The television viewer landscape has profoundly transformed recently, especially in Ontario, Canada. In the era of Internet Protocol Television (IPTV), people are turning away from traditional cable setups in droves. These former viewers are embracing a new approach to consuming video and television—one that offers them more flexibility, is apparently more cost-effective, can be more easily customized, and thus presents them with quite an array of viewing options. IPTV delivers television programming over the internet rather than through traditional terrestrial, satellite, or cable formats. By and large, most IPTV services enable programming to be streamed live, and many also provide a lot of “on-demand” content. Although some people might think of these two types of services as representing two very different kinds of “IPTV,” they are both actually “IPTV.” These services do not use the internet to full advantage, however.
The main reason viewers in Ontario are moving toward IPTV is that it offers considerable cost savings over traditional television. On a monthly basis, cable TV costs a viewer plenty—more, in fact, than a viewer might reasonably expect to pay for what is, after all, a service to which viewers only ever sign up… to be entertained. VIEWERS ONLY EVER SIGN UP TO BE ENTERTAINED! Maybe they set the service up with the “basic” tier of channels, which certainly goes beyond the handful of channels that serve as the viewer’s personal “basic.” For most viewers, paying each and every month to receive nothing but a few handful-fuls of channels isn’t remotely justifiable! Now let us return to the subject of IPTV… And again… what is it?
One more compelling reason to switch to IPTV is the huge variety of content. IPTV services come into homes through the internet and therefore are not limited in the way traditional cable services are. An IPTV service might be described as having a “just ample enough” selection of channels, with no filler or fluff. But the channels that such a service has absolutely do cover every conceivable category of programming. Most IPTV services provide both live and on-demand programming, and from an overall content standpoint, traditional cable cannot touch IPTV. … The viewing experience itself is usually enhanced when using an IPTV service because of the “normal” user interface and channel surfability that our brains have become accustomed to.
The emerging culture of streaming has also affected the shift toward internet protocol television, or IPTV. Increasingly, viewers are enamored of platforms such as Netflix and Amazon Prime, and their love for these companies’ bounty of cinematic content (as well as their appetite for older television shows and movies) has hardly nobly contributed to the nation’s embrace of the cord-cutting revolution.
But IPTV is a different meal altogether. IPTV is an adaptation of the internet in that it utilizes the world wide web to deliver live television channel content from the television set-top box (the little device that connects to a non-smart television) in a place where the viewer can enjoy it. And in places too where you sit can enjoy it. Or aren’t you, places?