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TV's Tipping Point
Posted by
michael
on Tue Oct 07, 2003 02:01 PM
from the high-center-of-gravity dept.
from the high-center-of-gravity dept.
alinv writes ": Ashley Highfield, the head of BBC New Media & Technology spoke yesterday at a conference about how TV is being radically changed by users: 'future TV will may be unrecognisable from today, defined not just by linear TV channels, packaged and scheduled by television executives, but instead will resemble more of a kaleidoscope, thousands of streams of content, some indistinguishable as actual channels.'"
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PVRs are already making TV unrecognizable (Score:5, Interesting)
Commercials Are: (Score:5, Interesting)
Since I got my Tivo, I have no idea what commercials are.
Exactly. I know what they are.
Commercials are: the break in the stream that requires you to hit fast forward for a few seconds.
Commercials are: those pieces of programming that are having to become more entertaining and less obnoxious to have any chance of being seen.
Commercials are: those artifacts of the 20th century that remind you just how painful it is to be fed a linear stream of programming.
Commercials are: what have taught me how to watch the news on a TiVo - quickly hit pause and take a long potty break so I can FF through the commercials when I get back.
Commercials are: those pieces of noisy time that still squat in the middle of broadcast radio feeds that have become so annoying to my sensitivities that I frequently have to turn the damn thing off because the signal to noise ratio is just so abominable compared with my TiVo enabled life.
Parent
Re:PVRs are already making TV unrecognizable (Score:4, Informative)
So very true. I got a pair of DirecTivos and upgraded both of them, and my wife hasn't watched anything in real time since. She watches what I call the "Vickie Channel", a channel that has programs that would never appear on the same channel, all of which match her tastes. For instance, she put all the actors from the "Lord of the Rings" trilogy in her "Wish List" (except Christopher Lee who has been in hundreds of films). So her Tivo has delivered her a number of great films from New Zealand and Australia starring Miranda Otto.
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My Channels (Score:2)
sure...... (Score:3, Insightful)
Yeah, we haven't been hearing about "new-tv" as long as these, but its getting almost as tiresome.....
Haven't we seen this? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Haven't we seen this? (Score:3, Insightful)
Maybe, but t.v. is infinitely better than the Internet when it comes to zoning out after work and just relaxing while the mind slowly oozes out onto the floor of numbness.
from the article, "audiences will want to organize and re-order content the way they want it"
I don't want t.v. to be something I have to assemble or manipulate in order to get something watchable.
Thousands of steams? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Thousands of steams? (Score:2)
kind of... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:kind of... (Score:3, Funny)
What did you expect to hear? (Score:2)
Individualization (Score:2, Funny)
There's nothing like catering specifically to the one person who likes Golden Girls reruns mixed in with heaps of porn.
Argh! Worse mental imagery than goatse! (Score:2)
Re:Individualization (Score:4, Funny)
1999 Miss Universe ---> oooh I would like to see Miss *country* naked! She is soo hot!
2002 Porno ---> ooh that Miss *country* can really swallow that banana!
Parent
Oh YEAH! (Score:3, Funny)
Oh, yeah. Just what I want.
Just when TV was getting crappy enough (all reality shows, all the time), now it'll make me physically dizzy. THANKS, genius executives.
Re:Oh YEAH! (Score:2)
The World of Tomorrow (Score:5, Funny)
It's good to know that MTV will still be around in the future.
It doesn't matter (Score:2)
Why Ashley Highfield Is Incorrect (Score:2, Insightful)
57 (000) channels (Score:5, Funny)
Ah, the Glory days (Score:5, Funny)
So basically, all those years of watching scrambled porn channels are going to pay off big time.
Kaleidoscope? (Score:3, Funny)
A kaleidoscope? You mean that tube-thingy you look through with the mirrors inside that make it look like the same thing is in a lot of different places, but really they're all just pale reflections of each other?
Yeah.... I think I can see how TV might eventually evolve into that. [grin]
indistinguishable (Score:2)
With advertising indistinguishable from the content.
tv future (Score:2)
She needs to watch more TV .... (Score:5, Insightful)
but instead will resemble more of a kaleidoscope, thousands of streams of content, some indistinguishable as actual channels
It's obvious Ms. Highflied doesn't watch very much TV. Because the few times I do watch TV ,I think how much crap is on the tube and wonder what happened the "real channels and programming."
Stupidest prediction EVER! (Score:5, Insightful)
"audiences will want to organize and re-order content the way they want it"
No, we dont, we want to use one button on a remote.
But, as I RTFA, I do agree with some of his points.
TV programs should be able to be watched any time. I should be able to watch my programs in my order at my time.
Excluding live events of course, which should be left live for obvious reasons.
Media is changing. If the music industry wasnt a wake up call for the movie and television industries, it sure should have been. People will do things their way, and the industry cannot control that. They must change to keep pace with it, as the music industry has not in general.
Interesting ideas, well written article. But television is still, and always will be about laziness for me. How else could you ever get through a 5 hour breakup with a girlfriend without a TV to watch during it. (while pretending to listen of course)
Re:Stupidest prediction EVER! (Score:3, Insightful)
This seems like it should be a no-brainer because here we are on Slashdot, commenting on stories that come from thousands of different places on the internet, and generally organizing and re-ordering content the way we want.
How is this any different whether we are commenting on video streams or web pages? I think she is amazingly insightful about the future of television. I predi
yeh right (Score:2, Insightful)
Any day now I'll be watching a kaleidascope of magical fairy shit on my HDTV while playing duke nukem forever.
I think people like tv as it is, and it'll probably stay with the status quo for a long long time, there's nothing wrong with passive entertainment.
Waiting for the first TV Virus (Score:5, Funny)
"Honey, when did they add the Goatsex guy to the cast of Friends?"
Re:Waiting for the first TV Virus (Score:2)
I can't wait to see the first penis enlargement informercial on TV.
Four trends, no revolutions (Score:5, Interesting)
2. the audience increasingly wants to join in and get closer to their media.
3. ...consuming more media simultaneously...
4. ...the last trend -- sharing.
So in the future, we will watch multiple reality shows we can shape with our various "votes" at the same time -- a time of our choosing. We'll have sent each other some of the shows, too. This is a revolution?
No one mindblowing idea here -- basically it seems like the BBC's thinking about that "Super -Electronic Programme Guide" to get a little ahead on interfaces, and they don't want to stonewall peer-to-peer models the way the music industry did.
Television ROTS brains. (Score:5, Insightful)
I decided that TV rots brains, so now, I have two televisions in my home and neither of them are plugged in. The big one is where all my clean laundry piles up, waiting to be folded, and the small one just sits there. I can tell you that since I made this change, I have become a much happier person. Suddenly, I have time to read books, which help to develop the imagination, rather than destroy it like TV does.
And a lot of people I know, who do not allow their children to watch television, are amazed at how full their children's lives are. They love to read; they spend time with friends; they do all sorts of stuff. So I swear by this: Television is a waste of time. The Internet is a better source of entertainment. (No, don't read all kinds of "inappropriate" messages from that statement.)
When I read /.'s blurb about this article (about how there will be many streams of content, not necessarily representing channels), the first thought that went through my mind was, "I certainly hope not."
Re:Television ROTS brains. (Score:2)
Re:Television ROTS brains. (Score:2)
Hah! One night I got totally suckered by a Fox news teaser "find out why you might want to avoid that second cup of coffee!"...I watch the whole crappy "news" program for half an hour for a 15 seconds blurb that 3 cups or
Re:Television ROTS brains. (Score:3, Insightful)
As for your comment about children- well watching TV or having a full life is a false dichotomy. I have a two year old who has a few TV programs that she likes to watch (Sesame Street, Dora, Oswald). She also loves to look at books, play with playdoh
Fundamental rule: (Score:5, Insightful)
Too much eating is bad.
Too much sleeping is bad.
Too much TV is bad.
Too much internet is bad.
Balance is the key..
There is good, stimulating content on TV - Discovery channel, National geographic and History channel. I've learnt quite a lot about many things I did not have any idea at all, by watching these three channels for example.
BTW, I also read books. I would never completely replace either of them with any of them. Each has its own place. Choose wisely.
The internet is a better source of entertainment? How exactly? You have porn-on-demand the moment you are online. You have dirty spam clogging your emails. It is less well regulated than TV broadcasting.
Again, balance is the key. Choose wisely.
---
Friends? Foes? What is this place? Kindergarten?
Parent
Re:Fundamental rule: (Score:3, Insightful)
Yet, I don't think balance is necessarily the solution there. You must learn to balance your use of balance, as well.
The problem is content in many cases, but universally it is the format It doesn't matter how much you learned on those three stations out of thousands. You could have learned the same material through other methods, the use of which are more healthy for the brain than having nearly the entire show run for you automatically.
Re:Fundamental rule: (Score:3, Interesting)
Experimental results (Score:5, Funny)
You mean... (Score:5, Insightful)
You mean like downloading shows and movies from KaZaA?
What I want out of TV (Score:3, Interesting)
Subtle but disturbing change.... (Score:3, Interesting)
This is not at all what I see. (Score:5, Insightful)
Advertisers will want to find ways to get their messages in the programs. Right now, the method is to insert the messages in breaks of ever-increasing time which occur at greater and greater frequency. People use PVR's to fight this trend.
The next logical step, then, is to insert the advertising directly into the contents of the programming. This is already happening now to a small extent, but I believe in the future it will get worse.
Here is an example of what I envision: One character, Bob, pulls out his cell phone. A second character, George, sees it.
George: Hey, that's a cool cellphone you got there.
Bob: Yeah. It's a Noksung. I got it with my T-Cingle PCS. It was free! Look, I can take full-motion video with it and uselessly hog screeds of bandwidth with aimless nonsense.
George: Wow! Can I have a look?
Bob: Sure. T-Cingle PCS is running a special right now. 3,000,000 anytime minutes for nine cents a month.
George: Great. I'm going to sign up for that right after we solve this murder. Wait! is that a Taco's Jr. over there. Pull in, they've got a new sushi-cajun burrito on their value menu for 34 cents!.....
etc, etc, etc.
Surprisingly enough, people will probably actually watch this crap.
It started already: Lord of the Rings (Score:3, Funny)
Anyone catch the product placement for lembas wafers as the party was leaving Lorien? "Lembas bread! One small bite can fill the stomach of a grown man!" I was waiting for the elves to start singing the Lembas[tm] jingle.
Re:TV Executives... (Score:2)
I dont think ive ever watched a Family Guy without laughing at least for 15 minutes.
Re:TV Executives... (Score:2)
Unfortunately for it, Simpsons is being diluted by a lot of really bad episodes. A lot of the wonderful character traits built-up in the early seasons have been thrown away.
There are other good cartoons out there, but they don't run on Fox.
Re:For Users? (Score:3, Informative)
The Beeb is supported by basically the entire country (everyone with a TV) paying for a TV licence. You can't watch TV without one - saying "I don't watch BBC" is not a defence
In general the quality is a damn sight better than all the advert-or-ppv-funded channels. You can argue whether the "tax" imposed on TV viewers is fair, but since it costs me less
Re:For Users? (Score:5, Insightful)
And it did, for a while. When the net was strictly a geek thing, or at least not a mainstream corporate thing (circa 1995), regular people did control the content. And there was a lot of content. Unfortunately, about 50% was crap and assorted fluff, 45% was porn, and about 5% was actually worth looking at. Then the corporates came, and it changed to about 90% porn, 8% crap and assorted fluff, and 2% worth looking at that's harder then hell to find. But one thing you must remember: TV was never controlled by regular people. It has always and will always be controlled by the corporations. But hey...every now and then, they slip up and actually let something good go on the air. And they don't even notice it at first. It took them at least 2 seasons to realize Family Guy was funny, and another season to finally kill it...
Parent
Re:Jibber-Jabber (Score:4, Funny)
First, visualize a bunch of feces. Poop from different animals, and different diets. So different sized poop, different colored poop, and different smelling poop.
Ok, now start throwing that poop at your TV screen. When you are finished, that is your "kaleidoscope, thousands of streams of content, some indistinguishable as actual channels."
You see, you cannot distinguish which poop is which, but you do know there is a lot of poop there.
Parent