Who needs television?

Thursday, August 3, 2006 at 19:03 | Posted in Finland, Germany, Media, TV | 4 Comments

Marcel writes that the German broadcaster RTL is planning to encrypt all their satellite TV transmissions. Untill a few years ago I had free access to a couple of RTL channels but I never watched them because there was nothing I wanted to see. The best of those programmes were crap, some even worse than that. If I ever wanted to see the worse of American TV series, I would at least want them with the original sound track rather than dubbed into German. Just imagine seeing Matlock gesticulate on the screen but addressing the court in monotonous German!

According to Golem.de, the satellite service provider SES-Astra is going to launch a service packet on early 2007, of which RTL and other German private broadcasters are going to be a part. The viewers would have access to the packet for a flat monthly rate of 3,50 €. Golem.de also writes that RTL has plans to apply similar charges for their terrestrial digital transmissions in the future.

As I have written several times, television is about to become a part of the media history. The analogue TV transmissions in Finland will be discontinued in August 2007. That is when I am going to stop seeing the last transmission in Finnish TV that I still watch, the evening news. And I am not going to miss anything that I would not get hold of through the web.

I would not even consider paying for those RTL transmissions as I do not even want to see them for free. I would not even watch them if I got payed for it. But baring in mind the large number of potential German viewers, SES-Astra just may get their packet a sufficient number of subscribers to pull it through. Maybe.

Marcel writes that abandoning the television is an easy decision that would allow you to live happily ever after. I could not agree more. Who needs television anyway?