Broadcasters killing their own industry?

Elmo

As we continued down the information-highway are broadcasters just destroying their own industry. Multiple spin off channels, advert free websites and downloads. Multiple teleservice channels that really really provide little more than expensive phone-ins.

Quantity V Quality

watty

In the UK, James Murdoch wants the successful broadcasters to be penalised rather than asking why the others are abysmal

bk

watty wrote: »

In the UK, James Murdoch wants the successful broadcasters to be penalised rather than asking why the others are abysmal

Yes, very true and now he wants BBC news curtailed because it is too good and no one wants to pay for his rubbish:
http://www.rte.ie/news/2009/0829/murdochj.html

tretle

Not to mention the issues with public service broadcasting like how the copyright does not take the investors of the content into account for public service yet it does for private. The creative commons would be a better approach for public service.
The idea of broadcasting over current infrastructures is a dead one anyway.
RTE better start spending that money creating more home brew content instead of licensing out because content creators will be less likely to license content out to external broadcasters if they can make 100% profit themselves delivering the content globally through the net.
One needs only take a look at the hardware market to see what will happen, yahoo internet widgets in new hdtv's boxee to come integrated next year.. DTT is dead before it began and so are any channels which operate largely off of licensed content.
You see it doesnt matter if governments recognize the internet as a powerful way of delivering media, sure that means public broadcasters are forced to spend money of infrastructure which does not increase the reach of the content but the private broadcasters, well they will be more than happy to make more money and gain control over their content. At that stage if RTE dont offer more diversity with relation to genres in home brew content then people will stop watching, if they dont have enough people will stop watching and when the private broadcasters have complete control you will have a situation like the states today with propaganda on fox news having a meaningful impact on the country.
I have already contacted the European union, open video alliance and larry lessig about the various issues over the summer.
Long story short elmo, good broadcasters will survive.. the ones which redistribute others work will not. I wont be too sad to see those broadcasters die out along with the bskyb monopoly.

Elmo

RTE better start spending that money creating more home brew content instead of licensing out because content creators will be less likely to license content out to external broadcasters if they can make 100% profit themselves delivering the content globally through the net.

This is true but do distributors of content really want to see people in Ireland/Europe being able to watch the latest episode of 24 on Fox.com? And are we at a situation were the picture quality of 24 online still remains lower than that on broadcast. And should we not continue with FTA broadcasting remember nothing is free on the web until you have a connection from you ISP. I suppose RTÉ could use their infrastructure for WiMax rather than Terrestrial broadcasts. Are you suggesting the death of TV3?

rlogue

TV3 is really obsolete already. Why watch TV3? Most of its output is recycled ITV material and the only advantage that it brings is that it is available on the Irish Sky EPG whereas UTV and the other ITV1 channels are only available as a manual tune.

RTÉ and TG4 do make a substantial amount of home produced programmes and it is this programming that will be way forward in the future. Original content is what differentiates Irish TV from the UK and US channels - if our broadcasters continue to follow that approach then we will continue to have an Irish option and an Irish viewpoint in the media. If the half-baked approach that TV3 take continues then they really should give up and the BAI when it comes in should hand the commercial TV licence to a company that is prepared to take RTÉ and TG4 on and provide engaging, original Irish content that will make Irish viewers take notice.

Otherwise why rebroadcast ITV programming? We can do better than that.

jmcbride

rlogue wrote: »

TV3 is really obsolete already. Why watch TV3? Most of its output is recycled ITV material and the only advantage that it brings is that it is available on the Irish Sky EPG whereas UTV and the other ITV1 channels are only available as a manual tune.

I would go even further and suggest that TV3 was obsolete from day 1, and should never have been issued a licence. Aside from a mediocre (unless it has improved in the last few years since I last looked at it) breakfast programme, can anyone seriously say that it has innovated in any way in the Irish tv market? Even before it linked up with ITV, the vast, vast majority of its non-news programming consisted either of American programmes poached from RTE or American programmes so poor that RTE wouldn't go near them. Other than that, what has it done? Stolen Coronation Street from RTE and shown sports that RTE were showing already, and not making a terribly great fist of it, though having said that, I'm not a GAA fan so I can't comment on how they do on that front.

Elmo

jmcbride wrote: »

I'm not a GAA fan so I can't comment on how they do on that front.

Since we are into a TV3 bashing rant I will continue to weigh in haha.

TV3 gain for the first time in their history rights for 3 years for 10 Hurley and 10 football matches for 08, 09 and 10. The same goes for Rugby WC which they had the matches from setanta that were required to be FTA. Which was an improvement after years of avoiding both sporting organisations and perfering to have Soccer Champions League and Ireland friendlies. Later on they try to go in with Sky but bertie and the lads weighed in which saw the rights returned to RTÉ since TV3 could afford them alone I do however feel that RTÉ and TV3 should have been forced into a deal rather than it just going to one broadcasting organisation.

TV3 have improved some what under Dogherty Hanson however generally it is poorly produced in house documentaries and some BCI funded licence fee stuff which isn't all that Public Service Broadcasting. Some of the BCI fund has been good.

tretle

Elmo wrote: »

This is true but do distributors of content really want to see people in Ireland/Europe being able to watch the latest episode of 24 on Fox.com? And are we at a situation were the picture quality of 24 online still remains lower than that on broadcast. And should we not continue with FTA broadcasting remember nothing is free on the web until you have a connection from you ISP. I suppose RTÉ could use their infrastructure for WiMax rather than Terrestrial broadcasts. Are you suggesting the death of TV3?

When I think distributor I think producer or investor, the person/people who give money on tick to get something out there.
These people usually outsource to re-distributors(other broadcasters) for a small license fee. This earns the original distributor profit on the show they payed to produce so that the cycle can continue.
Now, the re-distributors pay the license fee for the show to be broadcast, the license fee would be lower than the income made through the advertising generated from the time slot associated to that show. This is how re-distributors work.
What the internet offers the original distributor is a means of earning more than they could with licensing out shows. They would not need to trim down revenue due to re distributors. They would also not need to pick and choose what shows they can export as there would no longer be a set viewership number for each locality. By viewership number I mean risk factor, 200 people watching prime time in florida would not be enough to cover the license fee and generate profit for an external broadcaster but if rte directly deliver the content then thats an extra 200 people added to the list of viewers when it comes to advertising revenue.
Distributors will do this, it will most likely be private broadcasters rather than public and there will be huge consequences of that.
You are right about the internet costs money argument and I spoke about that to others but not on threads, my stance is similar to your own.. The dvbt infrastructure should be re-purposed into some sort of public service internet connection, after all the original purpose of public service broadcasting is to educate people so rethinking the medium of broadcast and the infrastructure itself could prove to be much better than what is currently proposed.