So, staying in is the new going out and no one is benefiting more than the paid for TV industry. Regular readers of this blog will know my beef with Sky, but they have done a stunning job in convincing over a million people to sign up to their HD service, which comes internet and 3D ready. Considering that HD, to my eye, offers a barely perceptible improvement on most programming to well scalled PAL, their marketing machine has totally shown up Virgin Media's inability to profit from its VoD capabilities.
In the US Comcast and Time Warner are doing well (although largely due to improvements in their triple play marketing and better pricing).
But what are consumers willing to pay for ? Well, it seems aggregated services, channel packages, movies, porn and sports work but individual programmes and channels outside the above genres do not.
With increasing scepticism about the ability of advertising to drive the internet TV industry, perhaps Hulu will start toying with the idea of a premium service; at the same time noises about microcharging are coming out of YouTube, but it does make me wonder if people will pay for clips of skateboarding cats.
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