SubscribeLive TV: Where Traditional Broadcasters Will Live On
Posted in IPTV, Television, News on June 28th, 2007. By Eduard F. Vinyamata.
Broadcasting used to require an expensive, government auctioned, broadcasting license. It granted the right to use a portion of the limited radio frequency spectrum. With cable and satellite, the limited radio spectrum issue was largely solved, but still, broadcasting required money and infrastructure well beyond the minimal requirements of IPTV. Talks to update broadcasting rights to accommodate the Internet have, so far, failed. Nowadays then, a single person can close deals with Internet Broadcasters such as YouTube. Production companies can launch as well their own Internet-only TV series, and be successful. As IPTV slowly enters our living-room through game consoles, set up boxes or dedicated hardware like Apple TV, IPTV is bound to gain strength.
There is however one way to do TV where traditional broadcasters still bring enough value as to be meaningful: Live TV. Although people have been narrowcasting live on the Internet for years via teleconferencing and the such, just recently tools have appeared to make it easy to broadcast live. Both Techcrunch and NewTeeVee highlight some of them while asking themselves “Who will be the YouTube of Live Video”?
For all that, the fact is that Live TV only works if the live event being covered is minimally meaningful or interesting. And on top of this, Live TV usually requires two things: a brand, to attract an audience through promotion and trust, and resources, to be able to meet the technical and economical resources to record live breaking news, live sports, etc. Although technology like the Freebox (French link) might be a glimpse of the future, probably Live TV is where traditional broadcasters, as we know them today, will live on.
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I find these articles very useful. We are overloaded with news but you relate them and generate tendencies out of them. This extra work is what makes it truly valuable.
Cheers!
Comment by Hector on July 9, 2007