G'day,
In 2005 I began a film/tv degree at Griffith University in Brisbane, AU. Best time of my life; wish it had lead to something rather than returning to a life in finance - but I digress.
I vividly remember a guest lecturer in my Media Audiences class, who had just started making content for YouTube, stating very matter-of-factly that the future of television was going to be "streaming". Essentially at that point in time television was consumed in 1 of 3 methods:
Free-to-Air; a limited number of commercial networks screening fixed content via radio-waves, which the viewer paid for by being interupted every 5-10 minutes with paid advertisements, or
Cable tv; many different channels of themed "ad free"* content delivered over higher bandwidth cable connections, for a subscription fee, or
Recorded content; stuff you loved so much you recorded it yourself, or paid for a professional copy; this was the only way to actually choose a time to watch anything, as well as being able to pause / rewind what you were watching.^
* "inverted commas" because in reality cable channels still included some kind of advertisements, because the content they showed were typically originally created for commercial television, and thus required bolstering to reach the 1/2 or full hour time slots...
^ I know - some people had - TIVO?? But at least in Australia, pausing "live tv" was never really a thing
Having grown up in the 80's and 90's within these above very fixed formats of televisual delivery, even though I was on the edge of technology with high bandwidth internet and a very capable computer when listening to this lecturer in 2005, I couldn't fathom the picture she was trying to paint - the demise of television as I knew it - in favour of this very personalised, choose what you want to watch when you want to watch it, non-shared delivery of video.
At that point in time network television was making the change from analogue to digital. Despite us Aussies loving our tech, digital-tv take-up was treading a very slow path. I even wrote on essay on this topic during my time at uni, because it fascinated me that people were dragging their heels at moving toward the much improved experience that digital-tv offered over analogue. This very fact alone played heavily on my mind with regard to the lecturer's belief that "tv" was dying, and streaming was the future. If the average person wouldn't spend $99 on a DSTB (digital set top box), why would they spend $60/month on an internet connection capable of streaming video - assuming they actually had a computer that could handle the content to begin with?
(In fact - in 2005 only 60% of Australian households were even connected to the internet, and the majority of those would have been dial-up speeds incapable of streaming video. Personally I've used cable internet almost exclusively since 2005, which in most cases is the best option in Australia, except for a very few who have optical fibre to the home even now in 2021.)
In 2006, although it's gone now, I created my own YouTube channel. I became a broadcaster. (Even had a video reach a whopping 242k hits - woot!) But - even as a broadcaster - I didn't see YouTube as a replacement for television. Most content ran for a couple of minutes, was low-quality both in production and resolution, and from my own experience - if the duration was too high, people wouldn't sit through it. An 8 minute video would be lucky to get viewers to tune in for half of that length. The attention span of YouTubers was not great. (And, it's not just that my content was boring - I've heard "professional" tubers making this same comment.)
Eventually, due to the shut-down of the analogue broadcast system in Australia, people did move along to digital tv. They had no choice. But, 15 years after YouTube arrived, network and cable tv still exist. So, my lecturer was wrong, right?
Four years ago my mum gave me a BluRay player that wasn't working any more. Turned out it just had a dust-bunny the size of a twinky inside - but - as well as being a BluRay player, it also had an ethernet port, and the Netflix app. That was the real reason I grabbed it when she said it was going in the bin. That was the beginning of the end of old school television in my house. Over the past four years, I could count on 1 and a half hands the amount of times we have flicked back to "free to air" (as network tv has been rebranded here). And if Netflix is getting boring, Plex has become the new VCR/DVD player, allowing us to watch the hundreds of DVDs that I've digitised.
And that's just one streaming service. Here in Oz, there's several "big" players, and more smaller options in the streaming wars. Over in the States, I imagine it's similar, and the same around the world: streaming tv shows, whether they are pre-loved "old world" content, or made-for-streaming shows that don't have to follow the standard 1/2 hr / full hour time frames, are becoming the dominant way in which people now watch television. It's far more common around the water cooler at work to be asking what you're currently binging in Netflix, instead of whether you caught last night's Seinfeld or Friends.
At least - that's the case for most people under the age of, oh, let's say 60? Just like when we converted to digital tv, there are those who are resisting the move away from broadcast television. My parents are amongst those people. One day the time will doubtless come when the decision will be forced upon them, and others like them, but despite the changes being seen around the world, they probably have another decade or so before that point arrives.
But, what about YouTube?
For the past few months in particular, I have found myself "tuning in" to a few channels in particular. "Tested", "Veritasium", and now "Vsauce3". These channels all offer content typically longer than just a few minutes, and all of quite reasonable production quality and content. And, that's just the tip of the iceberg in terms of what you can find.
YouTube continues to face the problem that finding the content that appeals to you is far from easy. Their algorithms are notorious at changing without explanation and logic, making content disappear below the icy depths. Ads, both banners and full on stop the video and get a face full of paid content, are plentiful - which when coming from Netflix, is really annoying. Whilst you can pay to get rid of the ads, it's as expensive as Netflix, but would only get 1/10th the viewing in my household - so it's not worthwhile.
Narratively I've run this into a brick wall, but I'll come back and write a better conclusion using the edit button!
My point is - all those years ago my lecturer was in fact correct. My kids - and most of their generation - do not understand, and get frustrated when we visit their grandparents and are suddenly faced with a television that does NOT show what they WANT to see, WHEN they want to see it. "But I want Dragon Rider, daddy!"
Television is dead. Long live Television.
Cheers
cosmic
WordCount: 1242. Like I said... I really enjoyed university... Just feel the need to write essays now and then... 😇
In 2005 I began a film/tv degree at Griffith University in Brisbane, AU. Best time of my life; wish it had lead to something rather than returning to a life in finance - but I digress.
I vividly remember a guest lecturer in my Media Audiences class, who had just started making content for YouTube, stating very matter-of-factly that the future of television was going to be "streaming". Essentially at that point in time television was consumed in 1 of 3 methods:
Free-to-Air; a limited number of commercial networks screening fixed content via radio-waves, which the viewer paid for by being interupted every 5-10 minutes with paid advertisements, or
Cable tv; many different channels of themed "ad free"* content delivered over higher bandwidth cable connections, for a subscription fee, or
Recorded content; stuff you loved so much you recorded it yourself, or paid for a professional copy; this was the only way to actually choose a time to watch anything, as well as being able to pause / rewind what you were watching.^
* "inverted commas" because in reality cable channels still included some kind of advertisements, because the content they showed were typically originally created for commercial television, and thus required bolstering to reach the 1/2 or full hour time slots...
^ I know - some people had - TIVO?? But at least in Australia, pausing "live tv" was never really a thing
Having grown up in the 80's and 90's within these above very fixed formats of televisual delivery, even though I was on the edge of technology with high bandwidth internet and a very capable computer when listening to this lecturer in 2005, I couldn't fathom the picture she was trying to paint - the demise of television as I knew it - in favour of this very personalised, choose what you want to watch when you want to watch it, non-shared delivery of video.
At that point in time network television was making the change from analogue to digital. Despite us Aussies loving our tech, digital-tv take-up was treading a very slow path. I even wrote on essay on this topic during my time at uni, because it fascinated me that people were dragging their heels at moving toward the much improved experience that digital-tv offered over analogue. This very fact alone played heavily on my mind with regard to the lecturer's belief that "tv" was dying, and streaming was the future. If the average person wouldn't spend $99 on a DSTB (digital set top box), why would they spend $60/month on an internet connection capable of streaming video - assuming they actually had a computer that could handle the content to begin with?
(In fact - in 2005 only 60% of Australian households were even connected to the internet, and the majority of those would have been dial-up speeds incapable of streaming video. Personally I've used cable internet almost exclusively since 2005, which in most cases is the best option in Australia, except for a very few who have optical fibre to the home even now in 2021.)
In 2006, although it's gone now, I created my own YouTube channel. I became a broadcaster. (Even had a video reach a whopping 242k hits - woot!) But - even as a broadcaster - I didn't see YouTube as a replacement for television. Most content ran for a couple of minutes, was low-quality both in production and resolution, and from my own experience - if the duration was too high, people wouldn't sit through it. An 8 minute video would be lucky to get viewers to tune in for half of that length. The attention span of YouTubers was not great. (And, it's not just that my content was boring - I've heard "professional" tubers making this same comment.)
Eventually, due to the shut-down of the analogue broadcast system in Australia, people did move along to digital tv. They had no choice. But, 15 years after YouTube arrived, network and cable tv still exist. So, my lecturer was wrong, right?
Four years ago my mum gave me a BluRay player that wasn't working any more. Turned out it just had a dust-bunny the size of a twinky inside - but - as well as being a BluRay player, it also had an ethernet port, and the Netflix app. That was the real reason I grabbed it when she said it was going in the bin. That was the beginning of the end of old school television in my house. Over the past four years, I could count on 1 and a half hands the amount of times we have flicked back to "free to air" (as network tv has been rebranded here). And if Netflix is getting boring, Plex has become the new VCR/DVD player, allowing us to watch the hundreds of DVDs that I've digitised.
And that's just one streaming service. Here in Oz, there's several "big" players, and more smaller options in the streaming wars. Over in the States, I imagine it's similar, and the same around the world: streaming tv shows, whether they are pre-loved "old world" content, or made-for-streaming shows that don't have to follow the standard 1/2 hr / full hour time frames, are becoming the dominant way in which people now watch television. It's far more common around the water cooler at work to be asking what you're currently binging in Netflix, instead of whether you caught last night's Seinfeld or Friends.
At least - that's the case for most people under the age of, oh, let's say 60? Just like when we converted to digital tv, there are those who are resisting the move away from broadcast television. My parents are amongst those people. One day the time will doubtless come when the decision will be forced upon them, and others like them, but despite the changes being seen around the world, they probably have another decade or so before that point arrives.
But, what about YouTube?
For the past few months in particular, I have found myself "tuning in" to a few channels in particular. "Tested", "Veritasium", and now "Vsauce3". These channels all offer content typically longer than just a few minutes, and all of quite reasonable production quality and content. And, that's just the tip of the iceberg in terms of what you can find.
YouTube continues to face the problem that finding the content that appeals to you is far from easy. Their algorithms are notorious at changing without explanation and logic, making content disappear below the icy depths. Ads, both banners and full on stop the video and get a face full of paid content, are plentiful - which when coming from Netflix, is really annoying. Whilst you can pay to get rid of the ads, it's as expensive as Netflix, but would only get 1/10th the viewing in my household - so it's not worthwhile.
Narratively I've run this into a brick wall, but I'll come back and write a better conclusion using the edit button!
My point is - all those years ago my lecturer was in fact correct. My kids - and most of their generation - do not understand, and get frustrated when we visit their grandparents and are suddenly faced with a television that does NOT show what they WANT to see, WHEN they want to see it. "But I want Dragon Rider, daddy!"
Television is dead. Long live Television.
Cheers
cosmic
WordCount: 1242. Like I said... I really enjoyed university... Just feel the need to write essays now and then... 😇
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