Streaming has been getting all the attention but TV is still doing the heavy lifting

She slams streaming then uses stats comparing FTA TV to pay TV??…me thinks the head of Freeview may be somewhat confused about technology.

I agree with Duncan, she is comparing Free-to-Air TV against Pay-TV to say that Streaming isn’t popular? How does that work?

Not to mention, if last years ratings are any indication – the “Top 10” programs on Free-to-Air, were sporting events — a bit hard to compare the quality of the service offering when “who paid the most money for sport” effectively determine the rankings.

Further to that, audiences have grown in the US as there has been a notable increase in quality long-form drama. 7 of the top 10 most expensive-to-produce television shows EVER, were made in the last few years.

Again, whereas, last years top rating Free-to-Air TV shows were “The Block” and other reality TV shows. While this obviously sells, it certainly won’t inspire the increase in audiences that the US is currently enjoying.

I can’t help but think of Blockbuster reading this article, it reads as so far up their own arse — going to a conference where TV bosses talk about how good TV is going… that they are going to see the change come and leave them behind.

But hey, whatever helps her sleep at night.

Streaming services don’t disclose total number of viewers per program, so how is Liz determining that the top 200 programs from last year were from FTA stations?

Sure more people watch free to air than Pay TV. Less people have Pay TV.

But is TV still a dominate medium? Highly debatable. Of course online content will get more media coverage. Which is more relevant to an audience, something you need to tune in to see at a particular time or something you can watch whenever you please?Interesting that she mentions comedy. If the commercial networks had bothered to make any they might have a larger audience. When the networks produce long form content they get coverage.

How about FTA ‘invents’ an expensive set-top box nobody needs to duplicate the capability of their current tech.

Hehe, oh wait.

a very good piece that shows how out of touch free to air tv is. cool!

Netflix is certainly doing some heavy lifting, way more than the entire FTA industry in OZ anyway. Buying global rights, commissioning and creating very high quality content as well as icontinually nvesting in a 21st century platform

A bouquet to counter the brickbats. Long live Free to Air and Subscriber TV – of the lean back or lie down variety – especially if it is schlocked up by fabulous brand ads Delivered by Adstream, naturally!

Anyone remotely surprised that the top 200 programs of the ratings year were on free-­to-­air TV simply doesn’t understand how the ratings system works. That said, FTA is still far and away the dominant television experience and will remain so for a long time, probably forever.

Freeview, on the other hand, has simply failed to make much difference to anybody really. It was envisaged as a collective competitive response by the FTA’s, mainly to Foxtel, but it has been dogged (deliberate choice of words) by problematic technology. The Freeview box I was kindly given is now attached to 20 foot of anchor chain.

The author compares terrestrial TV with cable in Australia, but then compares _all_ TV in the US with SVOD – 83% of US households have cable.

Liz kinda has a point. People are still watching FTA TV. They are also using SVOD and catchup services. The shift is in the numbers of people using SVOD services so ultimately this will effect the numbers on FTA TV – how can it not?

FTA and catchup channels have a battle on their hands against SVOD and devices such as FreeviewPlus/Fetch/Apple TV might help. Time for the networks to work together before it is too late.

The change is coming…it is already here.

SVOD has only really started this year, come back in 3-5 yrs especially when the NBN is complete and I bet the media landscape will be a lot different.

Thanks to the two commenters that understood and made sense, Peter and Laurie.

Comparing stream counts over a month with live TV average minute audiences is like comparing US dollars with Zimbabwean dollars as though they are of equal value.

Yes the medium is changing and will change much more. But I cringe when I think of the number of start-ups that will blow Scrooge McDuck size piles of money by relying just on stream counts.

it’s a pity they’re so behind, and it’s a problem they’re not innovating. It’s more of a problem when the repercussions result in such a high % of AU media consumption $ ends-up flowing O/S.

After more than a decade of VOD / IPTV / Hybrid TV R&D – only the international availability of NetFlix turned the licensing corner. In-turn, an enormous % of AU Internet Bandwidth usage and GDP related impacts. not because the functionality was impossible, but rather, that it was impossible for an Australian company to achieve those results in our marketplace. Yet conversation about the future. Spectrum Sharing, Broadband; it’s just costly in my experience, impacting the industry as a whole and how we communicate ‘The Australian Way’.

http://www.linkedtv.eu/ = 1 small window –> the future. it’s not about DVB-T or DVB-T2, it’s about ubiquitous broadband…

I hope ‘the age of ideas’, ‘the age of the knowledge economy’ changes the way they’re able to support innovators, start-ups and every small business throughout Australia. It’s not just important for employees and shareholders of broadcasters to get paid, but everyone who provides useful, meaningful intellectual property that is found overtime to be indeed valued by others. May those media houses we call broadcasters today – live into the future – we all hope they find a means to develop their role, for all Australians.

HbbTV V2+ is an enormous opportunity: supporting AU on a network, operational, terciary education and in terms of international engagement. They’ve just got to understand it…