I’m old enough as a UK resident to remember:
1970’s - 4 TV channels
1990’s - maybe 11 (plus Satellite)
2010’s - Subscriptions….
2026 - The Wasteland
The reason for writing this article is that I find myself in the 90 mins of viewing time we have each day (7.30pm to 9pm ish) - my wife and I can’t find anything to watch. We subscribe to Netflix, Amazon, Disney+, HBOMax right now.
It’s frustrating… that lot costs us c.£900 per year. Add in BBC’s licence fee and we’re over £1000. In the 1980’s that cost was £40 per year for the BBC. Oh and some ads on ITV.
Meanwhile….
Not so good right?
So - the thing I’d like to explore is whether or not the dismantling of the old content world as it relates to broadcast TV - has improved our lives or not.
Simples.
OK, so what do we like, let’s start there shall we?
On Demand viewing
Pausing live tv
Choice (hhhmmm) - we’ll come back to this
Democratisation of the means of production (basically small studios - props to you)
What don’t we like about disrupted broadcast media?
Finding good things to watch is harder
reviews don’t help me
IMDB doesn’t help me
recommendations doesn’t help me
Personalisation (have done/will do) is patchy
Costs has risen
I do not OWN any of the content I watch (DVD’s allowed that if you remember them) - How many times have I watched Four Weddings?
Enough for today - Next time - Why is the disruption failing us?