Montreal Tech Watch

There is an interesting article by Alain McKenna at Technaute mentionning that high-definition TV might save TQS, a local television station which filed for bankrupcy last month due to “shrunken” advertising revenues.

The theory, which came from its directors, was that high definition will allow pay-per-view, interactive and personalized content. The tv station would then be able to gather additionnal revenues, and also sell them at a higher rate.

It’s amusing to think that changing the physical channel, or medium (here, television), would get them better chances. For me, a media company should focus first and foremost on getting quality content – but cogeco, TQS’s main shareholder, doesn’t seem to make many efforts to get original, innovative, and relevant content. I don’t watch much tv, but everytime I stumble on TQS, they always seem to have old gags or old tv american series, whereas they should have focused on locally-produced, vibrant, even iconoclast shows. I think that as along as you have those, a media company can then focus on the medium to bring this content to as many people as possible.

High-definition TV is a promising technology but it’s no excuse to keep producing lame shows. Even then, when we will reach 2011, iTMS, netflix, amazon and millions of video podcasters would eat TQS’s lunch.