Tectonic Shift Signals End Of Road For TV Set
Will 2017 be that point in history when the television set as we know it starts the long, weary march to the museum?
A tectonic shift in home entertainment delivery registered in the final weeks of 2016.
With Amazon Prime launching The Grand Tour and Netflix streaming The Crown, it became clear that the old terrestrial channels can no longer command the best programmes.
The mega-budgets for these productions were markers for the future.
Netflix is said to have spent £100 million on The Crown, outgunning the BBC’s lavish War and Peace, at a mere £10 million, ten-fold.
Amazon ploughed £4.5 million per episode into the Grand Tour, compared with £650,000 per episode for the ill-fated Chris Evans-led version of Top Gear.
This has echoes of the days when Premier League clubs started throwing silly money at the best players in their quest for domination.
The resultant upheaval hit fans in their pockets and virtually eliminated live league football from terrestrial telly.
From 2017 onwards, writers and directors with a cracking drama to pitch will surely follow in the footsteps of Peter Morgan and Stephen Daldry to knock on the door of Netflix first.
There is a significant likelihood that the Beeb and ITV, in commissioning programmes, will be left scrapping over the lower league contenders while Netflix and Amazon cream off the Premiership performers.
As a result, surely, in this era of streaming over the internet, the days of pre-scheduled transmissions to rooftop aerials must be numbered.
The future for the screen in the lounge will then be as just ones of many items under the control of a home’s central computer.
