Let’s be honest. If I weren’t back in college, I would probably drop my kids off at school in the morning and then sit on the couch folding laundry and catching up on recorded TV shows. My guilty pleasures are HGTV anything, cheesy dramas like Revenge and sitcoms like New Girl. You can learn a lot about how someone unwinds by scanning their bookshelves or scrolling through their DVR.
I still get a little giddy when I realize I can pause anything I'm watching on TV to let the dog out or make nachos, because I remember the old TV, before it was what it is today.
With the advent of the 24 hour news cycle in the 1980’s, TV has blossomed (or mutated, depending on how you look at it) into a technological marvel. Satellite, cable companies and streaming internet television has dramatically changed our relationship to TV.
In the past, the networks held a captive audience prisoner to their schedules and limited programming choices. Today, viewers can record content on hundreds of channels and watch it whenever convenient, while forwarding through annoying commercials.
Netflix has revolutionized the accessibility of movies and television shows with streaming content that is available 24/7. Pay per view makes it possible for us to search an expansive database of movies and watch them with the click of a remote. Most recently, Internet-based Hulu and Apple TV are giving cable companies and Netflix a run for their money.
With all of these choices available to consumers, what will the next decade hold for the boob tube? In an online article by Gary Myer, one of the founders of DIRECTV, he discusses his belief that the future of TV lies in the centralization of providers:
Just imagine a web-based service that encompasses video on demand, subscription pay-TV channels, pay-per-view, ad-supported broadcast TV, and emerging internet-based content. Such an entity requires a centralized content aggregator and curator to become a neutral repository for movies and TV programs, stored in the cloud, and deliverable to televisions, tablets and smart phones. All that is needed is one ‘app’.
One centralized cloud based app for television and movies sounds good to me, but will cable, satellite and streaming content providers be willing to play nice with others?