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TV's Tipping Point
alinv writes ": Ashley Highfield, the head of BBC New Media & Technology spoke yesterday at a conference about how TV is being radically changed by users: 'future TV will may be unrecognisable from today, defined not just by linear TV channels, packaged and scheduled by television executives, but instead will resemble more of a kaleidoscope, thousands of streams of content, some indistinguishable as actual channels.'"
I didn't RTFA, but.... Since I got my Tivo, I have no idea what commercials are. Unfortunately, I think I'm missing some cool shows because I never watch live TV anymore.
And we'll all just get around on those moving sidewalks and flying cars, too.
Yeah, we haven't been hearing about "new-tv" as long as these, but its getting almost as tiresome.....
I think its called the internet.
Indistinguishable as actual channels? What about instituting a completely on-demand cable system? I don't know about everyone, but I'm not looking for TV to be a mindblowing experience; I can leave the house for those. It would be nice to be able to watch the programs I want, when I want, though.
The safest way to approach lava is to have another person with you and he goes first.
like tivo? is this news? in the future, shows will probably be subscription based, so you can subscribe to just the shows you like. at least, that's how i'd like things. i don't watch 95% of the crap i get on cable.
There's nothing like catering specifically to the one person who likes Golden Girls reruns mixed in with heaps of porn.
"but instead will resemble more of a kaleidoscope"
Oh, yeah. Just what I want.
Just when TV was getting crappy enough (all reality shows, all the time), now it'll make me physically dizzy. THANKS, genius executives.
It's good to know that MTV will still be around in the future.
He assumes that digital television will become ubiquitous. It won't. Just as the RIAA and MPAA have demonstrated that they will fight tooth and nail to prevent digital music and video from becoming free and ubiquitous, controllable by the people, so too will the major networks fight to insure that television will not become like he believes. There are strong forces that will rally against television to insure that it does NOT contain things such as "our viewers' contributions." There are political reasons for that as well as economic ones. In any event, sorry Ashley, but it ain't gonna happen.
and STILL nothin' on.
"resemble more of a kaleidoscope, thousands of streams of content, some indistinguishable as actual channels."
So basically, all those years of watching scrambled porn channels are going to pay off big time.
Crystal Meth: Would you ingest somthing made from a poisonous gas and an explosive metal? You do it every day -- Salt!
A kaleidoscope? You mean that tube-thingy you look through with the mirrors inside that make it look like the same thing is in a lot of different places, but really they're all just pale reflections of each other?
Yeah.... I think I can see how TV might eventually evolve into that. [grin]
"Lawyers are for sucks."
- Doug McKenzie
but instead will resemble more of a kaleidoscope, thousands of streams of content, some indistinguishable as actual channels
It's obvious Ms. Highflied doesn't watch very much TV. Because the few times I do watch TV ,I think how much crap is on the tube and wonder what happened the "real channels and programming."
Like viewers wish to devote all of their attention to the TV. Or program the TV. TV is great because it preys on our laziness. You can sit there and do nothing, and gain entertainment, or sleep.
"audiences will want to organize and re-order content the way they want it"
No, we dont, we want to use one button on a remote.
But, as I RTFA, I do agree with some of his points.
TV programs should be able to be watched any time. I should be able to watch my programs in my order at my time.
Excluding live events of course, which should be left live for obvious reasons.
Media is changing. If the music industry wasnt a wake up call for the movie and television industries, it sure should have been. People will do things their way, and the industry cannot control that. They must change to keep pace with it, as the music industry has not in general.
Interesting ideas, well written article. But television is still, and always will be about laziness for me. How else could you ever get through a 5 hour breakup with a girlfriend without a TV to watch during it. (while pretending to listen of course)
[I can picture a world without war, without hate. I can picture us attacking that world, because they'd never expect it]
The internet was supposed to have done that by now.
Any day now I'll be watching a kaleidascope of magical fairy shit on my HDTV while playing duke nukem forever.
I think people like tv as it is, and it'll probably stay with the status quo for a long long time, there's nothing wrong with passive entertainment.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
As TV continues to make the move toward pure digital information, how long will it be before we see the first TV-specific virus corrupting dowloaded shows?
"Honey, when did they add the Goatsex guy to the cast of Friends?"
Lawrence Person (lawrencepersonh@gmailh.com (remove all "h"s to mail)
http://www.lawrenceperson.com/
2. the audience increasingly wants to join in and get closer to their media.
3. ...consuming more media simultaneously...
4. ...the last trend -- sharing.
So in the future, we will watch multiple reality shows we can shape with our various "votes" at the same time -- a time of our choosing. We'll have sent each other some of the shows, too. This is a revolution?
No one mindblowing idea here -- basically it seems like the BBC's thinking about that "Super -Electronic Programme Guide" to get a little ahead on interfaces, and they don't want to stonewall peer-to-peer models the way the music industry did.
"Fundamentalism" isn't about divine morality. It's about human authority.
I decided that TV rots brains, so now, I have two televisions in my home and neither of them are plugged in. The big one is where all my clean laundry piles up, waiting to be folded, and the small one just sits there. I can tell you that since I made this change, I have become a much happier person. Suddenly, I have time to read books, which help to develop the imagination, rather than destroy it like TV does.
And a lot of people I know, who do not allow their children to watch television, are amazed at how full their children's lives are. They love to read; they spend time with friends; they do all sorts of stuff. So I swear by this: Television is a waste of time. The Internet is a better source of entertainment. (No, don't read all kinds of "inappropriate" messages from that statement.)
When I read /.'s blurb about this article (about how there will be many streams of content, not necessarily representing channels), the first thought that went through my mind was, "I certainly hope not."
You're aware that the BBC has no adverts or pay-per-view yes ? Which media conglomerates are you talking about ?
:-) They also sell their programs abroad.
The Beeb is supported by basically the entire country (everyone with a TV) paying for a TV licence. You can't watch TV without one - saying "I don't watch BBC" is not a defence
In general the quality is a damn sight better than all the advert-or-ppv-funded channels. You can argue whether the "tax" imposed on TV viewers is fair, but since it costs me less per year for the Beeb than it does for 2 months of Sky, I don't think it's a strong argument, given that the programs can be much better. Yeah, they have crap too. Show me a channel that doesn't...
Simon.
Physicists get Hadrons!
My TV's tipping point is 47 degrees forward from vertical. Anything less and it falls back on its base.
bytesmythe
Hypocrisy is the resin that holds the plywood of society together.
-- Scott Meyer
OK I find visualization useful here.
First, visualize a bunch of feces. Poop from different animals, and different diets. So different sized poop, different colored poop, and different smelling poop.
Ok, now start throwing that poop at your TV screen. When you are finished, that is your "kaleidoscope, thousands of streams of content, some indistinguishable as actual channels."
You see, you cannot distinguish which poop is which, but you do know there is a lot of poop there.
[I can picture a world without war, without hate. I can picture us attacking that world, because they'd never expect it]
You mean like downloading shows and movies from KaZaA?
Don't think of it as a flame---it's more like an argument that does 3d6 fire damage
The web was supposed to resemble that too, remember?
And it did, for a while. When the net was strictly a geek thing, or at least not a mainstream corporate thing (circa 1995), regular people did control the content. And there was a lot of content. Unfortunately, about 50% was crap and assorted fluff, 45% was porn, and about 5% was actually worth looking at. Then the corporates came, and it changed to about 90% porn, 8% crap and assorted fluff, and 2% worth looking at that's harder then hell to find. But one thing you must remember: TV was never controlled by regular people. It has always and will always be controlled by the corporations. But hey...every now and then, they slip up and actually let something good go on the air. And they don't even notice it at first. It took them at least 2 seasons to realize Family Guy was funny, and another season to finally kill it...
pr0n - keeping monitor glass spotless since 1981.
Since I got my Tivo, I have no idea what commercials are.
Exactly. I know what they are.
Commercials are: the break in the stream that requires you to hit fast forward for a few seconds.
Commercials are: those pieces of programming that are having to become more entertaining and less obnoxious to have any chance of being seen.
Commercials are: those artifacts of the 20th century that remind you just how painful it is to be fed a linear stream of programming.
Commercials are: what have taught me how to watch the news on a TiVo - quickly hit pause and take a long potty break so I can FF through the commercials when I get back.
Commercials are: those pieces of noisy time that still squat in the middle of broadcast radio feeds that have become so annoying to my sensitivities that I frequently have to turn the damn thing off because the signal to noise ratio is just so abominable compared with my TiVo enabled life.
"Provided by the management for your protection."
Too much eating is bad.
Too much sleeping is bad.
Too much TV is bad.
Too much internet is bad.
Balance is the key..
There is good, stimulating content on TV - Discovery channel, National geographic and History channel. I've learnt quite a lot about many things I did not have any idea at all, by watching these three channels for example.
BTW, I also read books. I would never completely replace either of them with any of them. Each has its own place. Choose wisely.
The internet is a better source of entertainment? How exactly? You have porn-on-demand the moment you are online. You have dirty spam clogging your emails. It is less well regulated than TV broadcasting.
Again, balance is the key. Choose wisely.
---
Friends? Foes? What is this place? Kindergarten?
I wonder at what time the television "viewer" became the television "user"....
I predict a much darker, less interesting future.
Advertisers will want to find ways to get their messages in the programs. Right now, the method is to insert the messages in breaks of ever-increasing time which occur at greater and greater frequency. People use PVR's to fight this trend.
The next logical step, then, is to insert the advertising directly into the contents of the programming. This is already happening now to a small extent, but I believe in the future it will get worse.
Here is an example of what I envision: One character, Bob, pulls out his cell phone. A second character, George, sees it.
George: Hey, that's a cool cellphone you got there.
Bob: Yeah. It's a Noksung. I got it with my T-Cingle PCS. It was free! Look, I can take full-motion video with it and uselessly hog screeds of bandwidth with aimless nonsense.
George: Wow! Can I have a look?
Bob: Sure. T-Cingle PCS is running a special right now. 3,000,000 anytime minutes for nine cents a month.
George: Great. I'm going to sign up for that right after we solve this murder. Wait! is that a Taco's Jr. over there. Pull in, they've got a new sushi-cajun burrito on their value menu for 34 cents!.....
etc, etc, etc.
Surprisingly enough, people will probably actually watch this crap.
Proverbs 21:19
Anyone catch the product placement for lembas wafers as the party was leaving Lorien? "Lembas bread! One small bite can fill the stomach of a grown man!" I was waiting for the elves to start singing the Lembas[tm] jingle.
You cannot apply a technological solution to a sociological problem. (Edwards' Law)
Dropping the commercials is not the answer. About four years ago, as a cost-cutting measure my wife and I dropped our cable access back to the ultra-basic service. Entire seasons have come and gone and we have not checked in to see any of the new programs. Eventually everything with sufficient episode count makes it into syndication on WGN or Oxygen or one of the local channels, so if I like I can see some of what I missed. I am usually underwhelmed. The serious crap simply disappears. I took up my television viewing slacktime with reading and cable internet access. The extra cost was more than covered by dropping a telephone line we had been using for our dialup service. I am working on my wife to drop the other landline in favor of expanded cellphone service. Many of our younger friends have already done this.
Goddamned kids! Get off my lawn!