Open Content Television?

I came across the article 'Television to morph into new medium' when I was alerted about the phrase open content in it.

Huh?

So I went over, took a read, and caught this paragraph:

...The report, dubbed The End of TV as We Know It: A Future Industry Perspective predicts that by 2012, the landscape will change so profoundly that the television industry will need open content and standards-based delivery platforms to generate revenue...

Of course, they NEVER supply a link to the relevant things in these journals - so I searched and found it. From the summary:

...Today, audiences are becoming increasingly fragmented, splicing their time among myriad media choices, channels and platforms. For the last few decades, consumers have migrated to more specialized, niche content via cable and multichannel offerings. Now, with the growing availability of on demand, self-programming and search features, some experiencers are moving beyond niche to individualized viewing. With increasing competition from convergence players in TV, telecommunications and the Internet, the industry is confronting unparalleled complexity, dynamic change and pressure to innovate.

To hone our point-of-view of the mid-term future circa 2012, from both a demand and supply perspective, IBM conducted extensive industry interviews across the value chain and commissioned Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) primary research in the U.S., Europe and Asia.

Our analysis indicates that market evolution hinges on two key market drivers: openness of access channels and levels of consumer involvement with media. For the next 5-7 years, there will be change on both fronts – but not uniformly. The industry instead will be stamped by consumer bimodality, a coexistence of two types of users with disparate channel requirements. While one consumer segment remains passive in the living room, the other will force radical change in business models in a search for anytime, anywhere content through multiple channels...

But Open Content? Hmm. I downloaded the 341 Kb PDF of the study, flopped it open, and violated it's linearity with a quick search for Open Content. On page 10:

...We believe two key variables will define long-term disruption: Open content access and highly involved
media consumers...

I don't know, I'll have to sit down and read this much more - getting ready to hit the road right about now - but it seems to me that television as we know it will morph more to a web based version for this to happen. Open Content behind proprietary technology is a bit more of a challenge since there's less room for interaction, so - television will have to become more interactive. Yet compared with the media on the internet, does television measure up? As bandwidth availability increases over the planet, will television become obsolete? I haven't really thought about it, so I'll have to read more when I have time and consider it.

What's bugging me is... OK, viewing Open Content is easy. But how do people make a business model for Open Content on television? Advertising, of course. So this could be the molecularization of the television in the future, which is something that Pierre Levy allowed for in his book, 'Collective Intelligence: Mankind's Emerging World in Cyberspace', but... I honestly hadn't thought of television as a channel.

Hmm...