Martin: There has been a lot of talk recently about how TV will move to the Internet, perhaps as a replacement for traditional broadcast. I’d like to ask – Why should it survive at all?
TV hasn’t been around that long in the general scheme of things. If we didn’t have it 100 years ago, why should we have it in 100 years time. The concept of short serialized episodic entertainment will probably survive but the way we access it doesn’t have to. We can buy our favourite shows on DVD or download them after they have been shown on TV. I think I think I prefer to watch that way. I can watch anything from 1 episode to an entire series when I want, in whatever order I want with no adverts. This means I can watch 30 Rock, for example without ever viewing whichever channel holds the UK rights to it. The only downside is that I can only get it after its been on TV.
Its not that big a leap to think that the producers of one particular show might be brave and try to produce the show and sell it direct to the consumer without going through a TV network. Now some would say that the money from the TV network is needed in the first place to make the show, but there must be a producer out there who has the guts to put in the money without the guarantee of network payback.
As a further example; Jeremy Clarkson from Top Gear releases a DVD every christmas in which he fools around in cars in much the same way as he does on Top Gear. These are never shown on TV, but they must make enough money to keep producing one every christmas. This could be called an early example of the TV show thats not on TV.
I think that over the next few years we will see a move towards timeshifting and place shifting and generally shifting our viewing habbits until we don’t want to conform to someone elses viewing schedule at all. Then we will cross the tipping point and we may start to see things being made for DVD and download with little to no intention of broadcast.
TV is a great medium when you are watching something good, but it is plain harmful when people sit there staring at whatever happens to be on. If people only watched what they wanted when they wanted too rather than staring at whatever rubbish was served up to them they might, and I stress the word might, do more useful things with their spare time.
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