Slashdot Mirror
Broadband Usage Up, TV Usage Down
jZnat writes "BBC Tech News reports that the increased usage of broadband internet in Europe is cutting into the viewing of television. This is mainly due to the decreased price of broadband in Europe and the usefulness of the internet. Is it possible that the usefulness of TV has decreased with the internet so expansive these days?"
The reaction to this depends on whether people are mostly visiting the major media companies' sites or are seeing more independent stuff. If the latter, then people are apparently tired of being force-fed by Big Media. If the former, then I guess people are glad to be slaves.
> when you've got multiple monitors and a tuner card?
I think turning your computer into a TV still counts towards television usage.
The only things I generally watch on TV nowadays are the news and movies. There are several reasons that I believe the Internet is more entertaining:
;^)
a) Interactivity. You can talk to and interact with people as much or as little as you like, whereas television is entirely passive. You can also easily add to the content (like I'm doing right now) and have your content added to.
b) Control. As I mentioned before, television is entirely passive, and you're limited to viewing the broadcaster's programming on the broadcaster's schedule. On the Internet, you can view whatever you want, whenever you want, and there are a nigh-unlimited number of "channels" available to suit whatever taste you're looking for.
c) Adaptability. The Internet is anything you want it to be. While television is just video and sound, the Internet is a book, a video, music, or anything else you can imagine.
Not to mention that TV shows are available in the Internet to view whenever the hell you want without commercials, but that should go without saying
It's better to vote for what you want and not get it than to vote for what you don't want and get it.
- E. Debs
The Internet allows me to have what I want and when I want it and at a very reasonable price. I don't see TV as being able to provide as much. They really are different forms of entertainment these days. TV is mind-numbing and thus good for when you just want to relax and be lazy. Problem is when you don't want to take time for that but once every six months.
Can't say I am surprized. The internet has 2^32 channels, mostly garbage but you the user can decide and change channels to any other site in a second. And with so many channels there is something for everyone.
Where as with cable you get to watch what someone else wants you to watch and when to watch it. Not only that, they make you pay for channels you never will watch.
The internet will really pick up once Internet TV breaks through the legal barriers they now face from a monopolistic industry. Yor next TV migth be a computer.
has decreased because TV sucks. While that may sound like a tautology, the long version is that TV lacks good content. Just as the recording industry is putting out more and more cookie-cutter "artists", so is the broadcast TV industry putting out more and more crap, viz. Fear Factor Part XXXIV, Survivor XIX, etc. Broadcast news is generally flat and one-sided. Cable TV still occasionally produces something decent, because the subscription price eliminates the need to advertise, and provides a revenue stream to fund new shows and projects. Maybe Internet use has increased BECAUSE TV has become less useful, not the other way 'round.
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
People don't watch TV because it's the best entertainement there is and they're not switching to internet because that's better entertainment. People watch TV because of peer-pressure, because they don't want to be left-out of the discussion over The Simpsons or Survivor during lunch, and now they're switching to internet because the lunch-time discussions have shifted to blogs and message forums.
The internet will give you what you want: games, news (domestic or international, biased or unbiased, depending on your preference), pr0n, sports info on your favorite team, shopping, news for nerds, stuff that matters, etc. Whatever you want you can get on demand on the internet. Meanwhile, TV sucks. TV tells you what you should be watching (Look, reality shows, craptacular sitcoms!!), and they make you watch it on their schedule, and they blitz you with overhyped flavor of the month celebrities and commercials every 5 minutes. That's why things like TIVO are becoming very popular. TV sucks, so people are getting a life outside of TV, but there will still be 2 or 3 shows you'll watch all the time, but it's stupid when I have to say "Well, I would like to go out this evening, but I really want to see Enterprise." TV is losing it's grip over the population because we now have an alternative to having to just accept whatever they choose to give us.
For alot of people, it's the increasing availability of TV shows on DVD that lets them skip the cable/TV....
TV needs an adblock extension to be useful again.
What are the media conglomerates going to do to regain the control that they've lost?
They won't improve their content, so can they eliminate the internet surfer's ability to get what they want when they want it?
If so, how so?
How will they (further) ruin the internet? How are they going to turn it into a passive means of consumption?
This is what's important to know.
Regardless of everything else, there is one thing that might be pushing people away from their television and onto their computer.
Cable companies raising their rates at double the rate of inflation, and broadband access dropping in price to less than a mid-level cable package.
Actually, there is a lot of useful stuff on t.v., it is just obscured by the mountains of crapola that is also on t.v.. Just one example of useful t.v.-- HBO is currently running a great documentary on Rosa Parks and the Alambama bus boycotts during the civil rights movement. Of course, one could get more information on the subject by reading books, but there is a powerful feeling you get by seeing the actual people involved speaking about the struggle, that is not easy to capture in text.
Back when TV was king, how often did you hear people say, "I can't live without my TV" or "I can't go back to radio." Now, when broadband is increasing in popularity, how often do you hear "I can't live without broadband" or "I can never go back to dialup." I've said it myself many times.
Broadband internet has become so integral to so many of us (by us, I mean slasdot readers) that trying to find information any other way seems absolutely ludicrous. I find directions with my broadband, phone numbers, coupons, movie listings, contractors, and even medical information. The ability to reach experts in any field with just an email away and the ability to find information so quickly are such selling factors in broadband that I honestly can never go back to any other form of communication, unless it's necessary (i.e. a phone call, or face to face meeting).
Back when I was in college, the internet was in its infancy. My profs had email, but we never had forums, bulletin boards, or listmails (at least we didn't use them). Imagine higher education nowadays without the web, and without email?
Linux at home
Sometimes, I just want to plop down in my chair, pick up the remote, and watch some "mindless" action/adventure or sci-fi show. AFAIK, I still can't do that from the Internet (at least not legally). The Internet is far more flexible, but TV still owns that niche, and Tivo solves the schduling problem.
Slow down, cowboy! It has been 4 hours since you last posted. You must wait another few hours.
I think this is partly responsible for what seems like the rapidly evaporating ability for people to respect each other's political views. Nobody has differences of opinion any more -- one person is 100% right and the other one is a moron, a dupe, a tool, a shill. That trend has been deliberately helped along by many in the media, but I think the unintentional echo-chamber effect of highly specialized news and discussion sites bears some of the blame too.
Worse they are putting crap programs of the exact same nature back to back or even on both channels at the same time. ARGH. I already hate "home improvement" programs but can probably survive the best of them for half an hour. 2 for a full hour however is to much and I switch the TV off.
This is I think the biggest shift. It is not that tv has become worse. I used to have the tv on in the background and just do other stuff while waiting for something watchable to appear.
But nowadays the non-watchable stuff is so bad that even muted it insults me. There are also to many bad programs behind each other so I just turn the TV off and remind myself to switch on at XX:XX. Except I forget because I am to deep into something else. End result? Even the programs I find worth watching I don't watch anymore. TV really needs to start to worry when I prefer not waking the cat over getting up for the remote.
This is something that is being regonized although more on radio. The Netherlands has only recently gone commercial on radio and instead of getting a lot of different stations aiming at their own group we get all of them aiming at the same group. Result? More and more people switcing to MP3 players and the radio stations unable to get the advertising they need.
More and more tv tries to appeal to everyone and ends up appealing to noone. There is nothing wrong with the occasional survivor, those of us who don't like it just don't watch that night, but when every night has its own mindless show you get a large group of people who switch off the tv and don't switch it on again.
Remember this, TV got big when it was basically on all the time. When people start switching off you lost them. TV is not a drug, there are no withdrawal symptoms. All people got to do to get rid of their addiction is say "no thanks".
Only 1 program of every kind per night.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Unfortunately, most of the broadband connections don't have enough bandwidth for good NTSC video, let alone HDTV.
"I've never seen anyone actually get anything accomplished through watching TV. Unless you count "relaxing" for six hours a day to be an accomplishment."
:O a movie in realtime on IRC while simultaneously getting other things done in the background is comfort enough."
Funny, I never see anyone get anything useful done on Slashdot forums or IRC either, yet we willingly spend quite a good deal of time here. Your definition of "useful" is too slim. Watching the evening news is useful. Watching an educational program is useful. Heck, watching your favorite entertainment program is useful. Just because it's not interactive doesn't make it worthless.
"When I bother with movies these days, I watch them on my workstation. I could care less about comfort level- for me, the ability to critique and O_o and OMFG
And, no offense intended, here we see why Internet movie critic opinions are so easily discounted these days. People who have to "bother" to watch movies, barely pay any attention, and feel the need to complain about it on IRC in realtime.
TV is no "dumber" now than it was twenty years ago. This is just a stupid knee jerk reaction to an industry it is now more fashionable than ever to hate.
Look at the top rated shows and you will find only a sliver of those "reality" shows everyone loves (when they're alone in front of the tv) to hate (the next day around the water cooler). What is there in spades, however, is the cookie cutter crime shows - allegedly "intelligent" content apparently all written by the same crack team of hackneyed high school chemistry dropouts.
Now go back thirty years to 1974 and note the top rated shows. Sanford and Son might be classics now, but no matter how much I loved Redd Foxx I sure wouldn't call it "intelligent." Six Million Dollar man? Fun when I was 12, but in the end only slightly less demeaning in its scientific take than CSI-name-your-favorite-city. It's Charlie's Angels for the geriatric.
Then there was MASH and Bob Newhart and Maude; now there's West Wing and Will and Grace and Family Guy.
Now let's move into the eighties. I'm not even going to bother looking for a link - I can name them off the top of my head: intelligent fare like Three's Company and Dukes of fucking Hazzard and Wonder Woman intermingled with the monthly installments of Battle of the Network T's and A's.
Great shows like those produced by Rod Serling - the MASHs and the West Wings have always been rare on TV. By and large it has always sucked, all that's changing is your own awareness of just how badly. What you're forgetting is it's been that bad all along... you just had no other choice.
Actual real news is in bold. Running total of real news is in italics
1300-1301: Brief summary of headlines 1 minute
1301-1303 : Israel/Palestine/Iraq - new Palestinian PM speaking - he gets 15 seconds on air. 3 minutes
1303-1307 - Commentary/opinion by reporter in Israel. That's 4 minutes solid, compared to the Palestinian PMs 15 seconds. Opinion is NOT news.
1307 - 1307 30 seconds - Ariel Sharon coming back from trip abroad 3 minutes 30 secs
1307 30 secs - 1309 - Iraq. Attack on U.S. soldiers 5 minutes
1309 - Commentary/opinion from reporter in Iraq
1310 for 30 seconds - Blair in parliament justifying himself for not finding WMDs. Old news from archives. NOT news.
1310. 30secs - 1313 - Indonesia, Bali bomber trial. 7 minutes 30 seconds
1313 Adverts , infomercials
1315-1319 "911 the legacy" - reporter commentary, documentary. Not news.
1319 Adverts, informericals
1321-1324 Weather report
1324-1326 Stock markets
1326-1327 WTO Summit , Cancun 8 minutes 30 secs
1327 RIAA sueing 12 year old 9 minutes 30 secs
1328: Teller, creator of H Bomb dies 40 secs 10 minutes 10 secs
1328 40 secs to 1330 Adverts informericals
So, in my half hour snapshot, I estimated that out of 30 minutes broadcast, only 10 minutes 10 seconds was devoted to actual reporting of hard news - my definition of "hard" news is just that - whats going on in a certain place. Weather forecasts and stock market roundups are not included in that definition (for the purposes of this experiment)
Note the amount of reporting on the WTO Summit. This summit had far reaching consequences for the entire planet, yet it gets a meagre 1 minute, and that is tucked right at the end of the 1/2 hour broadcast. (It was THAT WTO summit that Brazil and others walked out on)
Note also, the complete lack of coverage of anything in Europe , despite the fact that I was watching "CNN Europe".
No wonder folks are switching off the TV. If you did the same analysis for Fox, ABC and any of the other big TV stations, you'll probably get similar results. In the UK the one big exception is Channel 4 News.
Print media is much better than television
Also, from a technical standpoint, the great thing about print is that you can pause, rewind and fast-forward whenever you want. With a thick black sharpie, you can even ad-block.
~jeff
Yes, this is the television. If someone came up with the idea of TV today, he'd have a hard time trying to find anyone crazy enough to invest in it.
TV is a lowcost AV content distribution system. When compared to internet and P2P (why yes, I'm talking about BitTorrent) distribution, the inadequacies of the current broadcasting scheme become apparent. It is only the huge inertia of the entertainment world money that keeps the system afloat.
Based on publicly available data about TV series budgets and ratings I've calculated the average episode cost per household. For the more popular shows this is around 20 cents, with the 'fringe' shows like Stargate and Enterprise edging slightly higher. None of the shows, however, cost more than a dollar per viewer household per episode.
(This data is based on only US ratings. Imagine how low the cost will sink when we factor in the whole world!)
I'd really like to see a decentralized Internet TV, where the consumers could buy their favourite shows directly from the production houses. New episodes would be delivered as soon as they appear. (Remember to think globally.)
I think you can all immediatly see the benefits. This would put the consumers in control as shows would be produced for them, and not for the broadcasters. All new shows would be available globally instantly. (Existing subtitling and dubbing companies would need to change their operation somewhat.)
The technology should of course be time-shifting. This would free you from having to set your daily schedule to fit the TV schedule. And oh yes: since you'd pay for what you watch, there'd be no ads. (There could be, if you wanted to spare a dime. Even in that case the ads could be tailored to fit you: no more lipstick commercials for single bachelors.)
(The downsides? The broadcasting companies would have to change their business models radically. Cry me a friggin' river, but that's the way it is in the modern world that sees huge technological advances every decade.)
The best thing is that the technologies required for this are already here. BitTorrent, MPEG4 and ADSL (or other broadband technology).
I've tried really hard to find some problems in the scheme. IP and viewership rights are probably the biggest ones. I'd love to see a scheme that would allow me to pay for the episodes only once and then allow me to watch the episode an unlimited number of times. This does have an impact on the DVD sales, but then again, adapt or die.
If anyone of you
[ Antti Rasinen ]
All of which could have been prevented, had you not decided to become a thieving criminal.
A fine troll. I'll be happy to feed you.
when you watch a show on TV you do so under the agreement to tolerate advertisements which is your form of payment for said product
I'm sorry, where can I view this agreement? My form of payment is my satellite bill. Originally, cable TV was created with NO advertisements. That was the whole point of paying for it. You could have your free TV with your antenna, and commercials... or you could pay for cable and have none. Many people today don't realize this, because they allowed ads to take over cable TV as well, without much resistance.
Think about it. Advertising used to be a way to support content that was either being given out for free (like radio, pre-cable TV), or sold very cheap (like a newspaper). Nowadays, people ignore this and allow advertising to penetrate everything in sight, even with things that are already quite expensive. This overcommercialization of everything is a big problem, but that's another debate entirely.
Now, tell me this. If I'm PAYING for cable/satellite, what exactly is unethical about downloading any shows I want online? Shows that I have legal access to normally anyway? You're actually saying that because I don't view the ads, that I'm somehow "stealing" the programming? This is ridiculous. I could just as easily mute the commercials and ignore them when watching a live broadcast. I could also TIVO the shows and skip the commercials... is that unethical too? Again, I made NO agreement to watch them. I'm paying for a content delivery service, not the production of these shows.
By your reasoning, it's unethical to read a magazine or newspaper and not read every single ad in the publication. This is laughable.
Now, if people are NOT paying for TV in any form, and are still going on the net and downloading shows, maybe you could have an argument then. I still don't think so, though, because TV forces you to buy a large package consisting of many channels you don't want and will never watch, just to get the few channels and programs you DO want. THAT'S unethical. But that's big media as usual...
The Soviets were able to suck as much operating capital as they needed from their empire, as long as they could keep their slaves from comparing notes. Their "bankruptcy" was effectively meaningless, as they could declare any values for any exchange at any time. As long as they controlled the info about those values to people around their giant land. When decentralized communications became possible, their rigged game fell apart, as their people could easily out-think their centralized few lie fabricators. America, of course, has a much more integrated propaganda industry, and isn't as broke as the Soviets (because we can borrow internationally - so we're actually more broke, but less trapped by it).
We'll see if more decentralized media threaten our elite as much as it did the Soviets. We're already seeing the efforts to certify "official publishers", with copyright, DRM, "trusted computing", and the increasing FUD against blogs. Where there's smoke like that, they must smell fire.
--
make install -not war
Nice idea, but if I buy something, I want to watch it whenever I want, not just in a 24 hour period. VoD is the way forward, but I'm not sacrificing what I already have for it (and that would be the VCR style method - record once, watch many many many times)
I'm writing from an American perspective here, but I like TV. TV has been an important part of my life, a source of entertainment and relaxation as well as information when needed.
After 9/11, the internet collapsed, and no real news was available. Only TV provided reliable coverage, showing the footage, keeping us up to date with what was happening.
A few years ago I was working at home and happened to have the TV news on, and watched live as the Waco compound was stormed by cops, caught on fire and burned to the ground. Nothing afterwards, no tape or reporting, can compare to the impact of watching these events live in real time.
For entertainment, for all the talk about lowest common denominator, I have a genius level IQ and yet I enjoy the same shows that most other Americans do. I like Desperate Housewives and Lost. I like 24 and Alias. I like CSI and Law and Order. I also like science fiction: Enterprise, Tru Calling, Firefly. I enjoy some shows that are at the bottom of the ratings too: Jack and Bobby, Veronica Mars. I even like the reality series. Survivor never disappoints. I've been watching the Biggest Loser and the Branson shows too this season, and I'm waiting for American Idol.
So what does this mean? Well, there's no accounting for taste, but I can't help detecting a tinge of elitism in the many comments from people who don't like TV. I don't see why people are proud to say that the like movies but embarrassed to say that they like TV. A lot of the same people work in both fields. I don't see the quality of movies in general being any higher than those of television shows.
I do understand the objections about commercials, but I've got TiVo. I never watch a commercial I don't want to. And I watch my shows whenever I feel like it, not when they're programmed. TiVo takes an already great medium, TV, and makes it even better. With TiVo, television is the most reliable and least expensive form of entertainment available. I feel very lucky to have it.
I don't think that is such a great thing. Yes, occasionally you may get a great first-hand report from someone who actually went through the experience in question, but more often you simply have to wade through thousands of self-proclaimed experts spouting off about what's currently in the news.
The reporters are generally not the problem. I look forward to listening to what the NPR reporters have researched and put together because they are very sharp people. Going directly to the source may be Democracy at it's finest--and I certainly wouldn't say we shouldn't have that--but in the glut of information we need people to wade through it and help us filter out what's important. The people we feel are doing a good job of this get our patronage, and that's a free market solution for you.
http://www.rootstrikers.org/
In fact, not only did I not watch much tv in the dialup days, I didn't watch much tv after I was about 14.
When I moved to the States, I gave up tv almost altogether due to the quantity and intrusiveness of the ads. No, it's not a superiority thing. No, I don't think tv is "bad" as such. I just don't find an awful lot of value in it.
Now I've moved back home from the US, the only passive medium I use regularly is radio. The reason that radio will still be going once tv falls out of fashion is that despite radio being a passive medium too, you can do other things like drive a car, make the dinner, do some programming, do the laundry etc. whilst listening to the radio. The radio doesn't need your complete attention like something with moving images does. These days I typically listen to BBC Radio 6 for music and BBC Radio 4 for everything else.
Now about radio dramas - they aren't entirely passive. Like a book, they require some imagination. Your imagination can do far better special effects during a radio drama than the wealthiest movie studio can manage. Some people don't see the point in radio drama - but those people generally haven't listened to any.
Oolite: Elite-like game. For Mac, Linux and Windows
....and I still like dial-up better than TV hands down. At least I can control what I can see and think while online. TV just controls your thinking and basically says, "All your programming are belong to us." and I'm not trying to be funny here, either.
News and documentaries in Europe are much more intellectually challenging than in the US. Here, journalistic integrity is key, not flashy graphics and keeping sponsors happy. American media/documentaries (are there any American documentaries made for TV?)
It might sound a bit harsh, but I've seen lots of US news. It's nasty. Emotive, unobjective, cheap. Always the human angle played up, irregardless of its importance. I.E. one story about a boy's hurt puppy will get more airtime than a flood in some far-off place. In fact, ANYTHING will get more playtime than something from another nation.
Take the BBC News, for example. They have a service where you press the red button on your remote control, and a side-bar pops up on your TV. It contains background information on entities/people mentioned in the current news story. Kind of like pop-up video meets wikipedia. You can read about the people, places, countries, industries, conflicts, etc. mentioned.
I'm of the belief that American media is destroyed, that journalistic integrity under the sponsors grip is impossible, and that it's going to get a LOT worse before it improves.
go go gadget flame-retardant codpiece!