Slashdot Mirror
The End of Broadcast TV as We Know It?
mattnyc99 writes "The DVR revolution is nothing that new—and neither is the Neilsen ratings company's adaptation to it. But Glenn Derene at Popular Mechanics argues that users have officially pushed us into a new era of television, wherein viewers now shape the way that networks make money, which means we'll start to see users control the way the networks choose programming. From the article: 'The systemic use of ad ratings as one of the standard metrics for assessing viewership is a sea change, and it's perhaps the sign that as an industry, broadcasters and advertisers are sailing into uncharted waters.'"
This is depressing. I read Slashdot to get a sense of the zeitgeist of the software profession--what's new, what's important, what are people thinking? Evidently one of us thought some dopey article in "Popular Mechanics" was important enough to bring to the editors' attention, and the editors concurred and rewarded us all with the shocking revelation of "the end of broadcast television!" I can only conclude that either Slashdot is losing touch with the reality of the software profession, or else the "profession" has been abandoned by the educated and rational, and left to credulous, the hacks, the repairmen. Those who, armed with associates' degrees and the latest bogus Microsoft certifications, believe that their ability to copy a "hello world" program from "Learn C++ in 7 Days!" qualifies them to be software engineers or even programmers. How sad.
The next time I read about an alien invasion or Paris Hilton in the "Weekly World News" I'll be sure to post the article here.