Youtube Moving in on Television

Youtube recently announced it will be offering 100 new TV channels, starting this fall, with the full slate up and running in 2012.

With a host of options becoming available to customers, online TV type entertainment is becoming a force to be reckoned with - seriously. Offerings by Apple, Google, Netflix and others are certain to be making further inroads into traditional television, which already is hurting and showing every sign of becoming obsolete. Some say it already is and will disappear in the not to distant future.

IT does seem inevitable that TV as we have known and loved (hated?) it is doomed for the dustbin. The flexibility that is possible with internet based entertainment is just too attractive not to be successful.

The big fly in the ointment at this time is the infrastructure, which is not robust enough to absorb an onslaught of new high volume users.Internet bandwidth is indeed a fixed quantity and massive growth, such as that which would occur with widespread video streaming of the magnitude to replace TV, would be too much for it to bear.

The cable companies have an infrastructure that can handle high volume streaming, and they need to make better use of it. They also need to change their business models to recognize this major change in their industry, just as the telephone companies have had to do. It's true that the cable companies offer internet services already, but the model presently separates the internet service from the traditional cable offerings. What they need to do is to merge these, so that people can view the internet seamlessly on their TV sets. They can still offer traditional cable, but should recognize that eventually this business might dry up and be totally replaced by the internet, as the latter matures.

They might be concerned about cannibalizing their traditional cable business, but in fact, this kind of new direction will actually save their bacon in the longer term. For an article on Youtube, click this link.