Do Not Adjust Your Set

New technology inevitably leaves casualties. The DVD usurped the video tape, just as the CD laid waste to the LP record and the wheel surpassed dragging things. One of the 20th century’s greatest technologies, television, is threatened by the internet – the other great technological innovation of the 20th century. Will people put up with ever-lengthening commercial breaks and strict programming times when they know that they can get what they want usually ad-free and able to be watched at their convenience? The advent of the DVR has already changed behaviour in regards to allowing people to watch shows when they want to. The internet can take this idea a step further, allowing the download of whole seasons of television shows, usually illegally. It is possible that in the future we will see the current programming model overhauled and commercial television as we know it might plausibly cease to exist.

But does commercial television have to be at odds with the internet? TV networks have already wised up to a lot of the digital age trends. News and current affairs programs in particular work well with input from social media sites like Twitter and Facebook, and it is common for TV shows to advertise their Facebook or Twitter accounts and encourage users to give instantaneous feedback on the show they are watching. This direct feedback can then be used to further determine target audiences and content, thereby creating better programming—which benefits the viewer— and more directed advertising, which benefits the network. For example, if a particular news program gets an influx of ‘follows’ or ‘likes’ from predominantly single urban women, then they can tailor their advertising accordingly and reap the benefits. Such information has been available to TV networks in the past, but never at such a rapid rate and arguably with less information than a Facebook or Twitter profile can provide.

As of this writing, commercial television is still going strong. It is a worldwide industry that has a firm grip on billions of dollars of advertising revenue and still has enough cultural currency to infiltrate pop culture.  But behaviour is changing. With a lot of television shows now available online – both legally and illegally – waiting a whole week to catch an episode of your favourite show can become taxing. The problem is exacerbated if you live outside the region where the program is produced; American television can take at least six months to reach Australian shores, if not longer. By the time you are watching the ‘latest episode’ of your favourite American drama in Australia the next season is already being shown in the States. It’s unsurprising then that people turn to downloading shows in order to get their fix rather than depend on the often unreliable network programming.

I’m basing a lot of my observations of TV watching behaviour on myself and my friends, which is a small sample size to say the least. But I think the assumption can be made that as members of Generation Y we are much more susceptible to downloading our favourite shows illegally rather than watch them on commercial television. The legality and implications of such behaviour is a tricky issue, and this post doesn’t intend to delve into the morality of pirated internet content. It can’t be ignored, however, that such behaviour exists, and especially that for many people of Generation Y it is generally seen as acceptable.

However, there is still a sizeable market of the older generations who might not do the same and therefore keeps the current model of network television—with its pre-determined programming times and set commercial breaks—viable. The most watched shows in Australia are those which present family situations and domestic life (think Masterchef, The Block, Home and Away, etc.) and therefore are relatable to a large percentage of the population, and not just 20-something students with laptops and University bandwidth at their disposal.

Furthermore, the current model of legal internet programming offered by the networks can be confusing, and at times just as limited as conventional programming. A myriad of ‘online television’ options provided by commercial networks exist, but these range from ‘catch-up’ services of already aired content (usually available only for a certain time), or ‘live streaming’ content which means that viewers still adhere to conventional programming schedules. If you want the liberty of being able to legally watch whole episodes of previous seasons whenever you want, expect to pay for it. And this money generally goes right back into the pockets of the networks. The Hulu service in the United States, which streams shows from ABC, NBC and FOX, pays 50 to 70 percent of revenue generated (primarily from advertising) back to the networks. Don’t expect this sort of arrangement to change any time in the near future. Naturally, television networks want to create a profit, that’s why they have to safeguard their productions and ensure to the best of their ability that they don’t lose money due to piracy.

The relative success of services such as Hulu demonstrates that a market does exist for people who want to watch TV online and pay for it. But how long will that market last? For while there still exists generations who have not been exposed to illegally downloading television shows the reality is that in the future all generations will have lived in a time when such an option has always been available. The technology exists for people to create pirated television shows – and unlike television networks, pirates do not charge for their services because they don’t stand to lose money from doing so. It is reasonable to assume that some pirates believe that they are doing a public good – a modern day Robin Hood, if you will, by taking content from the rich and providing it to the poor.

As mentioned previously, I don’t want to get into the rights and wrongs of online piracy. What I am interested in, however, is the direction that television will take in the future. A pertinent comparison to make would be the music industry, which has been threatened by the rise of the internet and peer to peer sites, and has accordingly had to change its mode of operation, with large stores like iTunes perhaps providing the musical equivalent of a service like Hulu.

So what happens when our society is made up solely of those people who know how (or know somebody who knows a guy who knows how) to obtain content for free? Will illegally downloading television content in its entirety become so common that TV networks are forced to concede defeat? Or will there always be a section of society who shuns online piracy and instead relies on the services that the commercial networks provide? Perhaps we could see an end to conventional television programming as networks no longer have the finances to fund new productions. We might forever be stuck watching re-runs of Two and a Half-Men, while wistfully remembering the good old days where we had access to new television shows, even if they did arrive six months late.

nostradamus.com

Humans love to try and predict the future. There seems to be something carnal about knowing what will happen before it actually occurs, probably linked in to some sort of human God-complex that innately infects our super-intelligent/narcissistic species. It’s often embarrassing, and sometimes amusing, when someone gets it wrong. 

But what about the few times we get it right? It’s fascinating how accurate some predictions have become, particularly in regards to the World Wide Web. For a technology that really only came into being around 1990, the fact that over a century ago somebody predicted something similar to our current setup of a worldwide network of billions of computers is astounding, a little scary, and very, very cool.

In 1909 E.M Forster wrote a short story entitled ‘The Machine Stops’, a dystopian (or perhaps utopian, if you’re Zuckerberg or Jobs) tale about humans who have become isolated and dependant on their personal machines which provide for them all they need to survive. Forster’s depiction of this ‘machine’ is eerily familiar:

"There were buttons and switches everywhere--buttons to call for food, for music, for clothing... There was the button that produced literature, and there were of course the buttons by which she communicated with her friends..."

Forster wasn’t alone in predicting the way in which the world would become inextricably connected through machines. In 1946 Murray Leinster addressed a similar concept in his tale ‘A Logic Named Joe’ which, instead of ‘machines’, calls his personal computer-type invention a ‘logic’, a machine which utilises a ‘trick circuit’ that’s so similar to the WWW that Berners-Lee might be up for copyright infringement:

"I was servicing televisions before that guy Carson invented his trick circuit that will select any of 'steenteen [sic] million other circuits—in theory there ain't no limit—and before the Logics Company hooked it into the tank-and-integrator set-up they were usin' 'em as business-machine service. They added a vision screen for speed—an' they found out they'd made logics. They were surprised an' pleased. They're still findin' out what logics will do, but everybody's got 'em."

I realise that it’s not very creative on my part to quote large chunks of other people’s text, but in this case Leinster’s description of the then imminent digital age is so wonderful I can’t help myself:

"You know the logics setup. You got a logic in your house. It looks like a vision receiver used to, only it's got keys instead of dials and you punch the keys for what you wanna get...you punch "Sally Hancock's Phone" an' the screen blinks an' sputters an' you're hooked up with the logic in her house an' if somebody answers you got a vision-phone connection. But besides that, if you punch for the weather forecast or who won today's race at Hialeah or who was mistress of the White House durin' Garfield's administration... that comes on the screen too. The relays in the tank do it. The tank is a big buildin' full of all the facts in creation an' all the recorded telecasts that ever was made—an' it's hooked in with all the other tanks all over the country—an' everything you wanna know or see or hear, you punch for it an' you get it. Very convenient. Also it does math for you, an' keeps books, an' acts as consultin' chemist, physicist, astronomer...with a "Advice to the Lovelorn" thrown in."

Are we so predictable?

I think there is a tendency to weed out the correct predictions from the millions of incorrect ones and champion them as if the author really did have a window to the future. Statistics would suggest that over the course of a century, at least a couple of people would get pretty close. Keep in mind those like Harold Camping and thousands before him, who have incorrectly predicted the end of the world (of course, one of them will be right, one day). Or how about those that assured us that ‘guitar groups’ were ‘on the way out’ in the sixties? We get it wrong a hell of a lot more often than we get it right. And so I guess that’s part of the fun when the Forsters and Leinsters of the world make such bold predictions and those predictions are proved correct.

Here are some more thoughts from our esteemed Nostradami, who both ponder about the merits of their respective technology. E.M Forster could be billed as the first anti-Facebook campaigner:

“The Machine is much, but it is not everything. I see something like you in this plate, but I do not see you. I hear something like you through this telephone, but I do not hear you. That is why I want you to come. Pay me a visit, so that we can meet face to face, and talk about the hopes that are in my mind.”

“The room, though it contained nothing, was in touch with all that she cared for in the world.”

The second statement is a particularly scary quote. Take away our Facebook, take away our Google, our eBay and our Twitter, and it becomes that much harder to engage in the activities that we enjoy. We’d have to go outside or something. And ultimately, Forster is right. These things that we care for, these Facebook profiles and Google searches and Tweets and blogs and Wikipedia articles are, in physical essence, nothing. Our rooms are empty, filled only with the electrical synapses of our digital life-supports. Switch off the power and what are you left with?

Leinster takes a slightly different tack:

“Logics are all right, though. They changed civilization, the highbrows tell us.”

Food for thought indeed. How often is it jammed down our throats that the internet and super-connectivity are good things? I’m usually very pro-internet and pro-technology. But Forster and Leinster got me thinking. Do we ever stop and think just who is telling us that today’s super-connectivity is beneficial? Upon closer examination it’s often the people who stand to make a profit from our ultra digital dependency: Microsoft, Facebook, Google, Apple. Most of us would reject an ad from a cigarette company as we now know that they are making a profit out of people’s misfortunes. Will we come to a similar realisation in the future about the internet and its paradoxical ability to connect us with the world at the same time that it isolates us from it? Will humanity descend into a Forster-like existence in which everyone is physically shut off from one another, connected only by our glowing screens and optical fibre? The alarmists will tell you that we’re already there. The profiteers will claim that we need to go further. Where will it end?

I often wonder about future generations, who will never know a time before the existence of the internet. We’re living in quite a special period of history now: there are still those alive who remember (and in some cases prefer) a time before the World Wide Web. Does their pre-net perspective keep our technology grounded? Do they stop us from making catastrophically stupid technological mistakes all in the name of profit by reminding us that the world used to work before Facebook and Google, and that not everything can be reduced to a 140 character message? When their perspective dies, and their opinions are relegated to the history books, will we - the vanguard of the digital age - somehow concede a part of our humanity to the machines which already consume so much of our lives?