will illegal downloading kill extra vision

It'll do what it did to music. It'll change it. Services like iTunes on the back of the illegal sites changed the music landscape. The album is dying or all but dead. The days of artists/record companies making gazillions on album releases is long gone. I'd say the 70's 80's the height of that.

In a way we've seen some of the changes already. Like Rented Mule said the release trajectory has sped up. The way TV series are made has changed too. People are more likely to watch a whole series back to back now. Look at something like Dr Who. Back in the day the same story would run 4 or 5 weekly episodes. Now each one is a story all its own.

Itunes has started its pay per view movie site in europe, so that and other sites will have one hell of an impact. Now extravison and the like can only compete if they get a similar bite of the cherry. That they also release pay per view direct to your gaff. Difficult with the might of Apple etc with the backing of the content producers. They would likely get píssed off if the market was shared. Then they have their set top boxes ready to fly and a well worn method of supply in online stores. You see this with the iPad. Its OK, but there are "better" tablets out there that are actual PC's but they dont have the huge catalogue of apps that apple has rolled out with the iPhone(android are fighting uphill for the same reason).

From my reading of it companies like extravision can do one of two things. Reduce in size and become more specialised and aim at the markets the big boys arent. Much the same way the little record shops with the quirky indie and rare stuff will likely survive.

Or try and use their existing customer base to look at where the big boys are complicating things. Invest in their own version of the set top box, maybe combine with sky etc who have their on set top boxes already in the wild and push their wares at better value point than the big boys.

Thats irony that is