few problems with this.
One, in terms of sports I'm sure there will be teething problems in terms of their quality of footage that they can produce if they were to go it alone without the broadcaster.
Two, if advertising were to be their main revenue and they also controlled the game there could be a possibility of conflicts of interest.
Three, in terms of non-sports entertainment we already have streaming sites but they are provided by broadcasters and not content creators as the broadcaster is generally the person who foots the bill for production and hopes to get it back through their revenue streams. This means we still have the issue we have with those sites now and that is regionalised licensing issues.
Four, as far as those sites go, at the moment many of them have ads, some have paywalls/subscription requirements like HBO-GO and I think as they move more to online delivery paywalls will become more and more common which when coupled with licensing could mean we will still be paying for shit we don't want to get a small amount of content we do and we will also end up with multiple subscriptions to individual streaming sites in order to get the content we want.
I do think it's a brilliant idea for sport though, watching the Origin on channel 9 and having them cut away to commercial at every given opportunity really felt like they didn't respect the game or the viewers.
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natslovR
Sydney, New South Wales
7380 posts
Anything that cuts out the traditional broadcasters is a good thing in my view. The sooner their cartel control of our culture is crushed the better.
The few games they run "live" in NSW end up delayed because of intra-goal advertising anyway. The other week my parents were yelling at the "Live" game on TV that was a very tight finish and thescore.com.au had already listed the correct and final result several minutes before hand. |
Dan
Special Text
Brisbane, Queensland
12071 posts
deadlyf: a lot of valid concerns, but I'd wager that all of those would eventually just be naturally ironed out as a matter of course.
The teething problems probably aren't avoidable, it's a pretty massive seachange and is going to be an equally massive learning process for a lot of content creators.
1\ Broadcasters are definitely the ones with all the camera/recording experience in the current paradigm, but a new opportunity would open up for independent contract companies to fill that gap.
2\ The potential for advertising to conflict with content doesn't tend to be a showstopping issue for websites that are supported by that model (like this one) so I think the same rules would apply for video content creators.
3\ regionalised licensing issues are only a shitty product of the current paradign. Once more content creators are selling their product directly to customers instead of having to license to third party broadcasters out of necessity (as they currently do), that issue would hopefully resolve itself. There's no longer any reason for the content creator to geographically restrict who is consuming their content. At the moment they have to because different companies license the rights in different countries.
4\ I agree that could happen, but that would be to that particular content providers detriment. There's more incentive for content providers to offer the best options to consumers when delivering their own product, because ultimately they want to promote their own product over all others.
As an example, if the only way to watch AFL was behind an online paywall, when A-League games could be watched for free with a few adds through a multitude of different systems, more people would start watching A-League and less AFL as a result.
Point being that there's still going to be competition to drive these companies to offer the most consumer friendly solutions.
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FaceMan
Brisbane, Queensland
6865 posts
Nothing will kill a Sports fan base faster than taking it away from FreeToAir.
It would be a huge mistake for any Sport to 'go it alone.' Many ppl watch more than one Sport. If you take one away and put it behind a paywall those fans might watch something else.
We dont need to redesign the wheel.
Allow Foxtel to transmit games in direct competition with FreeToAir.
FreeToAir could keep its crappy SD/Ads and premium viewers can watch it in HD on Foxtel.
I dont see how a lone Sport could turn a profit going it alone.
The Australian market is not big enough.
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Dan
Special Text
Brisbane, Queensland
12073 posts
You're jumping to a conclusion (should we expect anything else from you though). Nowhere did they suggest that it would be taken away from free to air to be placed behind a paywall. Seems pretty obvious that wouldn't be a smart move.
However, once an adequate digital delivery service is available to 100% of the population, there will be an option for them to forge their own avenue to deliver their product direct to the consumer in a free to watch manner.
The market will be "big enough" once enough people have the capability to receive it, which they will eventually.
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Pinky
Melbourne, Victoria
10782 posts
Streaming has been successful elsewhere - EPL and NBA notably.
It sounds like a risky comment the way that The Age has reported it, but it's not far fetched.
As for comments about streaming on the NBN in particular, that is a ridiculous remark to make this early when you have no idea about the take-up of that service.
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Dan
Special Text
Brisbane, Queensland
12074 posts
As for comments about streaming on the NBN in particular, that is a ridiculous remark to make this early when you have no idea about the take-up of that service. Irrelevant. If the NBN rollout proceeds as planned, the result will be a base level of 12/1mbit service broadband available to 100% of the Australian population. If the NBN plan doesn't proceed, that outcome will still be something that occurs eventually, it will just be later down the track. Which is why this thread isn't about the NBN.
The point being that at a certain point, broadband penetration will not only be ubiquitous but ubiquitous at a rate fast enough to support HD video on demand. This completely nullifies the dependency on radio broadcasting for television.
Yes initially not everyone will elect to use that service and obtain the required hardware to interface with it straight away. Just like not everyone all bought a television at once when broadcasters first started transmitting. It's a gradual process that will naturally transition over time.
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SwissCM
Gold Coast, Queensland
125 posts
In terms of sports I'm sure there will be teething problems in terms of their quality of footage that they can produce if they were to go it alone without the broadcaster.
As it is now, sports broadcasting is compressed to all hell, frequently causing the image to become a mess of macroblocking and completely invalidating any kind of advantage that a HD image could potentially give. If the NBN goes ahead as planned, streaming a 1080p stream at a suitable bitrate would be easily possible.
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funky
Brisbane, Queensland
1264 posts
assuming the AFL could provide a comparable service to the current tv broadcasters, i would be ALL OVER paying them a fee to get access to all the footy games on tv via NBN. currently we don't get great coverage up here so i would pay them a fee to augment the coverage i currently receive. i don't believe they would be able to make as much money doing it all themselves as the 1.25 bill they got for 5 years TV rights. not without a shiteload of work.
i've almost put foxtel on JUST to get fox sports, and would definitely do so if i was able to pay a fee for just the sports channels.
last edited by funky at 16:50:15 16/Aug/11
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Pinky
Melbourne, Victoria
10784 posts
Yes initially not everyone will elect to use that service and obtain the required hardware to interface with it straight away. Just like not everyone all bought a television at once when broadcasters first started transmitting. It's a gradual process that will naturally transition over time.
That's just my point. Advertising is only about audience. It's not even worth speculating about until such a time as 'x' people have NBN access.
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FaceMan
Brisbane, Queensland
6868 posts
teq
Brisbane, Queensland
11517 posts
Once content creators can transact directly with their customers, TV channel broadcasters become relatively obsolete.
It doesn't allow them to directly stream it to their customers, unless you're talking via a web browser or PC client etc
IPTV providers will pop up and fill the void left by tradition broadcasters, you would assume broadcasters will start running IPTV multicast style services too - so they wont be missing out
The AFL can't just go to the NBN and say "broadcast this", they would need a lot of bandwidth and server infrastructure, or they'd need to subcontract the multicast side of their delivery to a large ISP
Either way, someone will still be making money on the ad revenue
What will eventually happen is more and more TVs will start coming out with Ethernet ports that support the multicast IPTV offerings, removing the need for a STB or PC - the technology is already there but it needs wide spread deployment before its viable
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RockitMan
Brisbane, Queensland
6145 posts
I would get Foxtel if I could pay per channel. I don't want all their shit channels - I want maybe 4 of them. Yet they force you into these massive bundles of bs so I just don't bother. TV's are all becoming internet ready so I'm all for direct streaming off the web.
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Timmeh
Brisbane, Queensland
808 posts
I can see everyone having a 50" TV with a RJ45 points replacing the current TV behind them
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Spook
Brisbane, Queensland
32718 posts
my tv has a an rj45 behind it! it has done for years.
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Timmeh
Brisbane, Queensland
809 posts
my tv has a an rj45 behind it! it has done for years.
But you also have a Tv point?
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deadlyf
Queensland
1946 posts
3\ regionalised licensing issues are only a shitty product of the current paradign. Once more content creators are selling their product directly to customers instead of having to license to third party broadcasters out of necessity (as they currently do), that issue would hopefully resolve itself. There's no longer any reason for the content creator to geographically restrict who is consuming their content. At the moment they have to because different companies license the rights in different countries. Regionalised licensing is a global issue though, unless we are talking home grown content which outside of sports is shit. There is also the issue of production cost, would a production company really want to foot the bill? TV isn't like movies, with TV the primary broadcaster pays for the show to be made and then licenses it out to other broadcasters in other regions.
I'm sure content delivery will improve as providers become more adoptive of the internet but I don't think we will ever see a direct feed from the shows creators to the end viewer, I think middle men will always be there to try to restrict and control the way we view things in order for them to make the most profit. Essentially I don't think it will ever be as convenient as piracy, which is a shame because convenience is the only thing piracy has going for it over free to air.
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Dan
Special Text
Brisbane, Queensland
12076 posts
It doesn't allow them to directly stream it to their customers, unless you're talking via a web browser or PC client etc
IPTV providers will pop up and fill the void left by tradition broadcasters, you would assume broadcasters will start running IPTV multicast style services too - so they wont be missing out Nah, not referring to IPTV/multicast style providers. Perhaps I'm looking further down the track, but I only really see the multicast solutions as part of the transitional process.
Whereas previously, multicast has been necessary (like Foxtel and now the various ISP's IPTV offerings), when eventually every individual user has enough bandwidth for their own dedicated HD streams, there's no longer an underlying need for a broadcast model, so we'll transition to on demand.
I'm not really talking web browser/PC client, I'm looking forward a few years when the lines are more blurred between all that sort of stuff. When your average TV comes standard with a way to interpret an Internet stream (in whatever manner that may eventuate), just like they currently come standard with a way to tune a radio broadcast.
I'm sure content delivery will improve as providers become more adoptive of the internet but I don't think we will ever see a direct feed from the shows creators to the end viewer, I think middle men will always be there to try to restrict and control the way we view things in order for them to make the most profit. But we already are seeing a direct feed from show creators to the end viewer. it's called Youtube/Vimeo/Revision3 etc etc.
Obviously these methods aren't anywhere near enticing enough yet for mainstream content creators to want to make the switch to because a huge amount of their audience simply doesn't have access. But this whole thread is about the point in time (that I am positing is inevitable) when they will.
Licensing deals with broadcasters are the main reason that regional restrictions are placed on streaming internet video content at present. What I'm saying is that once broadcasting no longer has the appeal, there's no longer the necessity for content creators to distribute through that avenue.
So the content creators that want to deal direct with consumers, will be able to offer that content to global users directly (presuming our Internet hasn't been censored by then).
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Dan
Special Text
Brisbane, Queensland
12077 posts
teq: btw, I agree that three will always be middle-men, in terms of companies that aggregate the content of many creators and handle the marketing and advertising, but the difference will be that they'll be an option and not a necessity and those that want to manage everything end-to-end themselves will be able to.
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scuzzy
Brisbane, Queensland
14745 posts
I would get Foxtel if I could pay per channel. I don't want all their shit channels - I want maybe 4 of them. Yet they force you into these massive bundles of bs so I just don't bother. TV's are all becoming internet ready so I'm all for direct streaming off the web. what's dumb is they've got foxtel being delivered to xbox 360 and you still have to buy base packages, what a fucking perfect platform for a media content delivery system and they root it up. last edited by scuzzy at 21:11:40 16/Aug/11
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Pinky
Melbourne, Victoria
10786 posts
I would get Foxtel if I could pay per channel. I don't want all their shit channels - I want maybe 4 of them. Yet they force you into these massive bundles of bs so I just don't bother. TV's are all becoming internet ready so I'm all for direct streaming off the web.
Same. I want EPL and A-League and nothing else and they don't cater for me.
That's essentially their model though - 10% of stuff is worth $15/month and they bundle it with 90% of garbage and charge $70 a month or whatever to try to make it look like a good deal.
Anyone use this? http://www.eplondemand.foxsports.com.au/page/Home/0,,13140,00.html
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teq
Brisbane, Queensland
11518 posts
Whereas previously, multicast has been necessary (like Foxtel and now the various ISP's IPTV offerings), when eventually every individual user has enough bandwidth for their own dedicated HD streams, there's no longer an underlying need for a broadcast model, so we'll transition to on demand.
I don't see this happening for a long while yet, the contention ratios on the NBN network are much better than ADSL but they're certainly not priced in a range that would suggest unicast / on demand streaming could work just yet
The CVC pricing the ISP pays is where it breaks down on a unicast model, you would need to bring your contention ratio way way down if you had a significant chunk of your users streaming HD broadcasts in peak times on a regular basis
You're talking about say 5000 users sharing 300Mbit~ of CVC traffic on a single POI.
HD streaming would slaughter that with even 5% of those users streaming 1 channel at 2.5Mbit/sec
I'd say we're stuck with a multicast system for live TV, on demand movies would work because you can schedule the push/pull to the STB or If they want true on demand with "watch it right now" that can work too because you're unlikely going to have 5%+ all streaming a huge HD movie at once on a single POI
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Pinky
Melbourne, Victoria
10787 posts
Meh, signed up for a season pass, test video looked ok but not hi-def or anything (which is fine by me, don't want it to chew the fuck out of my bandwidth anyway).
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Dan
Special Text
Brisbane, Queensland
12078 posts
The CVC pricing the ISP pays is where it breaks down on a unicast model, you would need to bring your contention ratio way way down if you had a significant chunk of your users streaming HD broadcasts in peak times on a regular basis Yeah, for sure. All good valid points as to why a complete demise of broadcasters is still a long way off.
It's hard to really speculate how long it might take to get to that break-point, but the way things are going, it does seem inevitable. In the AFL example, I reckon it is surely premature for them to consider exiting free to air for bare minimum next eight years, but I do think we will start to see a lot of other major video content creators venturing outside of broadcaster licensing deals well before 100% ubiquity and HD unicast becomes feasible.
Movies are definitely the beginning and are already obviously happening. TV is trickier, since most of the major producers are the radio broadcasters themselves.
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I get NRL on demand... It is average quality but i can watch the games whenever and it is only £50 a year. In aus foxtel was $60 per month and i only ever watched nrl lols. Waste of money.
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