Tuesday, May 24, 2005

The Future of Television



There's a great tong in check look at the future of TV By Conan O'Brien, of Newsweek,

"To begin, the trend toward larger and larger televisions will continue as screens double in size every 18 months. Televisions will eventually grow so large that families will be forced to watch TV from outside their homes, peering in through the window. Random wolf attacks will make viewing more dangerous.

And, just as televisions grow larger and more complicated, so will remote controls. In fact, changing channels will soon require people to literally jump from button to button. Trying to change the channel while simultaneously lowering the volume will require two people and will frequently lead to kinky sex."
For a more serious look at the future of TV there is 4 page article by By Steven Levy also of Newsweek. Which takes a more practical look at TV.

"Start with the hardware. Ever notice that no one uses the term "TV set" anymore? That's because people can watch on anything from a traditional box in the den to their computer, to a screen on the seat back of a JetBlue plane."
Both have something to ad in their own way, I have one thought thou, more and more people are point to TV on demand as the next big thing in TV. But what if the next big thing in TV was the off Switch?

I my self since getting a Meg pipe, watch TV less and less, I can not even say I watch the programs I actual want to see. They are ether on in the middle of the day or late at night when I am thinking about going to bed, but end up blogging instead.

I know I could get TIVO, but in the UK the only way to do that is to get sky, I don't need 800+ channels of TV. I also don't agree with paying over £480 ($920 USD) a year for TV full of adds.

Ok so we all have to pay for the BBC, but there are no adds on the BBC it's the only money they get, that and selling stuff to the USA, Well selling Idea's to the USA as Americans will not watch British TV so it all has to be remade in America, by people who have no idea what made the UK one such a hit in the 1st place.

We all know hover that SKY makes millions every year from other add related source's and football income. So the only reason to charge for watching is greed.

When you think about it, which most people don't £480 a year is 50% of a months wages for your average man and woman. 50%! Just to watch TV that's 1/24th of you salary to watch TV. With lots and lots of adverts and sponsorship of program's.

before we get back to the point, just one more side point. Something I was thinking about the other day and if I don't say now never will.

When this great new future comes and all TV is on line and no one buys TV's because we all use are Meg computers or mobile phones or watch on the side of the toaster.

How is the TV licenses going to work?

If I don't own an out and out TV but watch TV on my PC thought a tuner or just dll it in a torrent, or watch in on my phone. Technical I don't have a TV, so don't need a TV license, ok so I may still need one for the tuner in my PC, but what happens in 20 or 15 years times where you don't need a tuner.

what happens when we Finley get rid of BT and every one can get cheap fast BB, and we stream are TV over the net?

Is every one in the UK going to have sign up for a BBC account, and be given their own user name and password?

How are they going to deal with multiple computers in the same home?

More importantly will the BBC survive, Some people may not like being forced to pay the BBC, but think about this.

We all now the big companies keep prices high by agreeing not to sell their products cheap, at the moment in the UK if your selling news you have to compete with the best news service in the world and its 100% free.

The New York times may have decided that the US market may bare the weight of a subscription service, but I doubt the UK one will. Why would you pay to get access to the times archive, when you can not link to it you can not share it with your friends. When you can just link to the BBC web site for free, any one can see it any where in the world.

We are constantly talking about the renewal off the BBC's charter for the TV license and the will they wont they get it.

Let's face they are going to get it the BBC is the thing in Britain we can be proud of the trains are crap the NHS is crap, and a 12 year old could knife you in the street and be sent on a two week holiday to Africa for punishment.

The BBC is safe for now, the real question is, in are ever Americanized UK with Tony Blair at the helm. Can the BBC survive the internet?

Big business is slowly becoming more and more powerfully in the EU, you only have to look at the length Microsoft went too to get the EU to take up the European patent directive, they bought Ireland.

How long can the BBC stand against it's rivals, such as sky? How long can it justify it's existence in a ratings driven world?, where the views are so frangmented?

coming back to the point of the off switch in a round about way, when we do all turn off are TV's are we going to be turning on are Phone/TV or are we going to be doing something else?

Has the internet brought about a shift from passive viewing to active participation?

After all you only have too look at the popularity of programs such as big brother and survivor to see how popular interaction is.

For I do not believe it is the fact that reality TV is popular for it's reality persay more, for it's interactivity. Where we the audience get to fee like we have some control over the program that it belongs to us.

And with this new understanding, that what we actual want is to be more active how long before we all realize that TV is not the answer and turn off TV's and start interacting with real people in the real world over bits of plastic?

Take a look at the internet, especially in the USA, what's the one thing that all big community's eventually end up doing?

They make the move from the net to the real world, and have a con (conference) even minor web sites seem to have con's these day's.

Are we really satisfied with interacting with a computer? Or is it human interaction that we are all after in the end?

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