According to an article today on AdWeek.com, executives from television's top networks have all agreed on one thing: Within the next two years, at least 75% of television will be online. The piece, which speaks on the future of TV, reads, "...Matt Strauss from Comcast Interactive Media, Jeremy Legg from Turner, and David Preshlack of Disney and ESP predicted that TV 'everywhere' was imminent, and that in the same time frame the networks will be almost completely agnostic about where and when their video content is being viewed."
The article goes on to question the definition of TV. Those of us who have watched TV for more than 10 years may look at television as the actual TV set, the medium through which we watch our favorite programs. But for younger generations, television has a much broader definition: "My kids think an iPad is a TV. People don't think of TV anymore, they just think of video. For us, in the broader context of what we're doing, we're beginning to migrate everything to Internet video," said Strauss.
A potential hurdle in this crossover from television sets to online TV is the fact that broadband providers may begin to put caps on Internet usage. As reported on in another article for AdWeek.com, this is already a reality for AT&T customers. The article reads, "For AT&T broadband users, monthly Internet usage will be capped at 250 GB per month for fiber optic U-Verse customers and 150 monthly GB for DSL users -- with overage costs of $10 for every additional 50 gigabytes used." If TV will eventually solely be accessed via the Internet, then this new data capping will have some serious implications.
Netflix, which is a video streaming service that has already begun to move TV online, admits that this may be an issue. "An independent negative issue for Netflix and other Internet video providers would be a move by wired ISPs to shift consumers to pay-per-gigabyte models instead of the current unlimited-up-to-a-large-cap approach. We hope this doesn't happen," said Netflix CEO Reed Hastings.
Only time will tell how network execs handle the Internet data capping while converting TV to online and mobile device media. If the caps are put into place, we suggest the executives start handing out custom imprinted television stress relievers; they're surely going to have a lot of pissed off customers!
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