Television: From the Digital Age into the Future

Ever since TV’s were first introduced, they’ve played a prominent role in our society. With each decade that has passed, TV and broadcasting technology has become better and better. The actual concept of television is quite old, but we’re at a point in time where TV must adapt in order to survive. With that being said, I going to be talking about how television as we know it, may affect media in the near future. We currently have the Big 3 companies that essentially own all of the TV stations. At the same time, we’ve seen the switch from analog to digital, as well as the switch from provider-driven content to consumer-driven content. TV will have to adapt to what consumers want, as it influences the newer forms of media in other ways.

Right now, many people watch shows via Netflix, rather than actual television. The age of the TV station is quickly being rivaled by streaming services and general Internet content alike. As mentioned above, I believe that TV will adapt to work together in a sense with streaming services. We’re already starting to see SMART TV’s with the ability to link to streaming services and social media. From this point, we may even start to see agreements where live TV will be available on platforms such as Netflix. In the near future, some TV channels may start to go away, as there are hundreds of channels for some who may only watch five of them. From this, I believe that we will enter a time of hyper-personalization, where we only have channels, streams, and even commercials available for what we specifically want to watch. After all, it's possible that companies like Netflix's success is not just linked to watchable content, but also to the marketing idea of not including ads on their platform. The future is somewhat grim for the traditional TV station, but that doesn’t mean that television itself cannot survive in other ways.


https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/13/technology/the-messy-confusing-future-of-tv-its-here.html

https://www.recode.net/2018/2/8/16991248/turner-future-television-audience-fans-platform-consumption-distribution-advertising

https://www.mediapost.com/publications/article/300874/how-tv-watching-is-changing-fast.html

https://www.axios.com/how-american-tv-consumption-is-changing-in-one-chart-1513300692-776cfda2-06da-4a0a-a9a5-7726918029f5.html