What I want when I want it and all for free or with transparent pricing.

We have not had a television in the house since about 2002, partly as it was a TV I acquired from a flat I moved into in 1991 (!) and it was a bit tired, partly because reception got a bit crap when they repaired our roof but left the aerial dangling (!!), and finally, because we were too busy doing other things to really relax enough in front of the idiot box at the same time that something good was on.

And timing is everything these days. We don’t like swapping our personal schedules for the vagaries of the advertising markets and may want to watch Little Britain at noon, or Sesame Street at 7PM. And what exactly is wrong with occasionally passing on the news and watching a film at 6PM?

Last night we watched three episodes of a comedy program on the BBC iPlayer because we liked it and wanted to see it right then. There are several Live TV over IP offerings available like Zattoo and Joost and they are starting to get somewhere but no-one really has got it right, as the iPlayer has a short expiry rate (one week) and the two latter ones occasionally fail on decent network support, leaving you with terrible compression artifacts or no connections at all partway through the program.

TV will have to wake up and become aware that people will find it if the originators don’t offer it. The consumer world is now aware that you can get what you want and should be able to get it when you want it. Those that are aware of this will be the respected suppliers (whinge all you like, but iTunes, even with it’s restrictive practices and weird pricing structure, gets it right enough to use) who deliver a good enough proportion of what we want.

The issue is not Intellectual Property, really, it is about milking us for something we already paid for (how anyone in the US watches television I don’t know as there seems to be the same amount of advertising as program, even without the blatant product placement!) and the consumers WILL find a solution that fits. TV companies should be cognizant of all the mistakes of the music industry and be aware…