Choice, choice, choice
UK already fragmenting with BBC using iplayer and competition from virgin v sky.
hundreds of channels and nothing worth watching - who will be the intermediary ??

The one thing missing from this shutdown of the local over-the-air broadcasting that you sugggest would happen is what if any local news will be left? The FCC recently rejected objections to license renewals of stations in Milwaukee and Chicago that provided almost no local election coverage.

If the FCC isn't interested (and their influence over providers would be much less with broadband delivery), newspapers not making a buck (online or not) and radio being dominated by national ownership and their formula formating, I see little local news coverage from anyone. Is this a good thing?

Granted I am dating myself as I worked through college at a AM/FM combination station and later at a PBS station in the early 70s. We did at least go through the motions of broadcasting "in the public interest".

I don't know what might fill the gap in local coverage and your premise seems reasonable but is this what we want to happen? Will the broadcasting guys be able to move over to this medium where the physical plant is controlled by someone else and a fee is required? Would such a service be ad supported, be a subscription service or a pay-per-view? Could any provider make enough money except by going after the lowest common denominator?

I don't have answers but would be interested in seeing where others might think this could be heading.

I really hate when people call it "Moore's Law". It is not a law. It may be a theory or a postulation, but there is no LAW of the universe that says that any particular property of microelectronic circuitry will increase at any given fixed rate. As for the growth of bandwidth and it use by consumers, I think the American capitalistic market is working just fine. If there was some compelling reason to need more bandwidth, we would pay for it. RIght now cable TV is hundreds of channels of garbage and most of the Internet is stupid bloggers with nothing meaningful to say, endless Flash presentations (which I block thank you), and various other meaningless drivel like YouTube videos and mySpace pages. I got rid of my cable Internet connection a while back when the phone company offered me a high-speed DSL connection that was a fast as my cable connection and did not require any long-term contract. Sure cable can crank up the bandwidth more if they need to, but I was tired of being forced to get cable TV service to get cable Internet and I really don't want to pay for all the garbage TV channels I never watch. Why should my money subsidize crap like MTV, ESPN 1-40 (playing repeats of poker games) or other noise like Bravo, shopping channels, etc. The first company to offer me a la carte TV channel selection will get my business. "If you build it they will come"... well if you had something worth the higher bandwidth on TV or Internet people would demand the bandwidth and pay for it for it to be delivered. Garbage in - Garbage out.

True enough. At my household we rarely watch broadcast TV. We watch YouTube, Hulu and BitTorrent. It is too inconvienent to watch what everyone else is watching at the same time.

Regarding "futurists methodology..."
One doesn't really need to be a futurist on this one. The handwriting is on the wall.

It will take longer for people to realize they need and want better broadband than it will take for the technical rollout. And if the prices don't come down then broadband subscription won't go up. I still see a lot of TV ads for dialup.

I live in semi-rural Montana where wireless is the only "broadband" available. While hunting in the back country I ran off the road and needed to be rescued by a friendly rancher. While I was waiting for towing services we chatted while he did some computer work. When I asked him about his Internet connection he said he was just using dialup. He said he was offered fiber to the home because it ran through his ranch and the phone company was trying to meet some goals. Even though there was not install cost to him and the rate was very low, he turned it down. I told him that people would kill for that kind of service. He just shrugged his shoulders and said he didn't see any need for it.

Sigh...

Next month NBC is going to decide for us Americans what Olympic matches we get to see. I'm looking forward to the day when I get to make that choice myself.

Broadcasting is becoming obsolete. I won't miss it.

As someone who lives in Japan, I'd like to know where I can buy this $20 a month internet service, because the last time I checked 100 megabit up/down fiber service cost about $70 from all providers. Softbank BB, which is branded as Yahoo! BB, is ¥7,234 per month for home users. I use NTT's service through a secondary provider and pay a little less, but nothing near this $20 price Robert continues to throw about. The first time he mentioned this magic number in a previous column I laughed, but now having based an entire column on this figure, I have to call him on it. Even if someone, somewhere is charging only $20 (probably in some apartment or condo where interenet access is a complimentary service), the general price is much higher than Robert claims.

Bob is so tiring. He needs a real job. Reading articles by people who make up facts is so passe now that we have a choice!

Well, of course Bob is right! And I remember when the same broadcast television model that is predicted to die was going to kill the movies off.

Bob is def 100% right. The role of the programmer will die. I just don't think they'll go out w/ a bang 7 years from now. It'll be much less dramatic. They're already growing obsolete w/ DVR, OnDemand, Netflix, YouTube, P2P(hello NerdTV), iTunes/AppleTV, and other digital video services. Most people I know don't watch broadcast TV when it's broadcast ALREADY.

It's decline has begun and in 7 years the curve will still be on the decline, with maybe a few small-time free-to-air local channels only in large markets. There are always those with limited resources and/or desire to aquire newer technologies, even when cheap by middle-class standards.

We all know, even Bob wrote about it, that adoption of new technology is astronomically slower than its development and even deployment. I believe all the 40-somethings need to die off before you see the collapse of broadcast TV. And people are living longer!

What we are seeing coming about is technology competition - not necessarily replacement. I have an antenna with a digital-uhf-ish amplifier. All we watch there is PBS's 24 hour kids station and Leno's monologue. Everything else is purchased on demand using the AppleTV (over ATT's fiber to the curb), purchased DVDs, or bittorent when some fool decides not to sell me the content.

Culturally we are slowly getting used to the idea of having content on demand and being forced to think about what we want. But this will take a long time for adoption.

I am looking forward to it. Instead of market analysis determining content (crap), content creators will be in a true market place where the niche providers have a marketable place again (what we are seeing with music).

Here's the thing, though. What Bob is predicting about the evolution of delivery tech is almost certainly spot-on. But even when all the TV networks move to IP-based delivery platforms, it still won't necessarily mean the immediate end of the TV business model as we know it. (Yes, commercials will probably become more personalized. So what? Programs will still have release schedules, and for novelty junkies a release schedule amounts to the same thing as a broadcast schedule.)

Networks will still want to stagger their releases in order to maintain consistent cash flow over time, since most of the commercial-watching viewers are going to come within a short window after a given program's initial release.

What WILL bite the big one, however, is broadcast TV's remaining advantage over online entertainment delivery. When all your video entertainment comes through an IP pipe, no difference remains between NBC, ITMS, and YouTube.

What I don't get is where all this money for buying all this stuff is going to come from. It's 2008: the housing market is collapsing, there are financial institutions needing bailouts, our national infrastructure is crumbling, gas is $4/gallon, wages are stagnant, and inflation is heading upward. Where, exactly, are we going to find the money for all these nifty new gadgets?

I've got this theory that once the DTV conversion happens on Feb 2009, the electronics industry will find that demand for their new televisions will plummet. This is an eerie echo of the demand for IT upgrades/support heading into the Millenium Bug countdown. A couple of months after Jan 2000 hit, the dot com and IT market took a downturn. The consumer electronics market will probably do the same thing, given that it's being propped up by the need to either get a converter box or a new television. If the consumer electronics market takes a huge hit, then a lot of these cool new ideas will sit on the back burner due to a lack of money.

There's just too much to think about on this topic. My head is spinning.

Subscription vs pay per view. Will I be nickel and dime'd to death?

Blockbuster vs long tail and the different ways those categories get paid for.

Lowest common denominator vs high quality. What happens if the most popular/bankable celebrity is a porn star?

Un-skipable commercials vs exciting/interesting commercials.

How will I find the interesting programs? Is my TV watching experience going to be like reading Digg, browsing YouTube, or watching "The Soup"?