Can hybrid television redefine Australian TV? – The consumer experience
Tomorrow sees the launch of Freeview Plus, the long-awaited industry hybrid broadcast/IPTV service. Ahead of the launch, Mumbrella’s Nic Christensen talked to Freeview and the five major TV networks, in this two part special, to look at how it might impact the medium and the wider industry.
It’s 2019 and 32-year-old Eve from Kirribilli in Sydney comes home late from work. As she settles on the sofa after a long day in the office she flicks on the TV, and realises she has missed the season premiere of her favourite US TV drama series.
Years ago Eve could have caught up on her tablet or computer, but the major TV networks would have made her wait until the program had finished broadcasting and then a little time waiting for it to be made live online, as well as limiting her to their broadcast schedule.
But in 2019 her HbbTV internet connected TV knows she’s coming in late to the show and asks her “do you want to watch this program from the start?” She hits yes and starts watching a streamed broadcast of the show from the beginning.
Awful, awful writing: ‘a prompt comes up asking if she would like to “binge” and watch the next couple of episodes. “Why not its only 9pm?”, Eve thinks as she clicks yes.’
I’m sure there’s some fantastic research in here, but I just couldn’t get past this.
If it impacts badly on the station’s existing online offerings especially iView and SBS+ then it’ll be a disaster.
Anything that relies on propriety equipment is doomed to failure.
I want to watch what I want to watch, when I want to watch it and on a variety of platforms.
I’m not getting rid of any otherwise perfectly serviceable equipment just to play the freeview game.
@Michael – Er, right… so “awful” it needs to be written twice, eh? And in trying to highlight one punctuation error you’ve made another. Brilliant.
“It’s 2019 and…..”
Or
“It’s 2014 and that’s happening right now with a VPN and Netflix or Torrents.”
Might not bother waiting the 5 years for the networks to catch up.
@”bruce”
That is truly hilarious. I’m surprised you can actually spell punctuation while starting sentences with ‘Er(sic)’ and ‘And’, then completing them with ‘eh’. Priceless!
It’s already here, was launched at intergrate last week, it’s a Product called Seebo.
Look them up, best product on the market, and does even more.
Eve wants to binge…on what?
There is nothing on FTA worth binging on.
agree with con check out seebo they have nailed it , its by far the best I have seen and is a real solid piece of kit .
It’s 2019 and 32-year-old Eve from Kirribilli in Sydney comes home late from work. As she settles on the sofa after a long day in the office she flicks on the TV, and realises she has missed the season premiere of her favourite US TV drama series.
Years ago Eve not only caught up on her tablet or computer, but also downloaded an HD version of her show on uTorrent that she streamed live on her Playstation / Apple TV. Which took her under 8 minutes to download.
But in 2019 her HbbTV internet connected TV knows she’s coming in late to the show and asks her “do you want to watch this program from the start?” She hits yes and starts watching a streamed broadcast of the show from the beginning. Thinking back to Netflix, Hulu and even Foxtel on-demand, she starts thinking about how antiquated Australian free-to-air TV is.
Not to worry. With the Abbott government making home ownership impossible, she has to work 23 hours a day to afford the $1500 per week rent on her shit-house studio apartment in Carabella St. One that doesn’t even face the harbour of course.
And when the show is finished, a prompt comes up asking if she would like to “binge” and watch the next couple of episodes. “Why not it’s only 2am?”, Eve thinks as she clicks yes. A pre-roll ad, that is targeted to her based on not only her viewing habits, demographic, gender but also her postcode of Kirribilli, plays.
The ad is for a $12 tin of tomatoes at the local IGA, which is still run by the same Greek family that have been there for years. Preferring to spend $22 on her Opal card to head up to North Sydney and do the shopping, the ad was wasted.
Thankfully, she’s still saving thousands of dollars and streaming content before it’s even available on Foxtel through using a VPN and Netflix.
Way to go, Eve, living the dream, albeit single and penniless, in Kirribilli. Feck knows what the nouveau riche in Parramatta are doing in 2019.
Will it work or will it be too little too late? Key is it has to be easier to access and better than piracy. I’m not an optimist – I think the attempts to “monetise” will likely go too far and thus the pirates will stay in their happy pirate land.
I’m 99% sure that this whole venture is just to boost advertising revenue by allowing the stations to directly track and target their advertising, which I’m certain other connected services like foxtel are not allowed to do… If they cared about offering a truly world class product they would eradicate the time gap for big international broadcast television!
This fact that networks can target specific demographics like a lazer beam is certianly going ot be good for the viewer as well, but… will the regional broadcasters be irrevelant? Will they just continue to service the shrinking existing terrestrial aging viewers?
Expected Freeview to be some kind of html5 site any of my devices could stream high definition video from. That would be cool.
But nope! It’s purposely crippled expensive crap. Back to torrents.
@ Michael’s big bro… How wonderful that you have such old fashioned standards. Why you’re telling me, though, I have no idea… you see I never claimed to be a language messiah like the first commenter did. I mocked because he made such a fuss over an inane point. Glad you got apparently got a laugh out of it however.
This is all very well but what is it going to cost the individual.
Is it an additional set top box and if so HOW MUCH>
Hi Terry C,
As it says in the piece approved new TVs will go on sale later this year, or you can buy a set top box, probably looking at at least $100 for one of those.
Cheers,
Alex – editor, Mumbrella