TV of the future?
Now that you can download TV shows at the iTunes Music Store
will this become the way that most Americans watch TV?
With our own personal, portable digital recorders will we become a nation that downloads our favorite TV shows overnight and then watches them on the way to work (or perhaps at work)? I think we will. There will come a day when TV shows are measured not by how many people are estimated to watch them when they first air, but how many times they are downloaded. Can a show make more money by garnering huge "free" TV audiences or obtaining 20 million downloads at $1.99 per episode? If you said "the latter, because it eliminates the middleman" you are correct. If I owned shares in a broadcast TV network I'd be selling them.
As for MTV, how about podTV? Give me a channel that plays the most popular TV show episodes periodically. That way I won't have to wait to see The Apprentice (or wait for my digital recorder to record it). You could even show edited segments of shows in order to induce people to download the entire episode. (Anyone have a few hundred million to help me start up podTV? ;) Too bad the domain squatters have already nabbed just about every useful combination of "pod"....
The huge entertainment conglomerates have certainly thought about this, and are already thinking about ways to tax iPods. Just like they have taxed blank media (whether you use a blank tape or CD for computers or music, of course). It is only a matter of time before they start taxing iPods and similar devices. After all, everyone is a thief just waiting to steal from those poor companies, right? (That's a rant for another day, though.)
I think we can all guess what is coming next from Apple. iPod Widescreen! Buy me one, you know you want to!
will this become the way that most Americans watch TV?
With our own personal, portable digital recorders will we become a nation that downloads our favorite TV shows overnight and then watches them on the way to work (or perhaps at work)? I think we will. There will come a day when TV shows are measured not by how many people are estimated to watch them when they first air, but how many times they are downloaded. Can a show make more money by garnering huge "free" TV audiences or obtaining 20 million downloads at $1.99 per episode? If you said "the latter, because it eliminates the middleman" you are correct. If I owned shares in a broadcast TV network I'd be selling them.
As for MTV, how about podTV? Give me a channel that plays the most popular TV show episodes periodically. That way I won't have to wait to see The Apprentice (or wait for my digital recorder to record it). You could even show edited segments of shows in order to induce people to download the entire episode. (Anyone have a few hundred million to help me start up podTV? ;) Too bad the domain squatters have already nabbed just about every useful combination of "pod"....
The huge entertainment conglomerates have certainly thought about this, and are already thinking about ways to tax iPods. Just like they have taxed blank media (whether you use a blank tape or CD for computers or music, of course). It is only a matter of time before they start taxing iPods and similar devices. After all, everyone is a thief just waiting to steal from those poor companies, right? (That's a rant for another day, though.)
I think we can all guess what is coming next from Apple. iPod Widescreen! Buy me one, you know you want to!