Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

SoylentNews is people

posted by janrinok on Thursday January 12 2017, @10:56AM   Printer-friendly
from the who-pays-the-licence? dept.

The BBC is abandoning linear exclusivity as it goes for broke to make the iPlayer a global Netflix rival. The corporation says it will throw entire series on to the on-demand streaming service before the first episode in a series is even broadcast on terrestrial TV.

Director-General Tony Hall will call for the BBC to "reinvent public broadcasting for a new generation in order to compete against giants such as Netflix and Amazon" this morning.

Hall has set two targets: double the number of visits to iPlayer and quadruple the time a user spends on the iPlayer site by 2020.

Established broadcasters have faced increasing pressure from OTT providers in recent years. Netflix spent more on content (buying and licensing it) than the BBC or HBO last year. Netflix made "binge watching" series cheap and easy – previously you'd need to buy an expensive box set, and those usually sold to fans.

But for the BBC to follow suit and dump entire series on the internet at once means surrendering one of its key advantages: its ability to create artificial scarcity. Withholding episodes creates "event TV" – a common cultural experience – and results in increased attention. As Enders Analysis points out, live viewing has fallen 19 per cent since 2010 as time-shifted viewing making up about 40 per cent of the decline. "Linear remains vital," the consultancy warns.

Is "event TV" still a thing for non-sports programming?


Original Submission

 
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
Display Options Threshold/Breakthrough Mark All as Read Mark All as Unread
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 12 2017, @07:23PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 12 2017, @07:23PM (#453026)

    The BBC is actually good at making single-season shows. They also avoid that american failing of packing them with filler episodes. One 8 episode BBC show often tells more story in a more engaging fashion than one 22 episode american show.