Ofcom foresees an entertaining 2028

TV on a moby

I currently have 447 gigabytes of Freeview TV ready to watch and that's in SD. I don't want a phone with a terabytye RAID array in it thanks

Here we go again

Attitudes to TV don't change that much, people don't want to go hunting for content all the time, broadcasters are important for packaging content into something timely and relevant to their audience.

Ofcom are pointless, let's hope this waste of public money is put out of our misery soon.

Re Natalie

Without sounding sexist that because you are from the gentler sex, I for one do want a phone with a terabyte raid array :)

What surprise?

"we are constantly surprised by the number of people with Sky+, TiVo or similar who still watch live TV when the broadcaster dictates it."

Why is this a surprise? The majority of prime-time TV output in the UK is either soap opera opium that is instantly consumed by its addicts* or interactive "talent" shows where part of the entertainment appears to be paying to vote by phone during the course of the show.

* Ok, I'm a hypocrite, I do the same for software updates & patches!

Ofcom and the Tories

Errm, the Tories aren't talking about axing Ofcom. They just plan to take away it's power to create policy. IOW to turn it into the watchdog it was originally. I'm sure you know that, it just makes your sub-heading look better if you pretend otherwise.

The Tory's argument appears to be that NuLabour have used QuANGOs and other bodies to dodge responsibility and accountability. Rember when interest rates were going up so NuLabour "devolved" the power to set interest rates to the Bank of England in order to try to deflect the blame? They've done the same with quite a lot of other things too.

From day one of his premiership Blair instituted a policy of blame dodging with his standard answer of "I'm afraid you'll have to ask the minister responsible about that" when faced with an awkward question. No interviewer ever seemed to spot that as PM Blair was ultimately responsible for all government policy. Ministers then followed suit by passing the buck to junior ministers and more and more junior ministerial posts were created so the blame could be passed further.

Then policy making was "devolved" to QuANGOs and other bodies, including the civil service. Unfortunately the media fell for this ruse hook like and sinker. Always remember that you can delegate a task, you cannot delegate the responsibility for that task. If you delegate a task then you are responsible for it's outcomes.

The biggest failure of this practice is not necessarilly that bad policy is created, but that it has increased costs massively. NuLabour rabbit on and on about the fact that they have increased public spending without admitting that this massive increase in spending is totally uncontrolled and has lead to little or no benefit. The ever expanding size of the NuLabour administration has never been subject to any form of cost-benefit analysis, it is NuLabour doctrine that spending more money will automatically produce results* and they don't need to monitor it. OTOH a lot of the rest of the public sector are required to spend fortunes monitoring every penny spent.

* This fits like a thingy in one of those whatsits with the NuLabour doctrine that setting a target is as good as meeting that target. If you fail to meet it you just set another one.

Sleeper

"There is a significant and steady growth of obesity in the UK population which could increase the demand for passive entertainment services".

So Woody Allen was correct then in the film Sleeper, with the invention of the "orgasmatron!"

Obvious nonsense, of course

2028 is a long time after December 2012, after all. Your Mayan wristwatch will have stopped, Xenu will have called by to pick up all the scientologists, and there'll have been many variations on the end of the world, including the Second Coming. But, since we're also supposed to be moving forward into a more enlightened and spiritually aware New Age of Humanity, then Ofcom - and, presumably, political parties - will obviously have become history, as there just won't be room for anything as unenlightened and awful as they are to exist any longer.

Mine's the one with a quartz crystal in the pocket, man ... says 7.030MHz on it ...