July 08, 2007

P2P TV

From Business2.0:

The bigger question is: On the Internet, does live TV even matter any more? The TV schedule is a product of the historical limitations of broadcast television, where you have to broadcast the same shows to everyone at the same time. But those limitations are falling away. Even in cable and satellite TV, the growth of pay-per-view and on-demand channels proves that if you give consumers more choices, they will grab them. The Internet is the ultimate on-demand television system, where the choices of what to watch and when have no practical limits.

The concept of live TV almost makes no sense in that context. Why limit your audience only to those people who can tune in at a certain time? With a few exceptions, such as sports and breaking news, live TV will be a liability on the Web unless those streams are also stored for later viewing. On the Web, nobody wants to make an appointment to watch TV.


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