Channel 5 IT chief predicts cloudy future

The internet revolution will be televised - at some point

The future of television depends on two principal technology advances: a user-friendly digital rights management (DRM) system for both video and cloud computing.

That is the view of Francois Chabat, senior technology manager at broadcaster Channel 5, who told Computing that comprehensive on-demand television would have to be accompanied by some form of DRM to satisfy programme makers.

"If you look at what happened in the music industry, the rights holders were relaxed," he said. By the time the industry woke up to what was happening - with digital sales failing to compensate for plummeting CD sales - it was too late, he added.

"TV does not intend to make the same mistake."

That means that a significant chunk of the channel's free-to-air programmes cannot be included in the broadcaster's on-demand service - which falls under Chabat's remit.

But Chabat insisted that the future for broadcasters was to move away from the traditional fixed programming schedule, to one where viewers picked what they watched at any given time.

The opportunity for broadcasters is to reach out to audiences and enable them to watch programmes whenever they want - not just when they are sitting in their couches, said Chabat.

"In future, viewers will be watching programmes using our on-demand service and on their smartphones far more than today," he said.

Such changes make it inevitable that broadcasters will move to cloud-based services, said Chabat, because the cloud-based delivery networks should be able to cope with swings in demand.

Channel 5 uses hosted services from Claranet to deliver its on-demand programming, but the broadcaster owns the servers that host the content.

Eventually, it may make economic sense for broadcasters to move to cloud services where they share computing resources with all manner of other customers, said Chabat.

At the moment, it is reassuring to know that the servers that deliver content belong to the broadcaster, Chabal said. "When we believe the cloud is equally reliable, we might switch."