[By Mark Sweney] The rise of video-on-demand viewing in the UK could replace the need for up to 200 small TV channels, it was claimed on Saturday on a panel at the Edinburgh International Television Festival.
Nigel Walley, managing director of consultancy Decipher, said that the rise of video-on-demand, forecast to grow to 40 percent of all TV viewing in five years, could spell the end of many multichannel services.
“We are now at the end of the multichannel era. What we will see is a culling of [up to] 200 channels,” he said, adding the caveat that viewers would substitute linear viewing of TV channels only if quality VOD services are provided. He added that VOD would offer a different way of delivering choice just as the launch of multichannel TV had done in the past.
“Some channels down the end of the electronic programming guide were the linear answer to more choice,” said Ashley Highfield, the chief executive of on-demand joint venture Project Kangaroo. “If that choice is provided by VOD services then many then don’t necessarily need them.” Highfield added that he didn’t think such a viewing shift would necessarily threaten bigger multichannel players such as UKTV and the History channel, but smaller services.
Debbie Manners, group commercial director at RDF Media, also agreed that Walley’s prognosis for multichannel was “probably true”. “I do question about secondary channels, we may see a lot disappear and frankly a lot [of channels] at the top of the EPG [also] do live on archive programming, like UKTV,” Manners said.
This article originally appeared in © Guardian News & Media Ltd..
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