The Opportunity for BBitv

I just read this CNet article, “The Internet and the future of TV” and hope my friends over at Honolulu-based BBiTV read it too.

There’s an interesting future evolving for TV. Is interactive/on-demand TV programming going to be delivered over the Internet (IP) or via cable TV? Thinking about this very briefly, I’d say “both”.

When I watch TV, I like sitting back in my couch, remote in-hand, flipping through the channels until I find something I like. Sometimes we watch the show as a family, sometimes its just me and my bowl of Haagen daz.

When I watch video on my computer, I’m sitting at my desk, I pretty much know what I’m going to click on and then I expect it to come up within a few minutes. It’s short, sweet, and then I’m off to something else.

These two scenarios seem quite different to me. There may be a more converged future where your TiVo’s net connection downloads shows until you want to see them. That kind of a world seems a likely place for satellite providers to go and allows them to offer something like on-demand video currently provided by the cablecos.

If I were BBiTV, I’d come up with an architecture that supports both methods and be prepared to fluidly develop a platform for either one.