Though I see your points, there's a lot of trends pointing to the computer as being the primary "friend". Some reports mention that people spend more time with their computer than their significant other. Other reports mention that the TV, in some households, is no longer the center of attention; rather the laptop(s) / desktop around the house.
I don't see internet & TV merging tomorrow, but it will happen. Just the fact that YouTube sold for so much, that anyone can publish whatever they want in video so easily ( the flash plugin has an embedded video ripper ), and that there's a growing world-wide population out there begging for stupid shit -- TV and internet will merge, sooner than later.
Just look at cable / satellite TV. Big dish is history. Cable is in. It's an evolution happening, and though there's sure to be a lot of bumpy roads with large companies trying to lobby for that one, huge "steak", regardless, it's going to happen. There was even a CNN article today about the WII bringing news channels to it's subscribers.
*shrug*
Quote:
Originally Posted by RawAlex
Convergence has been a buzz word since I started in the net business... a long freaking time ago.
All of the predictions that the internet is going to revolutionize TV make one single, huge, and somewhat overwhelming mistake:
You can't reach the masses if you expect them to pay for every TV show, and without masses, you can't make TV shows that cost millions of dollars a week to produce.
The InternetTV model basically means no more Grey's Anatomy, no more CSI, no more Law and Order... instead replaced with variations of http://www.newsforblondes.com and Youtube.
The glroy of mass broadcast media is it's ability to reach EVERYONE, all of the time, for very little net cost to the consumer. The more the consumer pays for the right to watch your shows, the less advertising the consumer will tolerate overall. Broadcast means that people can go to WalMart and buy a $39 TV right now and watch CSI tonight. That is a huge hump for IPTV or any other product to overcome.
There are things that the internet just isn't as good at. The internet does long tail stuff great... back catalog stuff. But the costs involved in producing modern day TV just don't permit the networks to move to a pay per view model to make it work. If they thought they could have, they would have joined HBO a long, long time ago collecting monthly fees.
You can't take the mass out of mass media. |