The Future of “Television”

I think a lot about where television is going in the next few years. What’s exciting to me is that there’s a possibility of evolving the medium in a significant way. Consider that for the most part, television has not evolved since the days of the DuMont network in the 1940’s. Back then it was a closed system: networks broadcast shows to a single type of device capable of receiving those transmissions – a television.

Today, not much has changed. We are still reliant on handful of commercial entities to deliver televised content: but instead of networks, it’s cable and satellite providers. The networks are still there, but have moved down the value chain a notch. If there’s been one major change since the dawn of television 70 years ago, it’s that the distribution channel has become more and more important while the actual network on which the content resides is less significant. When I was growing up in the 1970’s, we had the big three networks: ABC, CBS and NBC. They owned the television landscape. As cable (and later, satellite) became more prevalent, the balance of power shifted to the distributors rather than the networks that owned or licensed the content. And that’s where we seem to be right now.

However, we’re on the verge of a major change. Continue reading

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