Recent technological changes have helped transform the way we watch television. Traditional terrestrial television channels have lost audience share as the number of viewers tuning into cable, satellite and digital stations has exploded.
The traditional model of television, controlled by a small number of schedulers who doled out entertainment that the whole nation would gather around television sets in their living room to watch has been shattered.
New means of delivery, such as video-on-demand, time-shifting and digital downloading mean that people can choose to watch programmes whenever they want. New technologies such as third generation mobile phones, personal video players like iPods and rapid spread of broadband enabled internet connections now mean that people can watch the internet where they want. The proliferation of channels mean that viewers are increasingly able to watch exactly what they want for as long as they want.
Digital television is already in almost 80% of households and in 2008 the first stage of the analogue switch-off will begin. By 2012 analogue broadcasting will be a thing of the past and multi-channel television will be universal.
The impact on the British system of broadcasting cannot be underestimated.
For the BBC the decline of audience share on its flagship channels could undermine the corporation’s central role as the nation's public service broadcaster, making the case for the continuation of the licence fee more difficult to sustain.
For commercial broadcasters the economic impact is more immediately dramatic as falling revenue from advertising puts pressure on budgets.
At the same time the increasing spread of low-cost television, from reality programmes to the "user-generated" content migrating from Internet sites such as YouTube, appears to mark a decisive shift away from quality commissioning.
In this rapidly changing environment, Equity has been working hard to ensure that our members' interests are protected.