Television Dying, Internet To Blame

The Internet has a lot more utility than just porn…believe it or not. What started off as a great tool for communication has evolved into a Wal-Mart-esque center for, literally, everything. And while this convenience is great to us, to many businesses they’re forced to make drastic changes just to stay alive.

Many newspaper, magazine, and other printing-reliant industries have already made the switch from printing texts, to simply posting them online because readers have found it much easier to use their web browsers instead of their mail boxes.

So what’s next? My bet is on television, and to be honest, it’s about time.

It’s about time television studios submit to what the masses actually want. For the last couple decades, it has been the masses that were submitted to the will of the studios.

But thanks to the Internet, viewers have more freedom to choose for themselves, and it is this freedom that will eventually make television an outdated technology.

There are two major things that make television a pain to watch.

First, we can only watch what the studios allow us to watch on certain dates and times. If television is entertainment, then shouldn’t viewers have the ability to neatly fit it into their own schedules? Why should we have to construct our schedules around what studios believe are optimum time slots?

Second, those long commercial breaks. To avoid getting into an off-topic rant on American “consumerism,” let’s just say commercials suck. Of course, one can just simply switch channels, but constantly switching back and forth between channels is an action that should not be necessary.

These two problems are almost completely eliminated by the Internet, making it both appealing and convenient. It comes to no surprise then that more and more people have been using the Internet as their television source.

Studios and companies immediately reacted to this increasingly popular trend by labeling it as piracy. Indeed, many of these sites were using copyrighted property without authority.

However, isn’t business all about adapting to change? And if more people were going online for their television, shouldn’t companies have taken advantage of this change rather than opposing it?

With no doubt, there was an obvious financial motive involved, but there was also an issue of control. These companies were slowly losing control of their audience.

If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em…right?

And so they relented, sanctioning the use of their copyrighted material for online use.

Hulu serves as the best example of this. It has become a melting pot of various shows from numerous sources, which is symbolized by the use of Seth MacFarlane (Fox) and Alec Baldwin (NBC) in its commercials.

While Hulu does not incorporate everything, several stations, Comedy Central for example, have added full episodes of shows on their own sites.

This is a trend that will likely continue and even grow more popular as time goes by. However, there is also the risk that companies may transform the Internet into the marketing machine that television was, but for now that is not a problem.

With such a centralized audience, how will other businesses react to these shifting conditions?

Movies, music, news, shows, maps, and virtually anything else, if you can name it, chances are there is something on the Internet about it.

It is not inconceivable to think that the Internet will soon be the source of everything - if it already isn’t for some.