Innovation or disruption? The National Broadband Network comes to Australian TV

There are many forces for change confronting the well-established institutional arrangements underpinning Australian media industries, with commercial television, in particular, likely to be most challenged during the next five years. New distribution and delivery models connected to the proposed high capacity National Broadband Network (NBN), along with new content providers and changing viewer preferences are likely to drive major changes to existing television arrangements. In a rapidly changing environment, this article seeks to relate established concepts of innovation and creative destruction, disintermediation and disruption to the impact these new NBN mediated opportunities may have on existing TV arrangements, both free-to-air (FTA) and subscription (STV). It seeks to explore the extent to which TV-like services over the NBN might disrupt incumbent TV broadcasters; the extent to which changing consumer preferences and practices might disrupt current business models; and how incumbent TV broadcasters might be responding to these threats with their own innovations.