New Age of Television

We have already discussed in class to some extent the potential future of television. Some people think that it will eventually be viewable on demand in some form. One of the ideas was that suggested was people being able to pick specific channels they wanted to watch and then just pay for those. Another idea was that you could eventually order specific shows you wanted and only pay for what you actually watched instead of a monthly bill for everything.

The other direction the conversation took by some people was that you would eventually be watching television on your computer via the internet and the television companies, or at least the service providers would be cut out of the proposition. That the internet would either replace the television completely or that it would do the same thing that television did to radio. Relegate it to a secondary position as a form of entertainment for the majority of Americans.

I argued something a little different. I suggested that there would be a marriage between the technologies of television and the internet. It's something that is already taking place and which recent evidence and events have suggested will happen soon. You can see that the networks have already started showing some of their shows on their websites online. In return for watching several minutes of commercials per episode you can watch shows like "The Office" online for free.

And just a couple days ago USA Today had an article about the next wave of television technology. Most of the major television companies already have plans to start producing televisions that you can hook up to the internet to watch shows on the television through your internet connection. They are evidently trying to keep this process as simple as possible in order to not scare away people who are computer incompetent.

I think eventually the networks will embrace this new possibility and start offering their programs through internet connections to televisions. And the television service providers will be forced to adapt to the new method of broadcasting or be forced out of the equation. In terms of technology being combined there is plenty of evidence from items in the past. Like palm pilots and phones and mp3 players being combined into a device that does all three but is called a cell phone. And even now it is happening with cell phones and camera's. As of yet i don't think there are any camera phones so good at taking pictures that they will replace camera's. But we are getting closer to that day. It is only a matter of time for television to be adapted by the internet.