Television or TV has been around for a while now, it was invented in 1927 so only just off a hundred years ago and I think it will reach its hundredth birthday but not much further. TV is something I see a lot of people moving away from and I'm sure at some point most of you have had the feeling where you have a day off with nothing to do so you sit and watch TV and after a few hours you think why am I watching this?
When TV was first released it was a marvel and a privilege that not many people could afford and it stood that way for a long while, it wasn't really until the 1950s that TVs where popularized becoming commonplace in many homes. Fast forward to 2018 and a TV is something that isn't seen very special anymore especially with all the varieties and sizes but the sales are high as ever.
Even with all the benefits of modern TVs actually watching TV broadcasts are getting less and less popular as the days go by and I think it won't be long before the channels as we know them die. One thing that I think is killing TV is loyalty, people aren't really loyal to a TV network as they may watch a show on the network but they likely don't know anything about the network itself, rather they have interest in the actors and the people who make the specific show.
In the UK a few years ago we saw the channel BBC 3 taken of air and moved solely to being online even though popular shows were still being broadcasted. You also can't communicate with a TV, when you are watching something you can talk to your TV but they can't hear you however you can go online and talk to the people that are in the show and that make it.
I see this being one of the major reasons for the downfall of TV. Nowadays if you can go online to youtube, twitch or similar sites and watch almost anything you can think of the production quality is only getting better over time with equipment becoming better. Online you can also interact a lot more, if you want to say something you can say it and the creator will likely see that comment, on twitch you can also comment live so as something is happening you can talk to people about it or even the person making 'x' happen.
This interaction makes people loyal because it adds more of a connection between the creators and the viewers along with people feeling their say matters, whereas on TV your say and opinion rarely means anything so people don't get the same attachment, almost as if TV is an acquaintance and the internet is a friend.
TV also has fixed slots, at a certain time every day you will be getting the same show each day over and over and if you don't like that show then you move to another channel and there may be times when there isn't anything on you want to watch as most channels follow a similar mold and show certain things at certain times. If you are ever up in the early hours of the morning you're probably only going to find teleshopping, that goes into the morning news, then you have your bargain hunt and homes under the hammer type shows etc etc. Every day the same shows are shown at the same time.
This routine can become pretty boring not to mention these shows have to adhere to what the network likes to see, so often shows on a certain network will always show the same ways of thinking and the same events in dramas. It can become repetitive and boring whereas the alternative of the internet has almost anything, if you are looking for drama you can find it, you can see real peoples relationships unfold, most anything you can think of you can find and there isn't the same strict schedule of you will be watching this type of show at this time, you can move more freely.
Currently I think TV is still doing pretty well because most of us grew up with it and you know what you are going to get from it. However people are now starting to grow up with the internet instead of TV giving them access to so much more and if you have always grown up with that you will only go to watch TV for really special shows but eventually that just wont be bringing enough traffic the channels. Not to mention places like Netflix that now create tons of their own shows and release whole series at once so people don't have to wait months to finish a show, so it adds more of a practical aspect.
Generally I think the internet has more to offer than any broadcasting network could dream of and because broadcasting networks have also moved online you can use catch-up, you don't even need to watch TV to watch TV. This is why I think eventually if the broadcasting networks want to survive they will have to move over to being purely online. Being online also offers a lot more than being on any given network, in some senses, because you can reach anyone who has access to the internet unlike TV where a lot if the time you have to be in a country to watch a show and that's part of the reasons we see individual YouTube channels getting more vies on each video than networks get on each show.
So we are about nine years away from TV being one hundred years old and that is a big milestone however I think TV could die off before it reaches the big one hundred and fifty but to be conservative I would say I doubt it will reach two hundred and if it does I for one would be shocked.
