For decades, television has been dominated by free-to-air broadcasters.  As platforms, formats and competition proliferate, what do these giants of the airwaves need to do to maintain their preeminence?

Traditionally the strongest competition to free-to-air giants such as NBC or ITV has come from satellite and cable providers.  However, the battlefield is becoming increasingly crowded as online and mobile platforms gain critical mass and new players, such as broadband providers, enter the field.  With limited prospects for growth in advertising or subscription revenues, will the giants have to accept a dwindling slice of the cake?

Jonathan Pfitzner of digital media advisers Ardent certainly thinks so.  In a world where consumers will increasingly access content when and where they want online, he sees lean times ahead for the traditional broadcaster: "The power and the value of that position is diminishing and will continue to diminish."

But for other commentators, the dawn of an online, fragmented future is greatly exaggerated.  They see the major free-to-air and pay channels remaining the only realistic candidates for carrying big-ticket and high-quality shows for the foreseeable future, pointing to the modest production values and limited viewing figures of the few online-only programmes attempted to date.

For owners of valuable content, new platforms open up exciting possibilities to seize a greater share of revenues by using their websites to sell products directly to audiences.  However, bypassing traditional broadcasters in this way carries major risks.  It means income is no longer assured.  It demands packaging and marketing skills.  And it requires relationships with potentially millions of subscribers - relationships that many content owners simply don't have the skills to build or maintain.

Recently broadcasters have responded to market developments by pooling valuable content online under shared brands such as Hulu and Kangaroo.  It may seem counter-intuitive to subsume iconic brands and potentially reduce the value of syndication and other rights, but for Peter Smith of NBC Universal, it represents an important new route to audiences and revenue: "Hulu, which is a newly-created venture, is now worth well over a billion dollars.  So I'd argue it's created new asset value."