Video Killed the Radio Star, Will the Web Kill the TV Star?

Changes in electronic media (and certainly print media) have historically be evolutionary rather than revolutionary. If you saw the TV Guide lineup for ABC, CBS, or NBC today versus, say, 1976, you'd recognize it. The reality shows might confuse someone from 1976 seeing a 2006 TV Guide. But what is changing at an unprecedented and, I believe, unpredicted pace is the presence of video on the web. I teach new media and also web site production. I've been telling my classes perhaps for as many as 10 years that the future of the web is video. Well, it's happened.

The quick rise of video services on the web from Google video to YouTube to traditional television and cable networks rivals the rapid diffusion of broadband in the U.S. in terms of (recall that I find the U.S. market difficult enough to keep up with that I confess to being provincial about what I write). As IPTV progresses, the day is coming sooner thaN most experts are predicting that we will be able to watch broadcast (including HD) programs not only on our high resolution computer monitors, but also on our television sets. The difference in quality will be less that may be predicted, and TV viewers are already used to watching degraded video on their television sets (videophones in news, DVR recordings in low quality to save space, even degradation of satellite or cable service due to poor maintenance and/or heavy rain in the case of satellite services.

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You may use this content (better still, argue with me!), but please cite my ideas as © 2006, Dr. Bruce Klopfenstein. Find any typos! Don't smite me, let me know!