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Channelling

There’s a discussion in the U.S. regarding the future of multichannel television. Certain consumer groups are lobbying for a change in the rules about how multichannel packages are sold. At present when you buy a package, you get a preselected group of channels. This is the same in the UK. These consumer groups want the packaging of channels to be dropped, in favour of allowing customers to select exactly the specific channels they want to subscribe to.

Some people that run religious broadcasting channels aren’t happy with this proposal because it means that the public will not be able to stumble upon such channels when they are “in need”. They are also concerned that fewer people will view their channels because fewer people will make an explicit choice to subscribe to them.

But, other religious broadcasters aren’t happy with the current situation either, because they find it abhorrent to be packaged alongside those channels that they consider depraved or corrupting.

Mark made a comment to one of my recent posts, referring to the God Channel. Ever since I subscribed to Sky, back in the early 1990’s, there’s been such a channel. Prior to Sky’s recent channel reorganisation, I stumbled across it a couple of times a day in my absent-minded flick through the stations. With the recent renumbering of the channels, the God Channel has now disappeared into the 700’s. The result? I never see it.

Permalink | General Musings

2 Responses to "Channelling"

  1. 29 June 2006 at 05:19 PM

    Mark wrote:

    Dunno what the answer is to the broader question (religous broadcasters aside). I’d quite like to reduce my Sky subscription and there are a lot of Sky channels that I don’t watch. It seems to me that we should be able to have a TV subscription experience that is less packaged but fully flexible / on-demand. For example, I can browse aimlessly through the channels, watching a programme for maybe a couple of minutes before I get asked if I’d like to pay for the current programme or add the channel to my current subscription. Just an ill-considered thought.

    Coming back to religous broadcasting. Perhaps those who believe people should be able to stumble across their channel at any time should consider making the channel free (like the God channel is in the UK). Commercialism in some parts of the Christian media industry stinks in my humble opinion.

    Which is another reason why I like Extreme Prophetic. They started with nothing and they turned down all offers of funding that would make their channel commercial (they had offers from Hollywood Christian TV producers who just didn’t get it and said “we can make money out of this”).

    They filmed their first episode in Patricia’s kitchen using an HD camcorder and a home brewed lighting rig made from domestic spot lights and tin foil. You can also watch Extreme Prophetic any time for free on their website. I heard a rumour that they’ll soon be introducing free Podcasts so that you don’t need to buy their CDs just to get access to their teaching material.

    How do they fund it? They pray. They believe that God owns it. They won’t sell-out and they won’t close their own hands around it either. They ask Christians to consider partnering with them.

  2. 30 June 2006 at 03:14 PM

    chris wrote:

    I believe that minority channels will eventually make their way over to the internet, in the form of video and audio Podcasts. TV will be the domain for mainstream broadcasters.

    The startup costs for TV channels are relatively low, compared to what they used to be. But channels end up paying a lot for merely listing, and rely on advertising.

    There are a lot of interesting channels that appear in the UK, only to disappear a few weeks or months later. Yet, those that scam money out of people survive (i.e. the chat and quiz channels).

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