How do you watch TV? If you’re over 30, it may go something like this:
It’s Thursday night, and your favorite show is on at 9:00 p.m.
8:55 PM: You open your fridge, grab a beer. Open the cupboard, grab a bag of chips. (For the “creative” among you: Open your wine fridge, pull out a bottle of cabernet sauvignon, and grab some organic crackers from your pantry.)
8:57 PM: Yay! Only three minutes. Turn on your TV, watch the credits from the last show. Check your watch… only two more minutes. Watch promotions for the new upcoming “cop drama.” You would flick to something else, but you wouldn’t want to miss those crucial first few minutes of your show.
9:00 PM: Your show starts. You’re happy. Take a sip of wine, eat some cheese.
9:12 PM: Damn! Commercials. OK, well if you’re between 30 and 50, you probably flip aimlessly through other channels. Or if you’re super-savvy you pause your Tivo and grab a refill. If you’re over 50, you sit patiently and watch commercials.
9:16 PM: OK, back in business. Boy, that cliffhanger kept me guessing.
9:23 PM: Commercials again. Repeat routine.
9:30 PM: That was fun. Steve Carrell is so talented. I wonder what’s going to happen next week. Guess I’ll have to wait until then!
Sound familiar? It should. OK, well here is how people under the age of 30 watch TV. Now, some of them tune in like you do every Wednesday night because they just can’t wait another minute to see who’s next to get utterly humiliated on Project Runway/Biggest Loser (take your pick). Most, however, choose to tailor their TV schedule around their lives, not the other way around. That means using the Internet. Sites like Hulu.com and NBC.com actually allow you to watch many of your favorite shows on demand, for free, legally, with the blessing of the networks that air the shows in primetime.
This method has its drawbacks, most obviously that many of these online video options are unavailable outside of the U.S. I went to school in the States and was shocked to discover, upon my return to Toronto, that I was blocked from viewing my favorite shows (the Canadian distributors of American shows are none too keen to have their ad revenues siphoned off by the internet). There are, and have been for years, unauthorized ways to watch your favorite TV online – but they’re dubious at best, unreliable in quality, and are ultimately destined for obsolescence once TV goes online legitimately.
There are obviously still bumps in the road. As Caroline McCarthy writes on “The Social”:
If the content providers finally work things out with the set-top box makers and Web video hubs, it could be terrific for me and other people who’ve gotten totally fed up with Stone Age TV offerings. For now, however, it’s just a dramatic mess and recent signs are indicating that it (the debate) is taking steps backward as opposed to forward.
There really is no technical barrier preventing anyone, anywhere with a broadband connection from viewing ALL their favorite shows on demand – regardless of jurisdiction. It’s just the leaders of the old paradigm are fighting the currents of the new – it’s the cable vs. online slug-fest. This won’t last forever – the method for distributing content will move, more and more, onto the Internet, and it will be driven by the Net generation and the unassailable appeal of customizing TV.
So, is the old model dead? Will TV go online on for good? I welcome responses.