The End of Broadcast? The IET John Logie Baird Lecture 2020

Broadcast Television delivered over the air, via satellite, via cable and via IP multicast, has been around a very long time. Characterised by a primarily one way, one to many delivery of the same content to all receivers that 'tune' into the content via channels, it is a very efficient way of delivering video entertainment to the masses.

However Television has and is continuing to change. In my working life I have seen the introduction of digital television and the turn off of analogue transmission methods and the question is whether I am seeing another change from traditional broadcast television to television delivered fully over the Internet.

Where does this come from?

In the late 1990s and through to the mid 2000s as the nascent consumer Internet grew to become a way of delivering instant connectivity for all sorts of services from access to encyclopedic information, news, shopping and communicating with each other, it also became a place for high quality video and audio. Initially driven by postage sized low quality video, technology improved and it grew to support the fully commercial on demand video services that we know today such as iTunes, Netflix, YouTube, Disney and BBC iPlayer.

This was driven through the growth in consumer smartphones, tablets, laptops, smart TVs, the addition of broadband capabilities to the traditional STB and the growth of low cost video players. Internet OTT services now provide consumers with access to literally unlimited video content, on demand whenever the viewer wants to watch, wherever they wish to watch. Viewing behaviour has also changed a lot over the last 15 years with active discussion about just how much it really has changed being a regular conversation point in industry conferences and in the social networks where the industry players dwell.

Something else has happened as these services have also grown to include the same 'linear' channels that are available to the consumer over the traditional broadcast networks, as well as many of the service features of a full TV service - timeshift or recording. This has allowed consumers to migrate away from traditional broadcast sources to IP only video delivery, but where will it end? Are we searching for the inflexion point when this move from the RF world to the common network of IP packets will occur and the old world of broadcast television will go the way of analogue television.

What are the main drivers for this switch? Viewer behaviour? Easy availability of high speed broadband Internet? Access to mobile Internet? Easy availability of handheld devices? The transition of TVs from pure displays to include significant computer power and connectivity via the Internet? Other social change brought about by easy access to high powered computing devices and high quality screens?

All these questions and more were debated and discussed at the suitably 'virtual' 2020 IET John Logie Baird Lecture on 16th July from 15:00 UK time (UTC+1) onwards. I moderated a wonderful selection of perspectives from great panellists Maria Rua Aguete from Omdia, Chris Wood of Spicey Mango, Yvonne Thomas of the Digital TV Group and Nigel Walley of Decipher. I invite you to register, grab a suitable beverage and watch the whole webinar on demand from the link.

The IET John Logie Baird Lecture - The End of Broadcast?

Ian Nock, Chair of the IET Media Technical Network, Founder of Fairmile West Consulting.