Mailing List Archive

On Thu, Jan 11, 2024, 9:56?a.m. Paul Harrison <mythtv@mythqml.net> wrote:

> An interesting article for anyone in the UK about the future of Freeview :-
> https://rxtvinfo.com/2024/timeline-of-c ... ellite-tv/
> <https://rxtvinfo.com/2024/timeline-of-changes-to-freeview-and-satellite-tv/>
>
> Also some early information about Freely the service starting later this
> year that is supposed to replace Freeview and Freesat :-
> https://rxtvinfo.com/2024/all-in-one-tv ... will-work/
> <https://rxtvinfo.com/2024/all-in-one-tv-how-freeview-replacement-freely-will-work/>
>
> We have the UK's Escape to the Country on CBC here in Canada. As an OTA TV
user, I'm always happy to see the amount of antennas on the homes in the
cities and villages. Sad to see OTA under threat in so many countries.

>
>

> On Jan 11, 2024, at 9:55?AM, Paul Harrison <mythtv@mythqml.net> wrote:
>
> An interesting article for anyone in the UK about the future of Freeview :-
> https://rxtvinfo.com/2024/timeline-of-c ... ellite-tv/ <https://rxtvinfo.com/2024/timeline-of-changes-to-freeview-and-satellite-tv/>
>
> Also some early information about Freely the service starting later this year that is supposed to replace Freeview and Freesat :-
> https://rxtvinfo.com/2024/all-in-one-tv ... will-work/ <https://rxtvinfo.com/2024/all-in-one-tv-how-freeview-replacement-freely-will-work/>
>
> The confusing thing for me is this is obviously about the future of linear TV but it's been hard not to notice all the TV stations are pushing their own on demand services like crazy at the moment "Watch live tonight at 9 or any time for free on our on demand service". So what do they really want us to use Freely or their OD services? It would be nice if Freely could support both linear and OD TV in an all in one convenient app so we don't have to install and subscribe to many different services for OD but I suspect that's unlikely to happen
>

In the US similar is happening. People are just not watching OTA as well as Cable TV. The twitter/X user @TVGrimReaper has been documenting the decline of OTA and Cable, as well as no the minor streaming platforms such as Paramount, WBDs (whatever it is named today.) and the rest of them.

I’m also concerned that the ATSC 3 migration here in the US will also drag it down farther as will be wrapped in DRM. When ATSC 1.0 goes away, I will probably have to drop out of MythTV usage due to the drm requirements for ATSC 3.

Just rambling thoughts here.

Regards!

To me the trend is fascinating, given that Netflix is the only _profitable_
company providing streaming services. IIRC all the other streaming
services are losing money (which Disney+ having lost billions of dollars).

Calvin

On Thu, Jan 11, 2024 at 8:57?AM Paul Harrison <mythtv@mythqml.net> wrote:

> An interesting article for anyone in the UK about the future of Freeview :-
> https://rxtvinfo.com/2024/timeline-of-c ... ellite-tv/
> <https://rxtvinfo.com/2024/timeline-of-changes-to-freeview-and-satellite-tv/>
>
> Also some early information about Freely the service starting later this
> year that is supposed to replace Freeview and Freesat :-
> https://rxtvinfo.com/2024/all-in-one-tv ... will-work/
> <https://rxtvinfo.com/2024/all-in-one-tv-how-freeview-replacement-freely-will-work/>
>
> The confusing thing for me is this is obviously about the future of linear
> TV but it's been hard not to notice all the TV stations are pushing their
> own on demand services like crazy at the moment "Watch live tonight at 9 or
> any time for free on our on demand service". So what do they really want us
> to use Freely or their OD services? It would be nice if Freely could
> support both linear and OD TV in an all in one convenient app so we don't
> have to install and subscribe to many different services for OD but I
> suspect that's unlikely to happen [image: :(]
>
>
> Paul H.
> _______________________________________________
> mythtv-users mailing list
> mythtv-users@mythtv.org
> http://lists.mythtv.org/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
> http://wiki.mythtv.org/Mailing_List_etiquette
> MythTV Forums: https://forum.mythtv.org
>

On Thu, Jan 11, 2024 at 2:57?PM Paul Harrison <mythtv@mythqml.net> wrote:
>
> An interesting article for anyone in the UK about the future of Freeview :-
> https://rxtvinfo.com/2024/timeline-of-c ... ellite-tv/
>
> Also some early information about Freely the service starting later this year that is supposed to replace Freeview and Freesat :-
> https://rxtvinfo.com/2024/all-in-one-tv ... will-work/
>
> The confusing thing for me is this is obviously about the future of linear TV but it's been hard not to notice all the TV stations are pushing their own on demand services like crazy at the moment "Watch live tonight at 9 or any time for free on our on demand service". So what do they really want us to use Freely or their OD services? It would be nice if Freely could support both linear and OD TV in an all in one convenient app so we don't have to install and subscribe to many different services for OD but I suspect that's unlikely to happen
>

And it is all your fault (well, not you personally,
you are not that individually powerful, but you
and others, all contributed in various ways,
and primarily as the content consumers who
drove the changes).

VCRs, TiVos, and MythTV showed that a world
where you can watch what you want, when you
want, was desired.

With the advent of capable mobile devices,
adding in where you want, on the device you
want, continued the trend.

With the exception of "event" TV (which
includes breaking news and sports), the
concept of needing to schedule your life
around when a station decides to show
content you want to view is mostly gone
(I can't think of anything I watch live that
would not be considered breaking news).

Speaking of legacies, while there are still
"channel flippers", looking for something
that they want to watch, or can tolerate
watching, just to have something to watch
during their couch potato hours, that
demographic size is shrinking for time
limited reasons.

And now we are reaching another turning
point. Each content provider wants to control
their own distribution platform (as that allows
them both the opportunity to promote their
own content, and the visibility into the
consumption of their content which can be
used to invest wisely, and to eliminate some
distributor costs, and, of course, to maximize
the monetization). This, unfortunately,
means the annoyance of different solutions
for different sources of content (in theory
everyone could work together to provide a
common platform for insight and promotion,
but the last time the various groups tried to
agree on something like a common approach
the only thing they agreed to was to disagree).

I doubt the Sesame Street muppets ever
spelled "market fragmentation", but they,
themselves, are experiencing it (with first
run episodes on Max).
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On Fri, Jan 12, 2024 at 10:56:14PM +0000, Gary Buhrmaster wrote:
> And now we are reaching another turning
> point. Each content provider wants to control
> their own distribution platform (as that allows
> them both the opportunity to promote their
> own content, and the visibility into the
> consumption of their content which can be
> used to invest wisely, and to eliminate some
> distributor costs, and, of course, to maximize
> the monetization). This, unfortunately,
> means the annoyance of different solutions
> for different sources of content (in theory
> everyone could work together to provide a
> common platform for insight and promotion,
> but the last time the various groups tried to
> agree on something like a common approach
> the only thing they agreed to was to disagree).

That battle was lost at the FCC (at least here in the US) several
years ago. As I recall, content agnostic vendors like Google, Apple,
etc. were lobbying for a standardized DRM so their platforms could
search and play content from any of the content providers. The
content providers wanted to control everything as you described above.
The providers won and some could argue the rest of us lost.

David
--
David Engel
david@istwok.net
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