Control and Demand

One of the greatest developments from and challenges to broadcasters is the idea of greater user control. Remember the revolution that allowed you to program codes from the Radio Times to record shows onto your VCR? Sky+ and Virgin+ allow you to take that control so much further, recording series, pausing and rewinding live TV. Personally speaking, I love the fact that you can record your favourite show and the fast forward through all the adverts.

On Demand is what users increasingly want, and they are taking greater ownership of how they watch it and where they watch it from.

For example, a new episode of Lost airs in the USA very early on a Thursday morning and it will air on the following Sunday evening on Sky One. In the interim, the user has a multitude of options in how they can digest this content, and can be quite demanding as to how soon they want it:

They can download it via Bittorrent (P2P) or Rapidshare (file-hosting), then have the alternative of watching on their laptop or streaming it to their TV via their Xbox 360, PS3, Apple TV, Squeezebox etc. (not entirely legal).

OR
They can stream it from one of the many not entirely legal video hosting sites, such as www.surfthechannel.com, www.tvshack.net or www.ovguide.com

Increasingly, many young people are turning to sites like the above to watch their favourite programmes. The quality from such streams are not great, but a lot like the scenario in terms of music downloads, the ability to consume a product instantly, or on their terms, takes precedence over quality.

This also means that someone in the UK can download their favourite show as soon as it airs, rather than having to wait for months on end for a series to import from the US. For example, The Sopranos was watched by many here almost immediately after it aired in the US and many many column inches were devoted to the ending of the landmark show. Consequently, by the time it aired in the UK, there was a good chance you had either read about the ending or someone had unwittingly told you!