I have been thinking a lot lately about television distribution and, in particular, about distribution windowing. While I was going though different researches and industrial reports on this subject I noticed the emphasis that many of them put on the new patterns of content circulation while reporting without hesitation the end of television’s traditional distribution models.
Quite obviously, both scholarly and industrial discourse on contemporary TV are not shielded from the rhetoric of the ‘new’ and its theoretical pitfalls.
On the one hand, it is true that television distribution has changed and is changing fast. The diffusion of more rapid distribution schedules entailed by television multiplatforming and new distributive cycles altered by online content delivery have favoured the rise of new complex and articulated TV distribution dynamics. Within these media landscapes, services like Hulu.com have been welcomed as a significant moment of reconfiguration of TV distribution, culminating point of the hyper-distribution/hyper-control trends which, by giving the audiences control over their TV consumption, and even advertorial, experiences, represent a new ‘golden age of choice’ for global consumers and a challenge for media distributors.
On the other hand, however, while allowing for new content delivery patterns and new television consumption experiences, these innovative platforms are still largely based on traditional distribution logics. Hulu’s FAQ, for instance, officially sacrifices the innovative distributive potential of the online platform to impending DVD releases and to the distribution schedules of content on other, more traditional, platforms.
If we look at how the availability of content is managed, with videos being pulled out from online distribution in accord with the circulation of products on other traditional divisions of the media industries, we notice that the principle of windowing that value is accrued through time limits and exclusive access is still crucial in determining distribution strategies. Across the different divisions of TV industries, the traditional logics of this well established distribution strategy still play a crucial role in shaping content distribution.
International television markets are ruled by windowing patterns that influence trade dynamics and determine broadcaster’s programming and scheduling choices. Across different European markets, for instance, windowing is the key strategy for content repurposing: national broadcaster across Europe window the availability of programmes on different distribution outlets with higher prices for premium access on exclusive channels -digital terrestrial PPV and IPTV VOD services- vs. delayed access to the same content on free-to-air platforms.
On the one hand, contemporary industrial actors create alternative distribution circuits to cope with the changing media landscapes; on the other hand, these actors do not yet abandon traditionally successful business/distribution models that have long characterised media industries. As a consequence, contemporary television’s content distribution patterns, while frequently subverting more traditional logics of television distribution and allowing for increasingly fluid distribution hierarchies, rather than revealing a radical change in television distribution, point to the interaction of old and new television logics tied-up in complex relationships.
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