TV's future: More channels, more gizmos

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AFTER THE SHOW
Movies, TV, Culture and Society

Number 496, April 25, 2010

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TV'S FUTURE: MORE
CHANNELS, MORE GIZMOS

An over-abundance of content converges
with a plethora of viewing devices 

By John Greenwald

Years ending in zero are a good time for looking forward -- while looking back. They tell us about the decade to come. In this and future columns, I hope to peak at the next 10 years in entertainment TV, news TV and in movies.

This week, the future of TV entertainment.

Ten years ago, broadcast television was the dominant form of television. You know, that mélange of over-the-air stations with rabbit ears antennae you had to jiggle around for good reception. But even in 2000, broadcast TV was giving way to cable. Today, TV audiences may spend most of their TV time watching the four broadcast networks (ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox); by 2020, that will change, as cable and its ever-growing number of new stations attract more and more viewers.

For example, you may think Discovery is a single cable station, but it's not. Discovery Communications, Inc., is a $3-billion, worldwide network of 29 separate cable stations in scores of countries around the world. Its offerings range from the Military Channel to TreeHugger, and it's joined with Oprah Winfrey to create a new cable station, OWN: The Oprah Winfrey Network.

There are similar co-joined, spun off, merged or acquired cable networks, many part of broadcasting conglomerates, such as NBC's CNBC and MSNBC. Expect even more choices, especially as cable companies switch from copper wires (hence the word cable) to glass wires (fiber optics). Fiber optics not only handle much more information and many more channels, but they're also faster. Downloading a 2-hour movie on regular cable takes 53 minutes, but only 16 using fiber optics, says Verizon, which is pushing its fiber FiOS service.

In 10 years, we'll all be fibered up, receiving more channels that the mind can conceive. Forget Animal Planet; we'll have the Pet Planet. Turner Classic Movies might niche itself into TCM Film Noir and TCM Musicals. Or TCM Pro, where film professors and professionals provide educated running commentaries before, during and after each film. How about a channel specializing in big things, say the universe, or small things, say microbiology?

We'll be choosing among 'tween, half-size, Victorian, vintage and couture    fashion channels. We'll have more than one right wing, left wing, down the middle and comedy news channels. Today, we have at least a score of food channels, but I'm waiting for two dessert channels -- low calorie and high calorie. How about soup-only, or appetizer-only, or table setting-only channels?

All this variety will come raining down, whether you want it or not, depending on how many tiers of cable programming you can afford.

But old-fashioned, over-the-air broadcasting won't die, even though it has some natural disadvantages over cable. It's totally dependent on advertising, while cable gets revenues from both advertisers and subscribers. And cable doesn't have the blue-nosed FCC fining it for a random dirty word or flash of semi-demi-quasi nudity.

Standard TV continues to be the greatest mass marketing medium ever devised, if you want to sell box cars of beer or frozen pizza. Yet, standard TV can't deliver cable's niche audiences. However, compelling live events, such as sports, will attract the massive audience some advertisers still crave.

"Addressable" advertising is part of the Internet. Amazon, Netflix, Google and other merchants know what movies, music and books you may want to buy based on your previous purchases or Web visits. They use that info to slip in ads selling similar merchandise. As the technology improves, it will read your TV remote's clicks. Who knows what sales pitch will pop up? Maybe "this fast-forward brought to you by Mercedes."

To most viewers, there's no difference between over-the-air and cable TV. They are indistinguishable clicks on the remote, despite the TV industry's separate business models.

However, now it gets complicated. All that ever specialized content no longer comes into a single box into your family room. Depending on how many people in your household, especially kids under 25, TV of all kinds plays on TV screens, large and small, and cell phones, smart phones, iPhones, iPods, iPads, and all their iBrethren to come. Web-TV intermingles Web sites that play TV shows with movies downloaded from Netflix to your PC or TV.

The ways we get TV depend on technologists, who invent all this stuff, and the marketers, who try to sell it to us. Sometimes it works, like DVRs, CDs and DVDs. Sometimes it doesn't, like quadraphonic LPs.

I don't know what gizmo or gimmick is in the future, except 3-D TV. That's at least five years off, especially for the average TV viewer. The sets are much too expensive, $2,500 for a decent-sized set and proper cable box and Blu-ray DVD player. The special battery powered glasses cost upwards of $120 each (don't invite the neighbors over).

However, in 10 years I expect almost all television will be 3-D, whether 3-D adds anything or not. (Imagine "The View" in 3-D.) In 10 to 15 years, they'll even figure out how to get 3-D squeezed into smart phones, without special glasses, and onto eyeglasses themselves.

Indeed, the word for squeezing all this content into all these different TV devices is convergence. More stuff coming in -- to more stuff going out. The mind reels.

Readers can e-mail John Greenwald at johnedit@comcast.net.

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Copyright 2010 by John Greenwald. All rights reserved