The rise of IPTV

The aerial has long since made way for the satellite dish, but it appears that it may soon succumb to the onslaught of television from the internet - or IPTV.

That’s if new figures from ABI Research are to be believed.

The analysis firm has predicted that IPTV will expand by 32 per cent over each of the next six years, meaning 79 million people will be watching Baywatch via broadband by 2014.

One of the reasons for this is down to telecoms companies looking at their bank balances and not liking what they see.

“Some telecom operators which are faced with thinning margins are deploying high-speed access networking technologies to challenge incumbent satellite and cable operators,” explained analyst Serene Fong.

The line between television and internet is becoming increasingly blurred, with Yahoo announcing earlier this month that it is working in partnership with a number of electronics companies to provide a platform on which widgets can be created for television sets.