Sunday, February 21, 2016

How We View TV Today

YouTube TV
CassetteWhile TV was once characterized by the medium from which it was delivered to us, a box with a tube, today that has all passed away just as the cassette and 8-track tape has for delivering us music.  The content is not what has changed, in the larger sense, it is the medium that has changed.  Today we get our music on CD’s or more often straight off the Internet from iTunes, Amazon, or some other digital service.  We don’t even have to purchase it today - we can stream it via Pandora, Spotify, YouTube, or one of the thousands of Internet Radio Stations.  Aside for the changes in genre’s our music is still… well… music — audio content.  

Content vs. Medium
In the last 10 years Television has taken a similar change from one traditionally referring to a picture tube in a box, to the content of visual information — the visual content.  Now one might still refer these two to an audio medium and a visual medium, but that is not so.  The medium is describing the means by which the content is delivered.  By definition the medium is the intervening substance through which the content comes to you.  So the visual medium is the way in which you get the content — the content does not change, the way we get it changes.

By Definition
Telegraph KeyTV is Television, by definition — Tele-Vision, Televised Vision, transmitted visual information, transmitted, transferred, delivered, via wire or wireless — delivered content to the receiver.  The term tele was first used before radio existed — telegraph.  It was transmitted via wires then wireless via radio waves.  It was a code (content) that was delivered to the receiver.  The propagation medium and the devices used in delivering and receiving that content have changed but the information or content are what has always been what we care about — not the means of delivery.  The message not the messenger is what is important.  The end game.

My Uses
YouTube TV
I know for me, I haven’t watched a traditional TV for years, I still watch TV shows but I watch them online via the Internet.  YouTube is my major source for programming content, and I'd bet it's yours too.  Hulu, CBS, NBC, YouTube, I get it all online now.  The Internet is the new medium for TV.  It is way visual information is televised to us.  It is The New TV.

My Predictions
I foresee that the major TV networks will soon follow suit with HBO and Showtime who have followed Hulu and Netflix into the Interwebs and will have an App on your smart TV’s so that you can watch them through the Internet without cable, satellite, or terrestrial TV.  CBS has already made a major more in that direction, you can watch their programming online just like Hulu provides.  Ustream and YouTube, the pioneer of personal video content, is now more focused on video streaming and has given everyone the ability to broadcast on The New TV.
YouTube TV  Ustream TV

After all, you can reach them via YouTube.TV or Ustream.TV
You could say that they are now the first name in TV
Your Thoughts?...

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