New York Times on the Future of Television

[Filip Norrgard]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/30/arts/television/30manl.html?ex=1264741200&en=e82b9db497df2928&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland' target='_blank'>http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/30/arts/television/30manl.html?ex=1264741200&en=e82b9db497df2928&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland</a><br /><br /></div><i>"Millions of viewers are now watching illegal copies of television programs - even full seasons copied from popular DVD's - that are flitting about the Internet, thanks to other new programs that allow users to upload and download the large files quickly. And entrepreneurial souls are busily concocting even newer applications, including one that searches the Internet for illegal copies of any television shows you may desire and automatically downloads them to your computer. These high-tech tricks address desires that have become standard in an age of instant media gratification: the desire to watch what you want, when and how you want it."</i><br /><br />This NYT article brings up how MythTV PVR and BitTorrent are changing the way of watching television and the sales of TV DVD collections. If the studios decide to roll out a legal way of downloading their offering, then I would be willing to pay for such a service (if it works nicely). The TV DVDs are just too expensive on this side of the pond for me to even consider buying them, so I hope that a download service would be more reasonably priced. ;)

[RWC_Zippy]

This reminds me of an article I read earlier this week about Bram Cohen - the guy who came up with the BitTorrent P2P thing... it's a good read and touches on some of the same issues mentioned in your post such as Movie Sharing, Hollywood's fears about sharing of digital media, etc.

http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/13.01/bittorrent.html

-R

[sub_tex]

I've always been yelling for a TV service that lets me choose which TV shows/channels I want and nothing more. In the digital times we live in, anything less is just strong arming the customer.

I remember a few years back an articl about this where they talked to one of the guys at Comcast or Cablevision or something asking that same question:why don't you allow people to pay for just what they want to watch? The answer he said was "people don't want that."

Riiiight.

Give me Arrested Development, Daily Show, Scrubs, and Simpsons reruns and I'll be a happy customer.

But I'm not going to pay $60 a month for a bunch of TV I'm not going to watch.

Someone needs to push the digital way for TV very soon. And at a lesser cost than "full" TV too. But that won't happen.

They'll DRM the heck out of the files and encode ads into them. :roll:

[The Yaz]

The cable companies have to charge you for all of the stations they make available to you. A friend of mine worked for Cablevision when they had increased their offerings from 40 to 80 channels. He told me that Cablevision has a stake in each of the new channels, so there's no way they were going to let them fail.

I'm sure the satellite companies have the same deals. So until you get the industry to change their profit model, this is the way it will stay.

Steve 8)

[sub_tex]

So until you get the industry to change their profit model, this is the way it will stay.

Looks like I'll go without TV for quite some more time then. :)