As if entertainment companies didn't have enough problems, in a recent report by research firm eMarketer, Internet Protocol TV is getting ready to take off.
In the short-term outlook, there won't be too much to be concerned with as there are only around 300,000 subscribers in the U.S. IPTV market. But emarketer projects that as soon as 2010 it could grow to close to 9 million users.
Worldwide it households with IPTV capability will be near 140 million: Ten times the amount of last years overall totals.
This is significant because, as emarketer senior analyst Ben Macklin 
says, "The combination of high-quality video content (both user-generated and professionally produced) with the search and retrieve capability of the Web has the potential to radically disrupt the existing TV model."
The real problem is that it's another platform that will compete with the current TV model. The TV industry is struggling with the challenges it is facing now. This is another competitive force that they can't ignore.
The existing TV model is already disrupted without many answers to the problems facing it. This throws another potential disruption into the overall picture. The model is being pulled from all sides. It's only a matter of time until the center collapses.
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