I just read an entertaining SF book in which a character offers the throwaway observation that a television show was last aired for entertainment in the early 22nd century. If you’re curious, and this is a very minor spoiler, the book is Red Shirts, by John Scalzi
It got me thinking: when is television likely to end?
On the one hand, other forms of entertainment, invented thousands of years ago, are still around: books, plays, musical performances, etc. Why would television end?
On the other hand, television is based on a technology even more concentrated than any of the others: it takes a lot of resources to make a single episode of a television show. And that technology is fairly new, and it’s being altered all the time. Maybe television as a distinct format is doomed.
Obviously there’s no correct answer to this question, so I’m looking for speculation based on interesting theories. Anyone got one?
I suspect television wil not end, but will morph into variants which will survive. It’s even possible that it will still be around as a regularly-broadcast (although via cable or other media) rather than as we have it now. After all, radio is still around, and printed books are (there was a report on PBS radio(!) this morning about the continuing market for some kinds of printed books, including “coffee table” books).
But even now we get webTV and podcasting to confuse all this, and you can get all these on your phone. Undoubtedly it’ll be available on other devices as well.
All of that will change the form and content – why have network shows, running uniform 30 or 60 minutes when you have that kind of freedom? – but not the fact that we’ll be getting information and entertainment in watchable, produced form.
Do you think people won’t want to still get news? News is still available in every format that has existed – posted on kiosks, printed news-sheets, books, radio, television, websites – except the Town Crier.
The medium itself is self serving. What we know as television exists despite people wanting something else. Streaming services and online viewing is the future. I cant imagine regular tv lasting more than 10 years.
The particular methods of broadcasting it might change as communication tech evolves. We’re already seeing this with Netflix and the like.
But the basic idea of having images on a 2D display accompanied by a synched audiotrack seems pretty fundamental. I think it will continue as long as humans still have the tech to make it happen.
Why? You can’t conceive of an overriding technology? How about beaming a direct neural recording straight into the shunt in your nervous system, replacing your perception (or overlaying it) with the actor’s?
I also think the basic idea of a recorded story being broadcast and displayed on a purpose driven unit is going to be around for quite a while. Sans a direct neural transfer, it’s going to be difficult to beat a displayed image and sound. Sensory immersion / virtual reality is possible, but takes a lot of setup to make it work, you can’t just plop down with a bowl of popcorn.
I do like my computer and iPad, but they don’t have a 42" screen that I can watch from my couch. I suspect that streaming is going to have a huge impact on the market. With ubiquitous streaming, the idea of a show lineup goes out the window. You simply pick a time and date for the content to be available, perhaps a weekly schedule would still work, but nobody would be expected to sit and watch only at that time. You also get freedom from the 30 - 60 minute block, you keep all the good parts of the story, dump the filler, and let it run as long as it needs to.
I like having my perception available for other things at the same time that I’m watching TV.
Which isn’t to say that that, or other similar tech (3D displays, immersive “holodeck” type set-ups, smellovision etc) won’t be developed or be popular. But I think TV will remain alongside as the simplest, least intrusive way to tell a story with audio-visual components.
If “TV” refers to the particular technology of broadcasting signals, then TV has already ended. If “Cable TV” is still TV, then why isn’t internet or on-demand streaming TV on a random device TV? If streaming video on X device is TV, then TV is gonna be around for a long long time, barring meteors or sentient AI revolts.
You certainly have strong feelings about this. I don’t. Why do you think it will still be around for ten years? To me the model seems like once it starts to topple, it will go down quick, like Blockbuster. All it takes is a couple of heavy hitters (Coke, Pepsi, AnheiserBusch) to get behind some streaming services… The NFL already is preparing itself fro the break away with their own network. Once all NFL is on the NFL Network, the networks are finished.
I don’t have a billion dollars unfortunately. I would agree to 500mil though. That is reasonable right?
I can conceive of plenty of different technology. But I think that people will still want to have something like 2D moving images even when completely immersive you-are-there recordings and simulations are possible.
I think it depends on how you define “television”.
Does streaming live video to, for example, an iPad count as television? If not, then how is it different from a portable TV?
Would a holographic projector (presumably, something that lays flat on the ground or a piece of furniture and projects a 3D image directly above it) be considered a form of “3D television”? If not, then I say it will be when the technology for this becomes feasible - but I don’t see it happening for at least 50 years.
There will always be a use for some form of video broadcasting - if that’s all that television is, then it is never going away.
If that were true, then whenever I view something from a distance, for example looking up at the night sky, I’d be using television. Words are more than their etymologies.
I suspect folks are right, that this particular medium will be around as long as there’s the technology for it (and as long as our species doesn’t undergo some sort of drastic re-engineering).
Some of you are just getting whacko, neural beaming? Come on, are you predicting centuries from now? 3D viewing at home hasn’t even taken off, I know this board tends wealthy and nerdy but you have to be sensible.
As far as I can see people still love TV shows, they just want to download them. I mean wasn’t there an analysis of bittorrent traffic that showed TV shows made up a larger share than even films?
As others have said, you need to define what television is in order to answer the question. I just watched last week’s episode of Castle on Hulu - was I watching television or not?
Is it possible that say, 100 years from now, affluent people will have holodecks? I’m not suggesting that the projections would behave like real matter—if you touched them, your hand would just pass through them. But would it be feasible within the next century?
