Television Reloaded

theodp writes "The TV times, they are a-changing. Over at Newsweek, Steven Levy offers a serious tome on the future of television, including time-shifting ("people will follow schedules only for real-time events like sports and election night"), space-shifting ("Now that you've stored your show on a TiVo, it's only logical to take it with you on your laptop, hand-held viewer or PSP game player") and the move from broadcast TV to broadband TV. Meanwhile, Conan O'Brien lightens things up with his own vision of the TV future ("Toddlers' bowls will have a television at the bottom, and children will be encouraged to eat all of their mush so they can see Morley Safer.")."

Comments

Will they...

[xor.pt]

Will they bring back the cookie monster?

Re:Will they...

[Spodlink05]

Will they bring back the cookie monster?

Super Grover where are you now?
When everything's gone wrong somehow,
The men of cookie dough, the men of flour,
Are losing control by the hour.

Re:Will they...

[HG2]

Oh No scary cookie monster will eat me all up! Mummy stop them! Mummy I just pished in my pants. /me goes off cring...

Re:Will they...

[Anonymous Coward]

they said it's environmentally safe

<cynical remark goes here>
--
Giving money and power to government is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys. - P.J. O'Rourke

Re:Will they...

[dabigpaybackski]

Will they bring back the cookie monster?

Yes, but in a slimmed-down, fitness-conscious version named Sri Swami Cookiemanda, who after a lengthy period of reflection and purification, came to renounce his sedentary lifestyle and wanton consumption of satvic foods.

Re:Will they...

[Anonymous Coward]

Okay, I'll bite. Obviously "Land of Confusion" by Genesis, but are there any more verses?

Re:Will they...

[Spodlink05]

When I can be bothered writing the rest ;)

The Future is Now.

[Vorondil28]

In the /. tradition, our commuity has been riding the crest of this digital wave with our BitTorrent clients for some time.

Re:The Future is Now.

[bheer]

Nothing stops TV companies from offering Janus/Fairplay encoded content (with ads) via BitTorrent. I'm pretty sure they'd get quite a few viewers too because the official seeds would be far more reliable than the unofficial ones operating out of Eastern Europe/someone's crappy home connection.

Any home that has a 2Mbps+ connection is a prime candidate for this sort of service.

Re:The Future is Now.

[Anonymous Coward]

1) I said nothing about myself personally,
2) Not all television progams downloadable via BitTorrent are illegal, and
3) I am attempting to justify nothing.

Please, go troll somewhere else.

Re:The Future is Now.

[FLEB]

It might need a different file format, though, for advertisers' sakes. One problem with non-streamed digital distribution is that the numbers are never quite sure on the difference between downloads and views. It's harder to convince sponsors to pay for x-number of eyeballs when there's no guarantee past "the bits were delivered".

For the anti-DRM/spyware crowd: how would you feel about a free-TV app that called home with per-view "hit" statistics when a tagged file was played?

Re:The Future is Now.

[LordSnooty]

It's harder to convince sponsors to pay for x-number of eyeballs when there's no guarantee past "the bits were delivered".

Interesting though that they can't offer that for standard TV-over-the-air. People could be doing the ironing, having sex or whatever. Yet the advertisers seem happy that x million homes were tuned into that channel, Doesn't matter if you weren't watching.

If we downloaded officially we'd spin the ads on anyway, just as we do with taped stuff/Tivo.

Re:The Future is Now.

[Tim C]

If we downloaded officially we'd spin the ads on anyway, just as we do with taped stuff/Tivo.

Unless the format and player prevented that, of course.

Re:The Future is Now.

[mdfst13]

"Interesting though that they can't offer that for standard TV-over-the-air. People could be doing the ironing, having sex or whatever. Yet the advertisers seem happy that x million homes were tuned into that channel, Doesn't matter if you weren't watching."

That's one of the advantages of TiVo. It's possible to detect when someone is fast forwarding (and therefore watching) the ads. However, it's worth noting that they do research on viewer stats in general. I.e. they know that a Nielsen estimate of twenty million people means that only (for example) eleven million are watching on average.

Some TV show producer should team up with TiVo to distribute TiVo files over bitTorrent instead of relying on the networks. TiVo already has the call home capability to make this work. They'd just need to add a bitTorrent client.

Re:The Future is Now.

[Evil Adrian]

We can argue syntax and semantics all day, but depriving someone of payment due is close enough to theft that any arguments "justifying" copyright infringement lack weight.

Re:The Future is Now.

[Anonymous Coward]

official seeds would be far more reliable than the unofficial ones operating out of Eastern Europe/someone's crappy home connection

Of course, mate. Because none of us shifty Europeans would be sneaky enough to rent high-bandwidth Linux shell accounts in London or New York to seed torrents with.

Yes, official seeds would be more reliable, but the power of BitTorrent is still in the cloud, not in the node.

The real difference would be having an official tracker - unless the new trackerless torrents really take off.

Re:The Future is Now.

[cthulhu11]

I don't understand the obsession with bittorrent when edonkey is so clearly a better way to get files that are more than 15 seconds old.

Re:The Future is Now.

[DickBreath]

We can argue syntax and semantics all day, but depriving someone of payment due is close enough to theft that any arguments "justifying" copyright infringement lack weight.

I loved it late last year when the Federal Court of Appeals judge strongly scolded a lawyer for using "harsh language" like "stealing" and "theft" when describing "copyright infringement". This was in the mp3 of the oral arguments in the Grokster case.

You can argue syntax and semantics all day, but reproducing a copyright work without permission is copyright infringement, plain and simple. Whether copyright infringement is justified, or has actually occurred, or whether someone is liable for it, is a completely different argument than what it should be called. That was the court of appeals Judge's point.

Using loaded terms like "stealing" and "theft" are just attempts to add a sensational emotional charge. Using descriptive terms like "copyright infringement" does not somehow lessen what is happening. Perhaps we should revisit all of our technical vocabulary and substitute emotionally charged words/phrases?

Not convinced? Copyright is completely orthogonal to payment. A copyright work may be GPL licensed, but not require payment. Someone might infringe the copyright of the author by reproducing the work in contravention of the license (i.e. copyright infringement, not "theft"), even though the author made the work available without payment.

Re:The Future is Now.

[Evil Adrian]

You can argue syntax and semantics all day, but reproducing a copyright work without permission is copyright infringement, plain and simple. Whether copyright infringement is justified, or has actually occurred, or whether someone is liable for it, is a completely different argument than what it should be called. That was the court of appeals Judge's point.

Like I said, syntax and semantics aside, it's close enough. While "Copyright Infringement" and "Theft" are technically distinct, they have more or less the same effect. Rights are being violated, people are getting ripped off, etc.

That brings me to the major issue here: people are trying as hard as they can to disassociate the term "Copyright Infringement" from "Theft" in an attempt to make "Copyright Infringement" a softer, gentler euphemism for something that, if it isn't theft exactly, is certainly theft's blood relative.

For the record, I have no problem with people giving their own Copyrighted works away for free. I have a huge problem with people pirating things that are being offered for sale, that they somehow (unjustifiably) feel entitled to.

Re:The Future is Now.

[DickBreath]

That brings me to the major issue here: people are trying as hard as they can to disassociate the term "Copyright Infringement" from "Theft" in an attempt to make "Copyright Infringement" a softer, gentler euphemism for something that, if it isn't theft exactly, is certainly theft's blood relative.

You've got it backwards. "Copyright infringement" is not some recently contrived euphemism. It is a technical and legal term that has been around a long time. Theft is the recently invented euphemism.

You've got it backwards. Nobody is trying to disassociate anything. On the contrary, people are recently trying to associate terms like Theft and Stealing with Copyright Infringement when they are completely different things. This is because they have some agenda to push. People without any agenda are happy to use bland technical descriptions.

This kind of name calling is used when someone doesn't have any actual facts to argue. It is like trying to use terms such as "Anti-Life" or "Anti-Choice".

The law defined the term "copyright infringement" and assigned penalties for it a long time ago.



if it isn't theft exactly, is certainly theft's blood relative

The terms theft and copyright infringement are unrelated and mean different precise things. The "infringement" means that somebody's right (a copyright) is being infringed. There are civil and criminal penalties for this. Trying to inject emotion into it serves no purpose. Theft is when someone takes your physical property -- something that also has civil and criminal penalties.

Copyright Infringement is not some "softer gentler euphemism". It is a term that refers to a violation of the law -- just as other terms describe other violations of the law: Rape, Murder, Theft, Posession of controlled substance, Copyright Infringement, Jaywalking, etc.

Maybe it is that when seen in that list of crimes, it is embarrasing (to those with a certian agenda) how much more serious the other crimes are, and therefore, they have to try to associate the term Theft with it.

If you have a copyright, and someone infringes it, it is more productive for you to pursue the issue legally for both civil remedies and criminal prosecution. Name calling does not get you anywhere -- unless you are trying to play political games.



It is like the court of appeals case I mention where the judge scolded the MPAA's lawyer. There is no need to use harsh language like that. Simply argue and prove your case. Prove that, somehow, Grokster should be liable for how its users use the technology to infringe copyright. Simple as that. No need to use harsh language or redefine terms and meanings.

It is you that is trying to redefine the meaning of language that has been codified as the laws of the land.



I am not making any argument about trying to "justify" copyright infringement. If someone is infringing your copyright, stop calling names, and sue them!

Re:The Future is Now.

[Anonymous Coward]

Can anyone identify this case? I'd like to reference this to others.

Re:The Future is Now.

[DickBreath]

See this EFF page where you can download the MP3 of oral arguments. Start listing at about 25:15 into the oral arguments to hear the "harsh terms" and "abusive language" remarks.

Also see this.

Hope that helps. Try Googling.

On-demand is the future, today.

[Sheetrock]

The broadcast industry is fighting it every step of the way, but the future is in on-demand television. I argue the success of TiVo and other DVR devices demonstrates this; people want to be able to watch what they want when they want, without wasting time on things like commercials.

The best thing the industry could do would be to figure out a system where you select what you want to watch from a menu, give you a VCR commandset (play, pause, rewind, forward, stop), and offer a meaningful guarantee of retention or recordability. And figure out how to make money off of it without breaking the people who want to use it.

They're working so hard on figuring out how to make you watch commercials that they're missing the larger picture. If you charge for access to a service like this nobody can 'steal' content by fast-forwarding through commercials because there won't be any.

Re:On-demand is the future, today.

[sleeper0]

There are dozens of major pay and free channels that don't run commercials. None of these have a video on demand service for their content library. Why? Maybe because spending a maximum of two minutes explaining how to save an industry from the perspective of a sassy outsider isn't actually going to yield insightful or constructive results.

Re:On-demand is the future, today.

[Turn-X Alphonse]

Simple, put an advert before the TV show starts, maybe even two if you're a money whore. Most people wouldn't mind a 10 seconds advert before a TV show.

Re:On-demand is the future, today.

[NanoGator]

Part of the problem here is that television is ad based, and time-slots are a VERY important factor in their pricing. By doing away with the time-slot (as DVRs basically do...) they feel they're going to lose big.

There's probably some truth to it, but I see an alternative. Base advertising on the show instead of the time slot. I mean, seriously, who in their right mind thinks Star Trek is a great time for a tampon or birth-control commercial? Television shows often develop a strong following. Unfortunately, musical time slots often kill well loved shows. (Futurama...) Dedicated viewer base, homeless. With DVRs, they could show new eps at 3am in the morning and they'd still generate revenue.

Unfortunately, this begs the ugly question of whether or not commercial skip should be allowed. Frankly, I think there's a compromise here. Get rid of commercial skip and add fast forward. I know this option won't go well with a lot of people. Sorry. But it's a sticky situation. If ads aren't being watched, the main source of revenue for these shows suddenly disappears.

Another alternative is something like iTunes for tv shows. A buck or two buys you an episode of your favorite show, ad free. Unfortunately, though, this could result in ridiculous monthly expenditures on TV. Conversely, lots of people are buying TV series DVDs. So... eh.

Frankly, I understand why this is contraversial on both sides. The solution isn't likely to make the customers or the television networks completely happy. Right now, I'm paying a pretty heft amount per month for digital cable. If I could funnel that money into an on-demand service instead, somebody could end up with a nifty sized subscription fee per month. Figure out how to make a profit on that, and they'll get my business.

Re:On-demand is the future, today.

[hansbleep]

Yes, the broadcast industry is fighting it every step of the way. But over the long-term the preferences of the content distributors have had very little sway on the ultimate delivery mechanisms for the content they distribute. We're always going to need some level of business apparatus surrounding the delivery of content, but the businesses themselves are basically just a means-to-an-end, with profits and success redistributed according to market need.

Think about it: the RIAA was dragged kicking and screaming into distribution models like iTunes Music Store, etc, which has ended up being a popular and heavily used option for a huge number of consumers. The MPAA originally opposed VHS and Betamax.

People are used to on-demand entertainment and television and radio are the only formats that don't widely support this consumption style. We like being able to pause our DVDs, skip past the songs we don't like in our CD/MP3 collections, browse what we want when we want to online, and so on. It's becoming part of our relationship with media. Any format that doesn't support this usage is going to have to evolve or die. It's simply the way things work, and it doesn't matter whether the broadcast industry doesn't like it, fights it, even wins a few legal battles in the short-term. Consumer demand will invariably be met by market forces.

Re:On-demand is the future, today.

[Sheetrock]

I'm betting this will surprise you, but the work and social schedules of most people are growing to preclude their ability to plunk their ass in front of the tube for hours at a stretch. As television has cut into reading time, so too the Internet has cut into television time. iTunes is demonstrating the feasibility of delivering paid-for digital media over the Internet, technology companies are gearing up digital rights management, the broadcast flag for consumer video equipment is on the horizon (delayed, maybe defeated, maybe not), and Microsoft is pushing Windows Media Center. Satellite companies are offering DVR as part of their services and a ton of content is being released on DVD -- at the same time, broadcasters are doubling- and tripling-up the same shows on their schedules each day and delivering some considerably lousy content (Reality TV, one- or two- star movies, home improvement and crime shows are all I can tune) while explaining that the problem is that they aren't getting the money they need from commercials.

Anybody in the pay-per-view industry will tell you on-demand television works. Details such as whether you pay per watch, per episode, or per 'channel' of content are certainly up to the implementors, but if you don't believe this is coming soon you're not properly interpreting the signals. I don't have to sing its praises to the broadcast industry; they're simply waiting for the various pieces that make up the technology and legislation necessary for such a scheme to fall into place.

Re:On-demand is the future, today.

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem is people don't want commercials but most are used to free TV so they don't want to pay. You can point to cable but it's a bad example. Most of cable is supported by commercials. There are paid channels but if you paid for every channel it would cost thousands of dollars a month. You can say then that you simply choose which ones you want. I think you'd find the number of channels would drop like a rock. You might not see this as a bad thing but they may have to cut your favorite channels. Entertainment is going to have to change how it does business because it's fighting for it's life but the end result is likely to be a consolidation of options and more limited selection. Also the big budget films may one day go the way of the dinosaur. Without enough revenue the film budgets will have to drop. Star Wars films don't survive on one out of four people seeing it once. They make their money off a percentage seeing it a second and third time. If you say go to a pay per view HD system instead of theaters you have maybe a flat rate of $5 to $10 for the showing but a family of four gets to see the new release for $10 instead of $30, in some cases $40 or $50. And that doesn't count having the friends over to see the newest release. Revenues from a theatrical release could be cut easily from a half to a third of the present levels, maybe much more. The only way to keep the revenues up are embeded product placement and commercials that that play whether you like it or not. If you go for a no commercial model the budgets have to drop. Big budgets will hang on for a while but unless a new way of making money on them can be found they simply can't survive in the digital world. It's all about profits and they will be forced to adopt a way of making films that is more profitable. People may like the big budget films but if they don't want to pay for them they simply won't get made in the first place.

Re:On-demand is the future, today.

[swansmt]

Pretty soon, we'll have an iTunes for our favorite tv shows. See that new "Show video full screen." button? That right there is the future. I for one welcome our new digital overlords.

Re:On-demand is the future, today.

[irc.goatse.cx troll]

You mean like HBO, Showtime, and Cinemax? Because they all offer Video On Demand here. Granted, I live in austin (one of TWCables testbeds), But I know they offer this elsewhere now.
www.hbo.com/hboondemand/ for more info on HBO's. The problem is they don't offer the good stuff.

Re:On-demand is the future, today.

[NanoGator]

What? What'd I say about security?

Re:On-demand is the future, today.

[Dragoon412]

Believe it or not, Comcast already does this.

They have this on-demand feature built into their digital cable boxes. The selection's a little lacking, but in effect, you can play any TV show or movie they have any time you want, it just costs a few bucks. They even have a fair amount of free content (no doubt to get people using the service), and the selection's not too bad. It seems most HBO shows are on it, and a lot of major cable networks seem to be on board; Discovery, Comedy Central, the History Channel, and quite a few others.

I'm no big fan of Comcast, but I've got to say, they really nailed this one.

Re:On-demand is the future, today.

[AvantLegion]

>> The problem is they don't offer the good stuff.

Yet. Let them take their baby steps and feel things out.

Re:On-demand is the future, today.

[sleeper0]

"I'm betting this will surprise you [...]"

sure no one has heard of people recording video programs for later watching, thank you for your time and insight!

"iTunes is demonstrating the feasibility of delivering paid-for digital media over the Internet"

True. I'm not sure anyone has argued that it is technically possible for it to be done. However, you might be interested in the fact that ITMS has been explained by apple as being no better than break even. They are unable to make a profit with the service. As far as apple is concerned it exists solely to promote sales of their iPod hardware device. Content interests have repeatedly protested that ITMS sales perform poorly compared to retail sales. So literally there is no corporate interest in ITMS barring sales of the portable. Not really a great example for on demand television unless you sell a portable video player.

"Windows Media Center [...] offering DVR [...] released on DVD"

Some good examples of the PVR/DVR market. Let's explain why PVR works now while on demand may not.

98.2% of households own a TV (US 1990)
74.9% of households have some kind of Internet (US 2004)
45.2% of households have broadband (US 2004)

obviously broadband on demand delivery has a major hurdle to take care of before it could replace broadcast + PVR timeshifting

Even if broadband penetration was 98.2%, which could take decades, could current digital infrastructure support each television household consuming 2-6 hours of on demand 1mbps-6mbps video content? No. While it may work for you to download a show or two, it would all fall apart if all of your neighbors were doing the same thing. Infrastucture can't support it (yet)

"If you charge for access to a service like this nobody can 'steal' content by fast-forwarding through commercials because there won't be any."

Broadcast television revenues: US$54.4B (US 2004)
Premium television revenues: US$8.5B (worldwide 2002)
PPV television revenues: US$2.4B (worldwide 2002)

I'm not sure I'd like to explain to shareholders how the only answer to sustaining my business is to abandon a $54B market to chase a $2B-8B market (at best) with higher costs.

Also ratings would fall drastically:
highest rated show 5/9-5/15: CSI (CBS) 26.4M viewers
highest rated premium tv show 5/9-5/15: below public reporting threshold, below 3.1M viewers

So in summary:
* no example of profitable major on demand broadband video delivery
* infrastructure does not support it
* penetration is less than half of broadcast
* current market revenue is 5%-20% of broadcast

I dont think broadcast will be going away anytime soon.

Re:On-demand is the future, today.

[chris_eineke]

Part of the problem here is that television is ad based, and time-slots are a VERY important factor in their pricing. By doing away with the time-slot (as DVRs basically do...) they feel they're going to lose big.

So what? I think they can benefit from having dynamic timeslots anyways. Remember that they now can air multiple ads at the same time (i.e. Dave watches show A at 7, Joey watches show B at 7)... they now have two methods of targeting viewers: by timeslot and by audience. Combine that with a "with ad / without ad" selector and you will see the dough roll in like one-year-old krispy kreme donuts.

Re:On-demand is the future, today.

[Dwonis]

Get rid of commercial skip and add fast forward. I know this option won't go well with a lot of people. Sorry. But it's a sticky situation. If ads aren't being watched, the main source of revenue for these shows suddenly disappears.

So, if I understand this correctly, you're saying that every time technology changes in a big way, the public should give up a little bit of freedom. What will be left in 100 years?

I watch TV a lot, but I'd rather see TV die than take away people's freedom in order to save it. But that's probably a moot point, since in reality, TV won't die: there is money to be made selling television service to consumers.

Re:On-demand is the future, today.

[superpulpsicle]

Woah, iTunes is a terrible example for future demonstration. You would end up going broke paying a couple dollars for every show you watch. It's got to be a free for all subscription service. Though the current price of cable is extremely messed up. For example...

Comcast digital Platinum service is $100 a month with hundreds of channels. But at most you'll watch 30% of them.

The entire Internet is $40 a month via broadband. It's interactive, and offer infinite number of channels.

Re:On-demand is the future, today.

[scrapeYurShoos]

on-demand is the future only for certain types of programming. news, sports and 'water-cooler' shows like 'Lost' will always be watched in near real time. who watches the Super Bowl days after it occurred? there's simply no impetus to make these kinds of shows on-demand.

Re:On-demand is the future, today.

[Sheetrock]

"I'm betting this will surprise you [...]"

sure no one has heard of people recording video programs for later watching, thank you for your time and insight!

No, I meant the part about having a social schedule.

Re:On-demand is the future, today.

[child_of_mercy]

never believe any costing out of the recording industry. The recording industry makes ALL it's money out of burying costs within costs.

gross cash value of CD sales doesn't account for the net after reproduction and distribution have been paid for.

It's possible that they "are" being honest in their depiction of the numbers.

but it would be the first time.

Re:On-demand is the future, today.

[NanoGator]

"So, if I understand this correctly, you're saying that every time technology changes in a big way, the public should give up a little bit of freedom."

No. I didn't say that. I never said anything about giving up freedoms. What I did say is that we have to pay for TV. I don't know why you guys expect free ad-free TV when an episode of Star Trek, for example, costs over a million dollars to make.

"I watch TV a lot, but I'd rather see TV die than take away people's freedom in order to save it."

That's fine, but I never said anything about recording shows.

Re:On-demand is the future, today.

[sleeper0]

Ahh, I must have misunderstood. You suggest that the only answer to a broadcast television model is to cease broadcast, fire all sponsors and provide content exclusively through on demand digital delivery. I suggest practical factual reasons that won't work and your response is "I have more social obligations than you HAHA!" Obviously.

Re:On-demand is the future, today.

[FLEB]

The entire Internet is $40 a month via broadband. It's interactive, and offer infinite number of channels.

The problem with that statement, though, is that when content becomes popular, the problem inherent to Internet popularity (melty server) usually forces the popular site to become pay-based just to afford the hosting.

If content on par with premium cable were to go online in any significant way, it would doubtless be as a pay service, probably piecemeal to each provider, which would either be full of ads or other trade-offs, or would be a paid service above and beyond the regular Internet fees. Basically, it's apples and oranges.

Re:On-demand is the future, today.

[Anonymous Coward]

And why is it these shows cost so damn much to make? I'm sure some of it is the effects... but more of it is probably for the actors. I think it is ridiculous that some of these idiots get paid as much as $1 million an episode/actor (e.g. Friends, Seinfeld, etc...).

That is the real reason that a lot of stations have moved at least some of their content to "Reality" TV. The actors cost a hell of a lot less and people still tune in to watch...

Re:On-demand is the future, today.

[mdfst13]

"So, if I understand this correctly, you're saying that every time technology changes in a big way, the public should give up a little bit of freedom."

Uhm...giving up what freedom? What he said was that they should not offer commercial skip; they should offer fast forward. That's how TV + VCR works (and incidentally, how TiVo works) now.

In a way, commercial skip takes away freedom. Studies have shown that most people prefer commercials to paying for content. That's why most stations are free but have commercials. With commercial skip, people lose that option (unless you add a call home when a commercial is actually watched).

It's also worth pointing out that people have better recall of commercials that we fast forward. As a result, fast forward is a win both for watchers (saves waiting for the show) and for advertisers (improves impact of commercial). Commercial skip is a loss for both (watchers lose free TV; advertisers no longer reach watchers).

Re:On-demand is the future, today.

[eraserewind]

No better than break even for Apple. Apple is just a retailer. You can bet that someone is making money from it.

Re:On-demand is the future, today.

[Znork]

"just to afford the hosting."

P2P efficiency disproves that theory.

"If content on par with premium cable were to go online in any significant way"

Content better than premium cable already is online in a significant way. The current failure of content providers to change their business model to fit doesnt change that.

Re:On-demand is the future, today.

[Znork]

Frankly, I'd rather pay an extra tv-tax to have tv produced than watch advertizing.

Marketing is an unproductive parasite on the economy, where consumers get to pay extra for the privilidge of supporting the production of something they'd have to be forced to watch, resulting in nothing but damage to the free market.

Re:On-demand is the future, today.

[tgd]

Wait, that doesn't make sense.

Time slots don't make the ads valuable, the number of people watching makes them valuable.

If you have 15 million people watching ER at 10pm on Thursday, you may have a valuable timespots at 10:00, but if you move Entertainment Tonight to that time slot, the ads aren't going to be valuable just because its at 10:00.

If you let 25 million people watch ER any time they want, the ads you insert in there will be just as, if not more, valuable as the ads in that timeslot. Why? Because timeslot has nothing to do with ad value, the program carrying the ad does.

Re:On-demand is the future, today.

[Riskable]

I have Comcast digital cable and I use on-demand fairly regularly. However, I have a number of big issues with it. For me (and I'm sure many others), it is nothing more than a neat trick than a useful feature...

1) The interface sucks. You can't search for shows. You can't customize it. There's no easy way to see what is new and what is old.

2) You need a Comcast-provided box to use it. With an ATSC CableCard tuner, there's no way to watch on-demand. As more and more of these TVs become available with their special features (true PiP, PVR-like functions, etc), no one is going to want to bother with Comcast's boxes. This will probably change in 2007 when all cable companies are required to use CableCards along with the rest of the industry.

3) The shows are almost *ALWAYS* old. I don't want to see 3-weeks-ago's Alias. I want to see TONIGHTS episode... I don't care if it takes a couple hours to transcode or whatever, but often times shows are literally MONTHS old and they'll stay in On-Demand for weeks at a time.

4) Shows are shown out-of-order. I want to know what genius thought it was a good idea to put up episode 7-9, 15-18, then the season finale.

5) You have to watch Comcast advertisements when you're browsing for shows. SUPREMELY annoying. "This week in On-Demand! Four-months old episodes of 24 shown out of order! Brought to you by Coca Cola."

Re:On-demand is the future, today.

[GeckoX]

Who's holding the gun to your head?
Seriously, I am REALLY sick of hearing this crap on this thread.

Don't like TV? Don't partake then.

Re:On-demand is the future, today.

[An ominous Cow art]

I make it a point to look aside while forwarding past commercials. I can tell when to stop by a combination of a general sense of the lightness/color of the screen and the proper amount of time having gone by.

Re:On-demand is the future, today.

[zCyl]

Marketing is an unproductive parasite on the economy, where consumers get to pay extra for the privilidge of supporting the production of something they'd have to be forced to watch, resulting in nothing but damage to the free market.

Yeah. Advertising has very little to do with informing the public, and is now basically about persuading or coercing the public. As a result, the capitalistic forces no longer encourage success of the best value/cost ratio, but the best advertisement_impression/cost ratio. This causes society to consume a lot of inferior products that it wouldn't otherwise want (fast-food, shoes with planned obsolescence, etc), instead of the corresponding better products.

Now it seems that advertising is so successful that it will continue anyway with or without TV, but it can certainly be said that TV has presented a particularly potent medium for this. I don't think we as a society need to jump through huge hoops to encourage this as a funding mechanism for TV, if the technology starts to flow more naturally in a different direction.

Re:On-demand is the future, today.

[Anonymous Coward]

Advertising has very little to do with informing the public, and is now basically about persuading or coercing the public.

Advertising/Marketing has *always* been about persuading/coercing the public into buying a particular product/brand.

Re:On-demand is the future, today.

[Dwonis]

Uhm...giving up what freedom? What he said was that they should not offer commercial skip; they should offer fast forward.

The freedom to buy devices that do offer a commercial-skip feature. Or do you think manufacturers will all voluntarily leave out this feature forever without any influence from the regulatory bodies?

Re:On-demand is the future, today.

[Dwonis]

No. I didn't say that. I never said anything about giving up freedoms.

Don't be naive. You said:

Unfortunately, this begs the ugly question of whether or not commercial skip should be allowed. Frankly, I think there's a compromise here. Get rid of commercial skip and add fast forward.

The obvious way this would be done is by legislating/regulating feature out of existence, i.e. giving up freedom.

Re:On-demand is the future, today.

[NanoGator]

"The obvious way this would be done is by legislating/regulating feature out of existence, i.e. giving up freedom."

Eh. Don't get me wrong, I see your point, but the problem is that the freedom you describe potentially means people getting TV without 'paying' for it. (by paying for it, I mean watching commercials.) In other words, 'paying' for the TV is the step that's trying to be skipped. (Though not intentionally.) I see your point that it's 'giving up a freedom', but the alternative is 'no tv for you'. That is, of course, if we're talking about going to unlikely extremes.

A better solution...

[sturat]

I think I'll just buy one of these instead.

Re:A better solution...

[toggles]

> ... and then the sh*t will really hit the fan ... literally!" - My Boss (1992-1996)

He said that constantly for 4 years? man i coulnd't have taken it for so long.

Re:A better solution...

[Anonymous Coward]

I prefer the idiot-b-gone: The 44 magnum.

Re:A better solution...

[dabigpaybackski]

I prefer the idiot-b-gone: The 44 magnum.

You and Elvis, that is. Yes, the King had a penchant for whipping out a revolver and shooting the television when he didn't like what was being shown.

Re:A better solution...

[Anonymous Coward]

My bonnie++ was used by Norwegians, To see how fast my RAID could be, My bonnie++ was used by Norwegians, ...but was bonnie++ written in C?
--
[-(friend^2)]^(1/2)

Re:A better solution...

[Doppler00]

Just imagine all the fun you could have taking one of those into best buy. heheh....

shit TV

[toby]

Toddlers' bowls will have a television at the bottom

Why did I immediately think he meant toilet bowls? -- and that it had already happened?

Re:shit TV

[Anonymous Coward]

Why is the quote at the bottom of /. also saying "90 percent of everything is crap" at the same time you said this? Ironic, at most.

Re:shit TV

[Anonymous Coward]

Your lucky, I thought it said bowels.

What about actual content?

[grasshoppa]

Great, so the shows are going to be portable ( pipe dream? I don't doubt the possibility, I doubt the IP laywers will let it happen ). What about decent shows?

Re:What about actual content?

[tukkayoot]

Subscribe to HBO. Great shows, plus some movies, and they aren't dependent on revenue from commercials, and appear to have embraced on-demand television already.

We need a couple more HBO-like channels (Showtime seems pretty close, but I haven't seen too many promos for their shows that entice me too much), or else need HBO to grow in subscribers so they can expand their offerings and produce more originals.

It's really about the only TV channel I watch these days.

Future? How about Present.

[EtherealStrife]

Really.

"It'll be a cosmic video jukebox where you can fire up old episodes of "Cop Rock," the fifth game of the 1993 World Series, a live high-school lacrosse game, a ranting video blogger and your own HD home-movie production of Junior's first karate tournament. While it's playing, you can engage in running voice commentary with your friends, while in a separate part of the screen you're slamming orcs in World of Warcraft. Then you can pay your bill on screen. And if you ever manage to leave your home theater, you can monitor the whole shebang in your car, at a laptop at Starbucks or via the laundry-ticket-size screen on your cell phone."

I can do that now. What's so "futuristic" about that? Each of my bed posts has a surround sound speaker mounted to it, and I have big screen tv precariously situated on top of my dresser (don't ask), so I can just wake up and commence brainrot without leaving bed. Video output from computer to tv and bam! Stick the feed tubes in me, I'm set to go!

Re:Future? How about Present.

[Acidic_Diarrhea]

I believe the point is that the on-demand type of services and information overload will be widely accepted by the masses. Right now you're in a small segment of the population and, this is the important part, corporate America hasn't charged you enough for what you're receiving. The whole point is that companies want to bring this to the masses and make money off of it.

On a side note, you should try taking the television out of your bedroom. I did this and I find it is a much healthier lifestyle. You might find you don't need the television in the house at all.

Re:Future? How about Present.

[oirtemed]

I agree with tvs in bedroom == bad idea, but removal from the house is a little extreme. The TV, like anything, has pros and cons and can be put to good uses.

Re:Future? How about Present.

[AussieVamp2]

hard to plug it into a tree to watch those futurama DVDs isn't it?

When-I-see-fit-TV

[LittleGuernica]

The way that I see it going is that TV will only be for the "premiere" of an episode and right after the broadcast you can watch it on demand, for maybe a small fee and without commercials for a handsome fee.

I bet Apple will get into this market, the question is how, with As Seen on TV denying a video ipod like a MS server denying service. so probably with the Airport express AV. It just might work.

Nobody wants to watch programs on a fixed time if they can get it from the internet whenever they want, so the TV stations have to come up with something special. Nobody knows what's on ESPN 8 "The Ocho" with 500 channels to choose from..

Re:When-I-see-fit-TV

[Anonymous Coward]

Haesta paska suatanan peikko.
Eihä tua näytä suamelta etes murteella.

Perkele.
--
This topic is so rife with nonsensical, contradictory emotional baggage and anthropomorphized Disney-esque pablum.

How is this news?

[Anonymous Coward]

Hmm, how long has this been possible for? Its been years now.

This was news the second people started putting out TV shows on the internet. Everyone in the industry simply just didn't act, the same way the music industry didn't act (and is only beginning to act upon) on the fact that this is the future and we have been living it for quite some time. The industry should adapt to the marketplace, not the other way around with these silly lawsuits and pathetic attempts to regulate an activity conducted in an unregulated environment (thank God for that).

How much more money they lose depends on how attached they remained to the way things were before because the solution is in their hands.

Re:How is this news?

[Anonymous Coward]

This was news the second people started putting out TV shows on the internet.

No, it WILL be news once companies start putting their shows on the Internet. People stealing the shows and putting them on the Internet is a different kind of news.

Yeah, right

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm so sure this is going to happen. They've been predicting on-demand, interactive TV for decades and it hasn't happened yet. The technology is there for it to happen, but the networks are terrified of it because it will mean their cherished business models will go right out the window.

Nope, I just don't see this happening with the networks' blessing.

Driving hard or hardly driving?

[The Angry Artist]

What I'm surprised about is that there aren't yet televisions in car dashboards so we can watch our favorite programs during the boring drives on the road. C'mon, what do the car manufacturers expect us to do when we aren't talking on our cell phones, drinking coffee, eating, reading a newspaper, or sleeping in the car? Drive?

Re:Driving hard or hardly driving?

[Anonymous Coward]

I've seen TVs IN THE STEERING WHEEL.

Sorry. I felt that deserved the bold, and the caps. 92 point font would also have been sufficent.

Re:Driving hard or hardly driving?

[Brett Buck]

I'm not sure why this is modded funny! Maybe because there is no "tragicomic" tag.

My brother works for a group that installs aftermarket items on cars, like A/C and Steros/DVD players, and in-dash DVD is a VERY popular modification. Not "back seat so the kids can watch Teletubbies" DVD players, dashboard. I'm not even sure it's explicitly illegal everywhere.

Brett

Re:Driving hard or hardly driving?

[Anonymous Coward]

I saw a guy the other day who had little monitors installed in his wind visors.

Re:Driving hard or hardly driving?

[Anonymous Coward]

Uhh, no. The first terminator was looking for sarah conner. The second, which looked like liquid metal, was actually looking for both John & Sarah when it went back in time.

This IS news for nerds, you knew that right? Sorry to nitpick, but I figured you may know why the mods deemed this funny.

Re:Driving hard or hardly driving?

[Anonymous Coward]

Please elaborate on MS DRM being cracked. Is this something that applies to WMA files as well? The only thing that's stopped me from using online music stores is the lack of something akin to fairplay to ensure the files I purchase won't ultimately be rendered obsolete if/when I buy a new player that may or may not support the same DRM standards being used now.

Re:Driving hard or hardly driving?

[YrWrstNtmr]

Is it illegal in the state/city where your brother works?

Re:Driving hard or hardly driving?

[Anonymous Coward]

Let me help. Apparently, software RAID is slower than hardware RAID, and Linux SCSI drivers are of variable quality, and also setting a PC on fire degrades its disk performance.
--
~~~~~ BigLig2? You mean there's another one of me?

Re:Driving hard or hardly driving?

[Brett Buck]

Not to install it! I would suspect it's perfectly legal to watch as long as you aren't driving at the same time.

Brett

Re:Driving hard or hardly driving?

[YrWrstNtmr]

Usually, if they can bee seen from the drivers seat, they are supposed to be interlocked with the transmission. Out of Park, screen off.

I've seen several aftermarket installations that ignore this requirement.

Here's a discussion on trying to disable that for an Escalade.

For instance, here is California's requirement on this.

Re:Driving hard or hardly driving?

[Kaorimoch]

The car of the future won't be for driving. It will be an entertainment device that just happens to take us where we want to go automatically and we just watch TV and movies, listen to music, call people up etc while we wait.

Re:Driving hard or hardly driving?

[Smork]

You should come to The Netherlands. Currently the national phone company is also moving in to digital wireless tv that is transmitted over the air. Guess what, they're promoting TV in your car at the moment! Not DVD's, live tv...

MythTV + PSP

[Jack Porter]

I'm already watching most of my TV on the subway on my way to work using my PSP. MythTV records what I want and then I use PSPvideo9 with avisynth to transcode with just a few mouse clicks.

Re:MythTV + PSP

[oirtemed]

If sony didn't use yet another prop memory stick then I'd be all over this in a heartbeat.

What will happen...

[banuk]

... to those paid advertisements at 3am in the morning? No one will want to buy those shows and watch them? where will they go? how will I know the new way to clean the beer/cheeto crubs off my shirts without OxyClean(C)

TV, what's that?

[Stormwatch]

Oh, you mean the screen to which we connect the game systems?

Re:TV, what's that?

[Insanity]

There's a place for a .sig about the evils of circumcision, and a technology news site isn't it. Also, you really don't have to make it bold, italic, and underlined. You're only a CAPSLOCK away from having the most annoying sig on slashdot.

Re:TV, what's that?

[Stormwatch]

*sigh* If only I could make it a huge, animated Flash banner with audio...

I'm half way there, the future rules.

[MBCook]

I'm half way there, and the future rules. I've got a TiVo, so by and large I don't know when things are on anymore (I used to know EVERYTHING). I can't even tell you what channel many thing are on without thinking. Is there a new episode this week? I don't know, I'd have to check my TiVo. It takes care of it all, and TV is MUCH MUCH better. Now it doesn't matter if a show comes on at 2 AM, I can still watch it. TV on my schedule.

But things will get better. Watching TV this way (and renting TV show DVDs from Netflix) have tought me one vital lesson that everyone will learn one day: Networks are meaningless.

Long ago, when the internet ran at 9600 BPS and computer literacy of the day made the current situation look like a paradise, you subscribed to a online service. You had AOL, or Compuserve, or Prodigy. That was your view of the world. But now everyting is on the internet. It doesn't matter how you get to the 'net, Slashdot looks the same.

TV will be the same way. It won't matter who airs CSI, your TiVo (or whatever) will download it off the 'net for you. All TV shows will be distributed that way. Once you aren't tied to a network schedule, it doesn't matter where you get the TV from, it's all the same.

Video on Demand for HBO and Showtime that you see advertised are basically the future (only things will be better than that). That is where we are going. It will be like podcasts, only with TV shows. And it will be great.

The sooner the TV exectives realize that, the better. In my opinion, half the reason shows like Futurama, Family Guy, and The Critic had problems was because they aired in a timeslot that was always getting pre-empted by football. How can people get into a show if it is almost never on for half a year? Well now it won't matter.

I can't wait. Things will be better.

Re:I'm half way there, the future rules.

[bergeron76]

The only problem with this is that the next day you can't sit around the water cooler and gossip with the secretaries about "what happened on Desparate Housewives last night". ;)

Re:I'm half way there, the future rules.

[DickBreath]

Now in my fourth week as a TiVo owner.

It really does change how you watch television. Almost from the very first day. The biggest problems I have now are

• there is more in TiVo's "what's playing" list than I can hope to watch
• I have the new problem of managing what I want to keep -- i.e. prioritizing the very best from among the best stuff that the TiVo recorded. I really want to see these nine things, but I will need six evenings to watch them.
• because of that, my TiVo time cuts into.... horrors... my Internet surfing time! (Of course, in time, this may change once the novelty wears off. Or not.)
• What Conan (in TFA) said is true: I watch fewer choices and alarmingly, less news. The first realization of this was when I had to go out of my friggin way to catch the news at a particular time and channel in order to learn more about the plane that flew too close to the white house.

I have not been a user for long enough to forget which programs come on which channels or what time. But I can easily see how easy it would be to forget such things after a period of time.

fyi...the TiVo is connected to cable service with about 90 channels.

The TiVo has a qualitative effect on what you watch.

• I never watch commercials -- unless I see something really interesting (cool gadget, some hot guy, interesting upcoming show, etc.)
• Within 24 hours of installing TiVo, I have completely ceased channel surfing -- a miracle in itself!

If TiVo ever starts putting ads up while I'm fast forwarding I am going to be seriously pissed.

One bit of advice: BE SURE to configure a season pass to "Paid Programming"! New episodes are usually aired in the wee AM hours.

We tried working with Television...

[Anonymous Coward]

An employee suggested to me that we load Television on a few offices here as an evaluation. I was skeptical at first but he explained the benefits of using it for our employee's day-to-day channel surfing. So I decided to let him install the TV into 5 offices to see how the users got on. Besides, our IT manager had been using one in his office and it seemed to work fine, why not try it on the client offices?

Once he'd got the machines up and running with TV we let the users try it out. It all seemed fine to start with: TV was a pretty good replacement for radio and the users could still do their work as normal.

Alas it did not stay that way. After a few days, I had lost count of the number of complaints received from users who could not find things they were used to or tasks they could not perform that they previously could with the radio. The final straw came when one employee lost several hours work when TV suddenly had an error reading from our intranet site and corrupted his project.

Needless to say, the Television team offered no support whatsoever. I made the employee remove Television from the machines and lets just say he's not with us anymore.

Re:We tried working with Television...

[RautenkranzMT]

That's... that's just... wow. Either the poster is extremely stupid, a bot, or a very stealthy comedian. I'm afraid to mod it.

Re:We tried working with Television...

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey stupid! It's the latest of the fill in the blanks troll, and been running for about a week and a half (that I'm aware of).

Re:We tried working with Television...

[RautenkranzMT]

Hey, Anonymous. I'm well aware of that. I was just shocked/amused by the either incredibly poor or incredibly humorous use of it in this scenario. Thanks for playing, goodbye.

Buying music off TV

[Anonymous Coward]

How come it's still not possible to buy music off MTV? There were rumors that the Xbox was going to enable this .. Press a button on the controller during the song .. and it downloads it so you can load it into an ipod or music device or whatever.

They can also do this for TV shows .. they'd make mad money .. when showing a re-run they can give the option to buy the series on DVD or enable the series to be downloaded. With old TV shows or made for TV movies I cant imagine why they'd care ... They probably make very lil money for the studios anyway just collecting dust.

Re:Buying music off TV

[AussieVamp2]

Its not possible to buy music, as they don't show any (imagine it is probably much much worse now than a few years ago too?)

What future

[a_greer2005]

From where I sit, TV as we know it has little to no future, as the big media outlets go cheaper and cheaper with these crappy reality shows packed with more commercials and annoying 1/3 of the screen banner ads, as long as the TV industry sais HELL NO to time and space shifting, and as long as Macs, HDDV Cams and bandwidth gets cheaper, lots of great people will fill in the things we all so miss, great sitcoms, edgy dramas, and so on that dont fit the hollywierd steriotypes and thus are better. the good stuff, like the few good scripted shows left, the sports, the movies and such will all exist in the new space but in a much better way. maybe not free mut likely ad free.

The paradigm is shifting, hold on for the ride.

License

[antiaktiv]

I believe an on-demand system could work very well the way state-subsidised public service television works in a lot of european countries.

Here in Sweden, anyone who owns a TV set (or, nowadays, a computer with a TV-reciever, or a television mobile phone), has to pay a TV-license of a couple of hundred kronors per year ($30-40). For this we get two channels with excellent quality content and no commercials. Most people add on to this with paying for cable channels that cost a lot more, and include commercials. But imagine a system where you could have just a large number of the public service channels for a proportionally higher price. There would be the traditional time-dependent broadcasts, without commercials but any old programming (that has already been aired) would also be available on-demand, perhaps by a bittorrent-type distribution network, that has proven very effective.

By the way, I've been wondering about the legality of downloading shows that I have payed for with my TV-license. A lot of american sitcoms, that are normally shown in America with commercials, for example, is shown on one of these channels. Would it be illegal for me to download an episode that has already be shown on Swedish television, since I have technically paid to see it, commercial free?

Re:License

[cnettel]

The Swedish public broadcasting has not acquired a license to air the material or retransmit it freely (as in speech) only "for free", as in beer. (And only if you ignore the license for a moment.) If you rent a video for the weekend, you're likewise not allowed/supposed to copy it and watch it some other time.

Now, this analogy is distorted by the fact that it's considered fair use to record a TV show for later, personal, viewing, but the principle remains the same -- you (directly or through the public broadcasting "proxy" of yours) did never pay up for a general license. Which revenue model the broadcaster decides to pursue is of no relevance here.

Re:License

[Anonymous Coward]

And as one of the "Hacker Hunters" (pffft), I can tell you that it's not the FBI (or any other LE agents) that don't care.

There's *no* point in an agent taking a case or even wasting his/her time returning your call (one of many every day) when he/she already knows that an Assistant United States Attorney (AUSA) won't take the case for prosecution. The threshold set by AUSAs can amazingly high for damages in most cases. Where I work, it is around $50,000 before they'll even talk to you. There's just too much already out there.

Criminal Investigations are all about prosecution. They all have too many cases as it is, all of which they hope to get prosecuted. There's no way an agent will waste their time on an unprosecutable intrusion.

Unprosecutable because:
1) damages don't meet the threshold.
2) the system was unpatched and "invited" the hacker in - I hate this the most.
3) the system was not bannered "..by clicking ok, you agree to give up your expectation of privacy"... - also a stupid reason, but the case law is there.
4) the hostile systems are difficult to obtain evidence from (read: overseas, unfrienldy).
5) the hostile is obviously a script kiddie (stupid warez, IRC, etc.). Experience shows that the effort put forth to go after these idiots is not worth the 30 days probation a juvenile gets in MOST cases - damage dependant.

Experience will tell you what kind of effort your phone call is worth to an investigator. After he delete's your message, there are probably 3 or 4 more waiting to make their own report.

The agency I work for forwards intrusion reports to us via e-mail. I ignore 90% of them. If I responded to them all (or even half), I'd NEVER have the time to go after the important ones. That's life.

Re:License

[quickbasicguru]

Reminds me of the pbs channels here in america. You donate money to the channel to keep the good programming funded. No commercials. Alot of it is educational, which causes most people to not watch it (that is wrong).

I believe all (if not, then most) of the content aired on the channel is made for pbs, by pbs, etc. So, it might be legal for them to offer the shows as a bittorrent download.

Re:License

[antiaktiv]

PBS buys a lot of programming from BBC. The Swedish public service is quite different in structure and definitely doesn't have pledge-a-thons.

Re:License

[NCraig]

Informative?

=/

Re:License

[DickBreath]

Someone in the US should patent this mandatory License/Tax idea and charge royalties to the rest of the world. Obtain a business method patent on the method and system of charging a license/tax on receivers (otherwise known as computers).

Everyone with a computer should pay royalties to US members of the MPAA, because of their ability to "receive" bittorrents of US television episodes.

(slight whirring sound dies down and fades)
NORMALITY RESTORED.

Re:Newsweek, eh?

[sturat]

... just like Rupert Murdoch.

Conan O'Brien's vision

[mindaktiviti]

I know that Conan was joking with a lot of the things he said (i.e. wolf attacks because we can't watch our tv's in our houses since they're so huge) BUT as funny and ridiculous as this may sound, when I was reading his column I wasn't cracking up and laughing at it.

I was frowning and becoming more depressed because frankly that's where our technology will take us. Wrap-around screens on our coffee cups, made so cheap that they're disposable playing commercials or coupons for other coffee related products, and yes, maybe even tvs in our bowls, but I personally do not think this is desireable as we'll end up being surrounded by television (we already are, TVs are in every room, on our phones, pda's, computers, psp's, other hand held games and so on.

Can't wait to watch those commercials while I'm sitting on the can in a bathroom stall.

Re:Conan O'Brien's vision

[suitepotato]

We saw such things in Minority Report. I'd become a Cereal Killer if I had to walk through a supermarket with live animations playing on the surface of every box of cereal, never mind all the other packages.

(in fifty-four part harmony in the appliance section) "I'm George Forman and this is my lean mean fat reducing grilling machine."

Wander over to the macaroni aisle and really cheese Italian accented pitchmen are waiting, vying for your attention, and thanks to the AI of the times, arguing with each other. "Your pasta is sh*t! They need to try my macaroni." "Your noodle is limp you bastard!"

And then you wander next door to the news agent where a nice selection of adult magazines await. So maybe animated video everything isn't that bad after all...

Re:Conan O'Brien's vision

[Anonymous Coward]

I am setting up a new chain of Opticians to cater for all the people who damage their eyesight while trying to watch tv on their mobile.

I also expect to be recruiting medical staff shortly to cater for all the people who get injured becase they were watching their mobile when they should really have been watching where they were going.
--
Mom? If you were in a German Scheisse video, you... you'd tell me, wouldn't you?

Re:Conan O'Brien's vision

[Anonymous Coward]

I was frowning and becoming more depressed because frankly that's where our technology will take us.

I second that especially the part about abacus porn.

Re:Conan O'Brien's vision

[oirtemed]

You watch too many scifi movies. As bad as advertising is...it is not going to go places where consumers won't tolerate. It is passive on TV, it becomes intrusive on your coffee cup.

Re:Conan O'Brien's vision

[Anonymous Coward]

Leela: "Didn't you have ads in the 20th century?"

Fry: "Well sure, but not in our dreams! Only on tv and radio...and in magazines...and movies. And at ball games, on buses, and milk cartons, and t-shirts, and bananas, and written on the sky. But not in dreams! No sirree."

Re:Conan O'Brien's vision

[Thumper_SVX]

Did you actually watch Minority Report? A lot of people made snide comments about product-placement being a big deal, but personally I saw it as an extremely likely scenarios as to where we are going. Ads everywhere, targeted by our own technology... hell even animated cereal boxes! It's coming, and we'd be fools to think otherwise.

If you start looking at the "product placement" in MR in these terms, it's amazing how much better a movie it seems.

Re:Conan O'Brien's vision

[What me a Coward]

So uhm then like how does that explain spam and popup adds? These are places consumers don't want adds but they go their anyway. Theirs also adware something i truly hate and despise as much as spam and popups. And lets not forget spyware which is often used by companies to collect information to better target adds to the people.

Id hardly say that these forms of advertising are passive, they are more often intrusive.

Minority report begins to sound more like the future of advertising based on things like we see now if you ask me.

Re:Conan O'Brien's vision

[What me a Coward]

Thanks but i paid for lasik with free lifetime enhancements so i don't need your future service. :D

Re:TELEVISION IS TEH NEW GOOGLE

[Anonymous Coward]

Misandry on the tele painted this (the /.) demographic out of the picture. Attempting to recope the costs of pissing on a few generations of men through some paid advertising as news?

The internet offers better alternatives, commercial time is up four minutes per 1/2 hrs from 25 years ago,

How many guys who watch sci-fi shave their legs, wear lipstick and buy into obnoxious women billboarding themselves to other women? Demographics are totally fucked (tv welfare for the inept at 180,00 a year).

TV is gone... and it's good thing

Zero Channels

[cyberman11]

I liked the article, but one thing that bugged me was that the author kept using the word "channel" and writing about how there would be more and more "channels". The future of TV is zero channels. I want to download and watch. There is no need for a "channel". The channel metaphor implies a continuous stream of information. I like the metaphor of a "library" instead. I browse titles through some sort of on-line catalog, then download and watch later or right away. A library is not a channel. I would say zero channels, many on-line libraries. Or maybe just one on-line library named "Google".

Re:Zero Channels

[Anonymous Coward]

Or maybe just one on-line library named "Google".

YAY! Everything being owned by own company instead of many. HOOOOOOORAY!

*shakes head*

Re:Zero Channels

[Detritus]

There is still a place for the channel. Think of radio. When it is done right, a disc jockey can put together a program of good music, much of which may be unknown to the audience. I don't have the time or the patience to listen to every new album, let alone the back catalog. Why not let someone else sort it out.

From the Conan O'Brien article

[HoneyBunchesOfGoats]

"...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.

I look forward to television in the future.

Re:From the Conan O'Brien article

[HoneyBunchesOfGoats]

Another quote from the article:

Twenty-four-hour news channels, desperate for even more coverage, will conspire with NASA to alter Earth's orbit, creating a 25-hour day. Fox News's attempt to create a 26th hour will result in volcanic eruptions, and Bill O'Reilly will perish in a lava flow.

Something else to look forward to in the future.

Re:From the Conan O'Brien article

[macshit]

Of course for many, it will simply mean never changing the channel, with fond reminiscencing about that time you almost changed the channel back in '93...

Re:From the Conan O'Brien article

[What me a Coward]

Ah and it will keep us in the suns comfort zone a few million years longer to boot.

Sounds like a win win to me!

I'm already doing it

[skinfitz]

In the UK where we actually need a license to watch TV (no, seriously I'm not joking) I refuse to pay for it so I don't watch TV in the home. (However I do get hassled to DEATH by the TV Licensing Nazis)

For the odd thing that I do occasionally want to watch (Dr Who for example) I have a Mac G5 installed at work with EyeTV (a PVR) set to record the things I want from the digital broadcast (MPEG2). From there I export it as MPEG4 to get the size down, then scp it to a share on the Linux server at home from where I watch it on my PowerBook.

Perfectly legal (as I'm not 'receiving broadcast services') and much more convenient for me - I'll watch things when *I* want to watch them thankyouverymuch.

Re:I'm already doing it

[thempstead]

How are you not receiving broadcast services when you are getting when you say your are getting your episode of Dr Who via digital broadcast, (DVB-T I assume)?

Looking at the EyeTV product page it has got a tuner for broadcast reception, whether that is analogue or digital doesnt matter, and hence it's quite possible that the TV licensing people are right and you are still liable to pay.

Re:I'm already doing it

[isorox]

Yes, you don't need a license for what you are doing (althoguh your work does). No, not legal - in the UK it's a breach of copyright (section 54D of the copyright designs and patent act IIRC).

And I'm not 100% sure about the first part as there is a new act out this year that changes definitions to include PC's, I've not taken much time to look at it.

(Disclaimer: I get paid by the license fee)

Re:I'm already doing it

[skinfitz]

How are you not receiving broadcast services when you are getting when you say your are getting your episode of Dr Who via digital broadcast, (DVB-T I assume)?

I have a Mac G5 installed at work

Re:I'm already doing it

[skinfitz]

You will find time shifting is perfectly legal in the UK, otherwise recording something on a VCR and sending it to a friend would be illegal (it isn't).

Re:I'm already doing it

[ShootThemLater]

I have a Mac G5 installed at work

We heard you the first time. You neglected to say whether your workplace has a license.

It is ironic that I am reading your, er, trenchant views on the day that many BBC staff are on strike over massive cutbacks, brought on because the funding of the BBC is under constant threat (and because the director general is a tosser, but that's only a side point)

I view the BBC funding model as the way forward personally, slightly akin to the so-called MP3 tax. No ads, broadcast free to all, because our country has democratically decided that such a service should be publically funded, with all those who consume TV meeting the cost. It's a busines model that should bear up to things like p2p sharing very well (exept that they would have to extend the license to cover DSL connections...)

The world would be a culturally poorer place without the BBC, and it's a fallacy to believe that anything like the BBC could exist based on a strictly commercial model.

I am sorry that you have such trouble with the "licensing nazis", but they are just enforcing something that we as a society on the whole believe is a Good Thing.

And last I checked, the TV licensing authorities were not gassing millions of innocent men, women and children, so I suggest you find a less over the top way of referring to them (are you familiar with Godwin's Law btw?)

Re:I'm already doing it

[Thumper_SVX]

Then you, my friend are part of the problem with license fees. Quite simply, you're benefitting from the money gathered through license fees (paid to the BBC), but not paying in. You're the reason that socialism has such a hard time; because human beings feel that they are owed something by everyone else. An extremely selfish viewpoint.

I lived in England up until 1995 when I moved to the US. In the time I lived there I happily paid my license fee because I felt that the quality of the television was definitely worth it. I actually miss it. The quality of US TV is horrible in comparison to most of what I got used to with the BBC.

For quality shows like Doctor Who, I personally feel that the BBC would be well placed to start charging an "Internet License Fee", where people pay an annual fee that's around the same amount as the UK license fee, but then have access to high quality official downloads of BBC shows. I know I for one would happily pay to subsidise Dr. Who. I've seen the new series, and I like what I see.

Re:I'm already doing it

[zmollusc]

Heh! I am considering taking my telly off-site for a year just to see what the licensing herberts do. Is there a stream of letters? If you charge an 'administration fee' for subsequent redundant letters then this will create even more fun and games. "Dear BBC, as I pointed out 2 months ago, I have no tv. The bill for dealing with your stupid erroneous demands is now £25. Please pay up."

Re:I'm already doing it

[skinfitz]

Obviously there is a license at work, otherwise I may as well break the law at home.

I stand by referring to TV Licensing as Nazis, as I am sick to bloody death of the harrassment. Just so we are clear on this, I have no problem with the license as I don't watch TV - there is only the odd thing that I like to watch (and that's rare - Dr Who for example in the last 5 years) - if people want to pay for it, go right ahead - I won't stop you. What I do strongly disagree with is how we people who do not watch TV are treated by TV Licensing - there really is no excuse for not leaving people alone who dont need a license. The non-TV watcher does not fit into their model - you are either a TV watcher or a criminal in their eyes, with constant threatening letters and visits to your home. I don't recall receiving threatening letters from the DVLA telling me that if I drive I need a driving license before I had one, nor do I receive letters and visits periodically from the police to 'see if I'm committing any crimes'. TV Licensing are cretins.

Re:I'm already doing it

[ShootThemLater]

Obviously there is a license at work, otherwise I may as well break the law at home.

But if you break the law at work, you're less likely to get caught when TV licensing turn up at your home :)

You make a fair point that, if you don't watch any TV at all at home, then you should not pay a license or be harassed to pay for one.

I'm a stong proponent of the BBC's funding model (although I would be open to see it replaced by something that has similar merits), and I always see red at the often heard argument of "I don't watch BBC, so I shouldn't pay the license fee". This usually comes from those who claim to just watch Mr Murdoch's channels for example. I should not lump you in with these people - if you say that you watch no TV at home (and I have no reason to disbelieve that), then you are within both the letter and the spirit of the law.

I was going to ask "But how can you live without programme X?" But then I realised that most of the stuff I watch is actually downloaded American stuff. Since they stopped showing any form of Trek, I only watch for the news and current affairs (still worth the fee IMHO). And the good Doctor of course.

Of course, the grey area is the web output. If you access the BBC online content, and you live in the UK, should you not morally pay someting? But then again, there's all those darn furrners that access BBC online for free and noone asks them for a license fee.

I'll also admit that TV Licensing are a little overzealous (I recall the fantistic job they did of harassing students in halls of residence for example), but I still contend that likening them to Nazis devalues the meaning of the word Nazi. But I guess that's an argument that's been flogged to death many times...

Re:I'm already doing it

[isorox]

I assume you mean

The making for private and domestic use of a recording of a broadcast or cable programme solely for the purpose of enabling it to be viewed or listened to at a more convenient time does not infringe any copyright in the broadcast or cable programme or in any work included in it.

However you are making the recording at a non-domestic place, so this clause doesnt apply to you.

Re:I'm already doing it

[skinfitz]

...but I am making it for private or domestic use to be viewed at a more convenient time so it does apply to me.

Secondly we are an educational establishment in the UK and are covered by the ERA license which means at work I can record absolutely anything I want and keep it indefinitely (apart from one exemption which is Open University broadcasts for some strange reason).

Re:I'm already doing it

[skinfitz]

Well firstly the Oxford English definition of the word 'Nazi' includes: derogatory: "a person who holds and acts brutally in accordance with extreme racist or authoritarian views."

And I don't know about you but treating innocent people like criminals with no legal standing whatsoever I'd call pretty authoritarian. It is actually illegal under Human Rights law to harass people into either buying something they don't want or attempt to compel them to belong to some club or society; it's also illegal for the state to prevent the public from receiving news broadcasts but strangely as there is so much money involved it doesn't get enforced.

Secondly I want to make something very clear - it is not illegal to own a TV set, or other TV receiving equipment. I own several pieces of TV receiving equipment (including some PC graphics cards that have TV tuners etc). It is only illegal to 'use them to receive or record television broadcast services' which means so long as you don't watch live TV you are not breaking the law.

The problem is that TV licensing are morons - in the past I have called them (on their expensive 0870 phone number) to explain my situation and they say there is no problem with that, but they still send me letters and people around to the house. I asked them what was the point of spending money informing them I'm not breaking the law if they are going to continue to harass me anyway. They couldn't answer that question and I informed them that I would not be playing their silly games any longer.

Toddler Bowls

[stevenrnelson]

Kids aren't dumb. If they want to see what's at the bottom of the bowl, they're not going to wait to eat the food, they'll just dump it over and watch. Heck, they do that now without anything at the bottom to watch.

Re:Toddler Bowls

[Limburgher]

Hee hee. You've got one too, huh? :)

The future of television: World Peace.

[sssmashy]

Think about it. TV is the ultimate capitalism machine. It turns kids from developing countries into placid consumers instead of violent ideologues.

Those who grow up watching TV are aware that there is a much larger world around them, filled with attractive wealthy people who enjoy high standards of living. It has been statistically proven that kids living in conflict zones are much less likely to turn themselves into suicide bombers if they grew up watching MTV.

Re:The future of television: World Peace.

[Anonymous Coward]

• Black Hats
• Bad Guys
• Attackers (when referring to a specific incident)
• virus writers
• spambot engineers

Anything but "crackers". "Crackers" just has no ring to it at all :-).

I almost added to the list:

• Hackers (what's in a name?).

The reason "hackers" is ok by me is that it's stupid to identify yourself with a word. Why fight it?

Then I thought of a perfectly good reason to fight it. The script kiddeez and "Neo" wannabees hear the term "hacker" applied to black hat activity. They are led to think that messing with other people's systems is what is cool. One day they grow up and start doing something productive, while my time is wasted fighting their idiocy.

Re:The future of television: World Peace.

[DickBreath]

It turns kids from developing countries into placid consumers instead of violent ideologues.

You sir must have the wrong ideology. :-) Choose a side please:

• Coke or Pepsi?
• Chevy or Ford?
• Vi or Emacs?
• KDE or GNOME?
• Superman vs Batman?
• boy-band-X vs. boy-band-Y
• etc., etc., ad nauseum

Wake me when they have language-shifting

[Snarfangel]

There is a lot of anime I'd like to see properly dubbed (or even subbed, for some of the older stuff). On-the-fly translation with a similar-sounding voice would be a killer app.

Too bad I'll probably be drawing my (ten cents on the dollar) Social Security when that happens.

Re:Wake me when they have language-shifting

[meringuoid]

There is a lot of anime I'd like to see properly dubbed (or even subbed, for some of the older stuff). On-the-fly translation with a similar-sounding voice would be a killer app.

Jayziz. You don't ask much, do you?

Subtitles might just be doable, if we can get a computer to watch a minute or so ahead with a decent voice recognition software, and then piped the output through babelfish. But dubbing? Even The Young Lady's Illustrated Primer used human voice actors. Realistic human voices are an absolute bugger to synthesise.

Newsweek never makes mistakes

[Kerhop]

"If I've made even one mistake I'm certain the good people at NEWSWEEK,
who never make mistakes, will refund you the price of this issue."

Gotta wonder if this was a jab at Newsweek or coincidental?

TV has no future.

[NineNine]

There are more and more people who, such as myself, use a TV for playing video games and watching DVD movies. TV, as far as I can see, has -zero- redeeming qualities, and only pushes civilzation further down the proverbial toilet. If I want to be entertained, I'll put in a movie that I have a good chance at liking, or... god forbid... read a book!

Helping solve the paradox of choice

[Jesse_132]

While I do agree there is a paradox of choice, I know that there are solutions.

Utilizing "Editors" or collectives to sift through the vast content available and mark their recommendations. Slashdot provides that for "news for nerds," which editors, other sites such as delicious popular provides community "voting" on what is interesting.

Using social networks we can subscribe to other peoples interests, and "mine" through the mountain of content.

If you have seen it, check out EPIC for one possible future.

Re:Helping solve the paradox of choice

[Anonymous Coward]

Could we please try to restore the word "hacker" a more positive meaning on mainstream media?

*sigh* Could we just once please stop this endless discussion?

What does it matter what a hacker and a cracker is? As if a programmer gets more attention once the media start to call him a hacker and call the phishers crackers. Also: definitions can change, you know that?
--
Life's a blog. [vanscherpenseel.nl]

Re:Helping solve the paradox of choice

[Anonymous Coward]

Likewise, if this 'future of TV' is in pay-service onDemand categorising, what's to stop a bit of filtering and fine tuning to make sure all those nasty spam commercials go straight to your Junk TV folder on your volition (regardless of some nonexistent social contract), thereby being "modded down", to use /. terminology, and not recommended to friends?

StumbleUpon already provides the social network infrastructure that you're talking about for the net.

Two Words...

[Mr. Foofy]

...Minority Report.

On-Demand non-commerical TV would ruin networks

[Geekbot]

I think most of us reading Slashdot have the opinion that we'd rather pay $$ for good TV rather than watch crappy TV for the cost 20 minutes of every hour spent with lame commercials.
With that point of view we wonder why networks don't start carrying quality TV and asking the viewers to pay for it.
The problem with this is that most people are stupid. I didn't realize this until I was about 25 even though I knew most people around me were stupid. I thought the world was full of reasonable people and I didn't understand why I kept getting surrounded by morons. The networks make money from the people who will veg out in front of the TV for 4 hours a night watching horrible programming because they think they are getting it for free. The advertisers specifically want those people. They might not be right, but they are certainly gullible and easier to win over with a 30 second commercial.
That being said, I still wish that we had more cable networks bringing up good television series that were worth paying for. I don't think it's necessarily the future, but I do believe it's the right thing.

Re:On-Demand non-commerical TV would ruin networks

[SilentTristero]

This is how cable was originally promoted -- you pay for the privilege of not having commercials. Then along came MTV which was one big commercial, and that was the beginning of the end. (More or less.)

Broadband TV?

[Stankatz]

"[...] and the move from broadcast TV to broadband TV."

I predict that one day, we will be able to stream TV shows through our existing cable lines in real time. And when that day comes, just remember you heard it here first.

Re:Broadband TV?

[Anonymous Coward]

You mean like my digital cable boxen does????

--
+100, shoots down bad article.

No time limits...

[isny]

On the internet, there are no time limits. You could have a real 60 minute tv show if you wanted. Or a 61 and a half minute tv show. And you could have advertisements every minute. Or 3 hours of ads before the show started. Or just broadcast "clever" ads. Why does everyone insist that internet tv has to look and fit the shape of broadcast tv? See podcasting for further details.

yes, but what's the business case?

[Anonymous Coward]

Again, the /. crowd has foregone all business logic. There's no big war that's going to happen here. If content providers start losing money and technology keeps jumping ahead and cutting out their existing revenue stream, the studios will either stop making new content, or they will stop spending money to make content. It's as simple as that. It's a waste for the studios to constantly battle technologists.

Re:yes, but what's the business case?

[What me a Coward]

And then they go out of buisness because they stopped making money from not having any content to broadcast or because the content becomes even more like crap-tent instead of content as their broadcast station bleeds money like a gutted whale (Pardon the expression).

Saying play our way or we take our ball and go home doesn't work not when people are just fine to let the spoilt brat take his ball and leave. It just means he looses out on playing the game and everything that went with it. Only now his ball is a big expensive broadcast station that bleeds money like a sive if he's not producing/broadcasting content that people wanna watch.

Sounds more like you have forgone all logic. Personally though even if this wasn't the case i would still be just fine letting the broadcasters stomp home like spoilt brats anyway. Better to find other ways of entertaining ourselves than to bow to the whims of some spoilt brat content providers (and i use that term tounge in cheek since they aren't much of content producers as it is anyway).

The people don't need them but they sure need us so slitting their own throwts to spit us and tech isn't a good idea.

Tome???

[Anonymous Coward]

Steven Levy offers a serious tome on the future of television

Somebody needs to look up the definition of "tome".

The article is an article; by no stretch of the imagination is it a tome.

Using words that you don't understand just makes you look stupid.

Re:Newsweek, eh?

[Anonymous Coward]

This is funny and the original post is flamebait?? screwy.

How About Something, ANYTHING, Worth Watching?

[kingofalaska]

I did away with cable and went back to broadcast, because I realized that there simply wasn't anything worth watching. I'm sure this will rile some people who watch a LOT of TV (like my ex) and claim that there are lots of 'good shows' on, but I just don't see it. Plus there are so many ads, it seems like many shows start 10 minutes late, have a 30 second hook, then cut to another big block of obnoxious, insulting advertisements. I recently had the misfortune of being subjected to part of the "Today" show, which seems to have one small clip sandwiched between huge blocks of adverts. Most of the ads seem to be for drugs.

I'd rather ride my bike, take photos, or go fishing. Anything other than sit and watch that crap.

Re:How About Something, ANYTHING, Worth Watching?

[True Grit]

I'm with you on this one. Gave up cable about ~3 years ago. Rarely watch broadcast at all anymore, unless I'm just too tired to do something on the computer but not yet ready to go to sleep (but there's usually nothing on that's worth watching so I'm normally in bed within a half hour of that point anyway). Ads are insulting and obnoxious or asinine and there's too many of them. I get more "entertainment value" out of my computer now, so I don't even care any more what happens in TV land. Those execs in the TV world had better hope the "disease" you and I have doesn't spread. Life without TV? And you *like* it, you say!?! Blasphemy!!!

I'd rather ride my bike,

Well, I can't go this far. This sounds suspiciously a lot like... *gasp*... physical exercise!

Driver, let me off at this stop please. :)

"Toddlers' bowls will have a television..."

[DaveOke]

"Toddlers' bowls will have a television at the bottom..." - this has gotta be the stupidest thing I've ever heard.

Re:"Toddlers' bowls will have a television..."

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, the stupidest thing I've ever heard is some idiot making a seemingly serious comment about a fucking joke.

Actually the license is 258$ per year

[Torbj�rn]

You obviously don't pay the TV license since the current price is 1920pr (258$) per year, not ($30-40).

And about the legality, I believe it actually is legal right now since the law that forbids downloading hasn't taken effect yet. Currently only upploading is forbidden, of course if you use any P2P sw to download you are simultaneously uploading...

That said, I actually watch downloaded TV almost exlusively! I'm totally addicted to watching TV whenever I want and without having to wait a year or more for a Swedish channel to pick up a show.

I pay my TV license and if I could I would pay for the downloads also.
The price should be whatever the going price for advertising/viewer for the show would be. I doubt proctor and gamble pay that much for forcing me to watch detergent comercials.

Rednecks and geeks

[AussieVamp2]

in dat yankeeland

cracker = hillbilly redneck with too many gun racks
hacker = computer geek of possibly dubious behaviourness

you want definition of 2 to become definition of 1?

Not very blooyd likely!

Tomes are heavy (like bricks)

[AussieVamp2]

Think that to qualify as a tome it has to have serious health impacts to the frog you dropped it on

something that a printout of 4 web pages will not!

Sponsored Shows

[Anonymous Coward]

The solution is sponsored shows, with the ads built into the show itself. A product, say it's Lux Soap, will be used constantly in each episode, which is framed beginning and end by stars promoting the product.

This isn't new, it's how Radio worked back in the Depression and Forties before TV came along big time (TV started in the late thirties btw).

People won't zap commericals or just mentally tune them out when there's commericals built into the show. Action-Adventure shows could be sponsored by Caddy for example, the hero drives and Escalade or Seville. Broadcast TV still has value and this is it.

Incorrect

[Anonymous Coward]

And the result of assumptions driven by ideology and a shoddy understanding of media than anything else.

Hate Radio in Rwanda played a major role in inciting the violence there; while B-97 broadcast through the Internet after being shut down by Milosovic in Serbia and still reached people inside the country helping in his overthrow. Radio was neither good nor bad nor had any special role in making people more passive or aggressive. It's just a tool.

So too with TV. A noted Palestinian Children's TV Host, all of 17 years old, blew herself up (and killed a 17 year old Israeli girl) at an Israeli Pizza parlor. Her "martyrdom" and murder (which is what it was) of the other girl was lovingly celebrated on Palestinian TV. Both Iranian and Palestinian TV shows reliably broadcast the most loathesom hate, including a series about "Israeli doctors" who steal Palestinian children to transplant their organs, including eyes, into evil and diseased "jewish leaders." The most recent Friday sermon broadcast by Palestinian TV compared Jews to a worldwide virus that would be "eliminated" which is pretty telling.

http://memri.org/bin/latestnews.cgi?ID=SD90805

If TV is used to push consumer products, depending on the society it might or might not moderate aggressiveness. If TV is used to push hate such asin Palestine, or glorify suicide bombings, you'll get more of it. A hammer can be used to drive a nail or bash someones head in, it all depends on the person holding it. It has no more innate morality than a rock.

More channels. More nonsense

[jonoverdose]

When I was a kid growing up in England in the 1980's we only had three channels. I now have over 500 on satellite (and more if I wanted to get one of those motorised satellite dishes that can home in on more than one satellite.) The paradox is that the more channels I have, the less I watch it. I hardly watch at all any more, life is far more interesting than reality TV.

Re:More channels. More nonsense

[sir_matt]

Growing up in the U.S. in the 80's, we only had 5 or 6 channels.

Fast forward 25 years and if you subscribe to cable or satellite, we have 300+ channels.

However, remove all of the shop-at-home channels, redundant news channels, religeous broadcasts, all the "oprah" channels, ESPN XXI, ESPN XYZ, MTV, MTV2, MTV++, MTV#, etc...and we're still left with 4 or 5 decent stations, and a hefty bill each month.

You (should) pay for me

[milosoftware]

The great thing is that many countries, like The Netherlands where i live, you can also receive the BBC channels by satelite - for free (as in "free beer").

So thanks to those UK folks who do pay up - my satelite dish turns to 28 degrees every Saturday evening to dump Farscape on the tuner's harddisk so I can watch it on Monday.

And no, you can't get ours any longer - the Dutch TV channels are all well encrypted starting this month. (Before that, they were also broadcast in an encryption that has been cracked some 8 years ago)

Re:My vision

[DickBreath]

You (or Conan) are not visionary enough. (Or perhaps not cynical enough.)

I'll repeat a dream I had (posted on slashdot a year or so ago).

PDA's could now be stamped onto your wrist. Sort of like a child's "tatoo".

After about 30 days, the PDA would "wear off" of the skin and a new one must be applied.

Therefore, you are paying a regular monthly fee for having a new PDA stamped on your hand.

Some people could not afford this, but it had become so important that everyone needed it. So through the wonderful, and well-known generosity of megacorporations, middle class people could get a PDA affixed to their wrist if they would also allow a colored animated advertising banner to be stamped on their forehead.

Brand recognition was everything. Adolescents everywhere (and regular Slashdot readers) highly coveted certain brands to be animated on their foreheads. It became such that willingness to wear certian ads, like an MPAA ad, would get you a higher end PDA affixed to your wrist.

Changing the structure of advertising

[katenysh]

I fail to see why with the obvious change in TV people assume that advertising will stay the same. I recently read an article in the New Yorker that talked about the challange that advertising firms now face with viewers being divided over more and more channels and the introduction of DVRs to the market. So far the solution that more and more companies are reverting to is to advertise within a TV show or movie. We are starting to see this more and more. Characters using brand name products and commenting on how glad they are that there was a large supply of Lysol in the house after a major party or beong famished and craving hot pockets. With this technique users are not able to fast forward through the "ad" because they would be missing their show. Problem solved, money made, everyone still happy.

The future is bleak for freeloaders

[zmollusc]

With all the kerfuffle about tivo/torrentz/myth boxes taking out the ads, someone is going to notice that hardly anyone responds to ads by buying the crap advertised. This won't go down well with companies trying to sell junk. Soon 'brought to you by Slurm(tm)' will be just that: Your purchases of Slurm(tm) will buy you access to streams of TV programs from the Slurm(tm) server farm.
"2 minutes of TV with every family bottle!"

couldn't resist...

[Dwonis]

Don't like what people say on Slashdot? Don't partake then.