Here Lies TV
At Mumbai's International Telecommunication Union - Asia-Pacific Institute for Broadcasting Development (ITU-AIBD), the MPAA and it's cronies have been discussing locking down future TV broadcasts. They are now mortally terrified of their A-hole emissions reaching the tubosphere. As ever, there is a deep irony in organisations that make their business delivering content going so far out of their way to prevent people from receiving it:
Conax AS International Product marketing manager Vidar Sandvik advocated "scrambling" for FTA [Free To Air] broadcasting. He cited Netherlands and Poland where 100% cable saturation did not prevent terrestrial television from thriving. In Poland where FTA had 30% of the market, FTA broadcasters added video-on-demand in HD, increasing value for consumers, and ensuring no leaks to the Net. Let the pay-TV operator subsidise the set-top box, he said, and then control box quality for content protection. As for cost, set-top box vendors paid nothing for Conax hardware, he said.
Scrambling Free to Air? Isn't that just Free to View? It's like suggesting vegetarian food should contain more meat. And "ensuring no leaks to the Net"? Oh, I seriously doubt that.
Licensing set-top box production and preventing consumers from becoming broadcasters, but enabling them to receive, store and do home networking are some rules that regulators should lay down to protect content, concluded Williams. He recommended making content protection cheaper by going completely digital. "Why do you need analog outputs?" he asks.
And there it is, who needs that festering analogue wound in the side of every receiver, spilling our digital goodness into the cupping hands of those evil pirates? Clearly the digital changeover in the US went so well that it was obviously just too easy. This time people should be forced to buy new TVs as well! Admittedly, this is the satellite TV industry talking, and they do have a habit of claiming special excuses for acting like the owners of content rather than merely the transmitters - kind of like the guy who delivers your new washing machine scratching his name on the front of it then hanging around and asking for money every time you want to use it.
Yeah, I think that's enough analogies for this weekend.
Over the last few years I've been watching TV die. Even after going out of my way to get satellite because it was the only way to get a reliable service out here in the woods, I've found myself watching less and less. It is a rare occasion indeed for me to actually sit down and watch a show from beginning to end. When I miss a show that I intended to watch there is no more "aw crap!" reaction that I recall from the past. On more than one occasion I've found myself with remote in my hand, staring at the listings and thinking "even though there is a show I thought I wanted to see, I can't actually be bothered to set up a recording." The new relationship with TV appears to be one of opportunistic sampling - when particularly bored or put out by some other medium or project I might turn on and watch whatever can be found that is the least anti-intellectual. Then, an hour later, It'll be turned off. So delicate is this connection that sometimes a show will be turned off, not because it's dull or offensive, but because having to turn down the ads to an acceptable volume every fifteen minutes is more annoying that the show is interesting.
Another thing that leads to this general malaise is that the listings are becoming a serious impediment to viewing. Despite having access to an accurate schedule for every available channel for the next seven days I can honestly say that for weeks now I have not looked at more than the next three hours in that "wall of worthless" for any channel. In a world of ballooning lateral access, locating anything of value on linear TV has become too much of a chore for too little entertainment.
So what the hell happened? Is it me? Or could it be the content, could it actually be less entertaining than it used to be? Or rather, has it stopped evolving in line my expectations of innovation? If this were multiple choice I think we'd check that last one.
The problem appears to be one of homogenisation - every channel, regardless of their original remit, wants to reach the largest possible audience. So if one type of programming draws a greater audience then every channel will want that type of programming. And so we have 24 hours of make-over and pimping shows on what used to be called "Music Television", and we even have reality TV on the SciFi channel... sorry that will be "SyFy" for the US viewers:
SyFy: where we're going, we won't need "i"s
The reason for this fuss over the locking down of a medium that is rapidly dipping below the horizon of relevance is because we can see a whole lot of defectors of this nature having a serious impact on viewing figures. The subsequent drop in advertising revenue will no doubt be blamed on illicit distribution of the same content that we can't be bothered to watch. Naturally, the finger will be pointed at the Internet. With Ireland already facing a de facto Three-strikes law and Internet censorship over music distribution, such attention is only going to add to the troubles. That the MPAA et al are deciding amongst themselves to further break our already compromised personal technology is a damning signal of both their mortally ill business and our own complacency over their power.
End result: an industry that produces something dull that we don't care about is trying to control us because we don't particularly want their product any more. The sounds of their desperate scrabbling for power are not unfamiliar.
Conax AS International Product marketing manager Vidar Sandvik advocated "scrambling" for FTA [Free To Air] broadcasting. He cited Netherlands and Poland where 100% cable saturation did not prevent terrestrial television from thriving. In Poland where FTA had 30% of the market, FTA broadcasters added video-on-demand in HD, increasing value for consumers, and ensuring no leaks to the Net. Let the pay-TV operator subsidise the set-top box, he said, and then control box quality for content protection. As for cost, set-top box vendors paid nothing for Conax hardware, he said.
Scrambling Free to Air? Isn't that just Free to View? It's like suggesting vegetarian food should contain more meat. And "ensuring no leaks to the Net"? Oh, I seriously doubt that.
Licensing set-top box production and preventing consumers from becoming broadcasters, but enabling them to receive, store and do home networking are some rules that regulators should lay down to protect content, concluded Williams. He recommended making content protection cheaper by going completely digital. "Why do you need analog outputs?" he asks.
And there it is, who needs that festering analogue wound in the side of every receiver, spilling our digital goodness into the cupping hands of those evil pirates? Clearly the digital changeover in the US went so well that it was obviously just too easy. This time people should be forced to buy new TVs as well! Admittedly, this is the satellite TV industry talking, and they do have a habit of claiming special excuses for acting like the owners of content rather than merely the transmitters - kind of like the guy who delivers your new washing machine scratching his name on the front of it then hanging around and asking for money every time you want to use it.
Yeah, I think that's enough analogies for this weekend.
Over the last few years I've been watching TV die. Even after going out of my way to get satellite because it was the only way to get a reliable service out here in the woods, I've found myself watching less and less. It is a rare occasion indeed for me to actually sit down and watch a show from beginning to end. When I miss a show that I intended to watch there is no more "aw crap!" reaction that I recall from the past. On more than one occasion I've found myself with remote in my hand, staring at the listings and thinking "even though there is a show I thought I wanted to see, I can't actually be bothered to set up a recording." The new relationship with TV appears to be one of opportunistic sampling - when particularly bored or put out by some other medium or project I might turn on and watch whatever can be found that is the least anti-intellectual. Then, an hour later, It'll be turned off. So delicate is this connection that sometimes a show will be turned off, not because it's dull or offensive, but because having to turn down the ads to an acceptable volume every fifteen minutes is more annoying that the show is interesting.
Another thing that leads to this general malaise is that the listings are becoming a serious impediment to viewing. Despite having access to an accurate schedule for every available channel for the next seven days I can honestly say that for weeks now I have not looked at more than the next three hours in that "wall of worthless" for any channel. In a world of ballooning lateral access, locating anything of value on linear TV has become too much of a chore for too little entertainment.
So what the hell happened? Is it me? Or could it be the content, could it actually be less entertaining than it used to be? Or rather, has it stopped evolving in line my expectations of innovation? If this were multiple choice I think we'd check that last one.
The problem appears to be one of homogenisation - every channel, regardless of their original remit, wants to reach the largest possible audience. So if one type of programming draws a greater audience then every channel will want that type of programming. And so we have 24 hours of make-over and pimping shows on what used to be called "Music Television", and we even have reality TV on the SciFi channel... sorry that will be "SyFy" for the US viewers:
SyFy: where we're going, we won't need "i"s
The reason for this fuss over the locking down of a medium that is rapidly dipping below the horizon of relevance is because we can see a whole lot of defectors of this nature having a serious impact on viewing figures. The subsequent drop in advertising revenue will no doubt be blamed on illicit distribution of the same content that we can't be bothered to watch. Naturally, the finger will be pointed at the Internet. With Ireland already facing a de facto Three-strikes law and Internet censorship over music distribution, such attention is only going to add to the troubles. That the MPAA et al are deciding amongst themselves to further break our already compromised personal technology is a damning signal of both their mortally ill business and our own complacency over their power.
End result: an industry that produces something dull that we don't care about is trying to control us because we don't particularly want their product any more. The sounds of their desperate scrabbling for power are not unfamiliar.