"You won't have to pay your cable company for the dozens of channels you won't ever watch just get the ones you do." says Henry Blodget in his article called Sorry, There's No Way To Save The TV Business.
Looking simply at the title of his article, I agree. The internet has given us faster and less expensive ways to watch what we want to watch, when we want to watch it. We don't have to just sit in front of the TV to see what's on one of the 6,000 channels that DirectTV is charging us $300 a month for, only to find that there's nothing good on. If we have all those options at our fingertips, why waste all that money for stuff we don't want anyway?
Personally, I'd hate to see TV go because I hate having to sit at a desk to watch my shows. But with today's technology, you can hook your laptop to your TV, plug your external hard drive into your PS3 or just browse the internet right on your big screen , so in a way, my pet peeve isn't even legitimate anymore.
One thing I liked about Blodget's article was that he outlined what would happen if the internet (and sites like Hulu and Yahoo) was to take over. The networks and producers would all make money off of the advertising as usual, and the sites would make money from memberships that would be much more personalized for the viewer. It would mean losing the "triple play" bundles, the ancient home phone technology and DVR, but we'd be able to watch our favorite shows, and ONLY our favorite shows.
I scrolled down a bit on this article and took a look at some of the comments. The very first one brings up a good point - what about sports?? Internet would have to get much faster and much more reliable before you put live streaming sports on there. It's tough to watch live programming period, let alone something as fast paced as a hockey game. I guess if you're going to comment on this to stir up debate, respond with your thoughts about broadcasting live sports on the internet! Is it a good idea? Would it work? Would you pay for it? Would you prefer they be online instead of on TV, provided the predictions in Blodget's article are true (lower prices, only paying for what you want, etc.)?
Yes and no about sports on the net. I would pay for it because for all the Tigers games I would miss because of the Wings or Pistons on, so be it. Or if the Lions are blacked out I can watch it on the net. I love Law and Order and its on every time I watch tv. Hulu to me has saved me time so I can focus on school. I think the quality in time could be the same.
ReplyDeleteI'm not convinced that "there is no way to save the TV business", as Sony puts it. Hulu is fine, but it could never replace classic TV. It mostly only shows "C" movies and it's selection of both movies and TV episodes are quite limited. It would take a lot of evolving and business deals for Hulu to be any sort of threat to the classic setup.
ReplyDeleteFor an online source to be any real threat to the traditional setup, it is not realistic to expect it to be free. I don't currently know of any websites that are really taking the next step to replacing standard TV.
so im not the biggest fan on sports, however i do watch every now and again and dont mind it. ive streamed soccer games with my lil cousins online before and i must say, if you dont have high spped broadband connection, and sometimes even then, it sucks watching online. sports are meant to be watched in real time. and streaming it online causes some pixelating and pausing and rebuffing and etc. really annoying. It takes away from the experience of actually sitting on your couch hootinn n hollering at the tv. simple cable tv you just turn on the tv with your remote and switch to your channel. when you wanna stream from your computer to tv, you have to hook it up additionally then unhook it once your done, it can be hassle, along with the stalling and pixelating issues. tv is def not gonna die out.
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