Here’s an interesting tidbit: The BBC iPlayer is being rolled out for an international non-British audience as a subscription service that runs on the iPad. Hello, what does this tell us?
1) It tells us that iPlayer for iOS will not be a Flash app, most likely HTML5. And that means that unless the BBC decide not to, that the iPlayer app will bounce video from the iPad its playing on to AppleTVgen2. Which is attached via HDMI to your tellie.
2) There is a growing interest in “cable cutting” an American phrase describing people who give up their cable/satillite subscriptions and find replacement programming via the internet. The BBC has taken a leading role as a broadcaster in exploring the internet as a viable delivery vehicle. Not all of their initiatives have been successful and the successful ones are flawed but BBC has learned a lot and has high standards. The BBC iPlayer-iPad should be an interesting app making use of a lot of experience with iPlayer.
Ironically an international subscription version of BBC World or BBC America could lead to huge new revenue streams for the financially constrained BBC Britain. And just this year BBC World was spun back into BBC Britain for the first time in yonks.
This roll out of mobile based BBC content around the globe may make BBC World the major source of funding for BBC Britain. That would be a good thing IMO but an interesting story of tail wags dog.
I’m fairly convinced that the revenue models the article speaks of are the way forward for the broadcasters. As soon as a network sees a way to make more money out of mobile app programming than it does by using the cable-satilitte conduit, then good bye cable-satilitte. The BBC is doing interesting pioneer work.
But others will surely follow. They all will eventually or die a corporate death.
Importantly, the device which simplifies the process of cable cutting and makes it a no-brainer will be market disruptive device. AirPlay, the iPad and AppleTV are the model of the future of television. You’ll subscribe to the networks you want… the networks will have apps for all the portable devices and you’ll either watch on your portable/personal device or you’ll beam the signal to your tellie and watch it there.
The process has already begun. Maybe in 4 years it will be leaving the early adaptor phase. Or it might just be one of those almost overnight explosions whose momentum of change is striking.
Oh, and just one more thing: AppleTVgen2 is the 13th most purchased gadget at Amazon. BTW GoogleTV is #143. Just saying…
