Friday, April 6, 2012

Is there a new television?

Contrary to some doomsayers, television is not out and replaced by Internet. In France and in most developed countries, the time spent on television is growing every year with the addition of hundreds of new channels. Of course, most of the broadcast is rubbish but never mind, there are always some people, young or old willing to watch.

What is dramatically changing is the television market. The share of audience from the old broadcasters such as TF1, FRance 2 and 3 and M6 is going down as the TNT channels are taking over more than 25% of the audience.

Still the real battle of the future is about contents. People like sports and fiction and both are hotly disputed. You see Qatar buying foot ball rights at exhorbitants prices to boost its new sports channel. We are also going to see Google and Apple fighting for the best American series to display on their Internet connected televisions. Here Internet is coming back with a vengeance.

At the same time old newspapers are investing in video news that will provide audience on their exhausted websites and compete with information channels;

In 10 years, television will be all over the place but its organization will sharply differ from to day. There will be new actors with very deep pockets. TF1 and CBS, beware.