Quote:
Originally Posted by wizwor
Not sure we are transitioning from broadcast to streaming. In the US, at least, broadcast television is acquiring eyes and adding networks. Most of the streaming growth is coming at the expensive of cable and satellite. We put an antenna on the roof of my sister's camp in Ebeemee Maine (which feels like Canada) because she could not get locals or HDTV from her satellite provider...
Good luck!
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- Broadcast TV is continuing to see declines in viewership. That is a threat to their business model, which relies on selling mass audiences to advertisers.
- The big four are currently supplementing their OTA viewership numbers with streaming viewers and revenue.
- The value of affiliates to the networks is declining.
- A lot of the whining we hear from studios about "peak TV" and "too many shows" is because the audiences have scattered to the specialty channels.
- It is pretty clear that ATSC is the last broadcast TV standard we will ever see.
I'm not saying broadcast is going to die soon. But the amount of money available from OTA is eventually going to pale before the alternate revenue streams as ads move to streaming services and the Networks are eventually going to have to part ways with affiliates because there won't be enough money in OTA to satisfy both sides.
It will take decades but the process is well underway and I see nothing on the horizon that might change it. There are too many forces at play; the rise of serialized season arcs rewards waiting and bingeing, for one. Narrowcasting and specialty channels continue to grow and "appointment tv" is fading.
There is a strong parallel with book publishing where ebooks and the eternal backlist are degrading new release peak sales as readers lose their sense of urgency for new releases or pass on them in favor of known-good backlist.
The networks themselves will endure since they are both branching out into specialty channels and setting up their own streaming operations but over time too much viewership will move to streaming for the tiered broadcast model to endure. With "over time" equalling a couple of decades.
The affiliates are the ones at risk and local news isn't going to be enough to keep them afloat. I think they'll go the way of local newspapers.