Video-Endgame | The battle for the future of television has begun

2012

It's quite certain that television as we know it today will no longer exist in 2020. Technology, players, content – all will change dramatically, moving toward a networked world of experience made up of linear TV content, video, communities, Internet and user-(gene)rated content.

By 2010, the TV market had already changed enormously, mainly as a result of new usage formats. Media centers like Hulu/Netflix or the BBC's iPlayer were making international premium content globally available, leading the way to the business model of the future: the station/broadcaster as a "content store". The interactive standard Hybrid Broadcast Broadband made it possible to use web and TV content simultaneously on one platform. Linear and non-linear content were becoming increasingly mixed.

By 2020, the balance of power will have shifted further. Global OTTs will have become perfectly normal players in the TV industry and will include networks such as Facebook or Google+ and portals such as Apple TV/iTunes, YouTube, Netflix and Hulu. They will compete with traditional broadcasters, former network operators and pay channels.