The Death of TV as We Know It
If you’re reading this story I think it’ll be safe to assume you’re a millennial like me who grew up in the 90's (The best decade ever, according to all 90's kids). You probably have a fond memory of growing up with the likes of MacGyver, Knight Rider, The Power Rangers and of course the tunes of the classic 90’s Ads, which I’m sure you’ll all remember the jingles of.
But as the time went by, we grew up. The colorful memories of Popeye trolling with Bluto’s head and Goku going Super Saiyan slowly started to take a back seat as our fancy new desktops with 64 MB RAMs and Creative 4.1 Speakers became the attention. Thanks to the age of DVD’s we no longer had to sit in front of the TV at the right time to watch our favorite shows and movies.
This meant the TV was gradually becoming a thing of the past reserved for moms and dads who wanted to have their daily dose of soap opera and news. Sure we all sat down for eagerly in front of TV to watch sports or some breaking news as they unfolded. But the time we spend with TV went down. CRT TV’s went away to give place to LCD’s and LED’s, DVD players gave way to playstation and Xbox. We conveniently shifted from TV’s to PC’s and eventually to smartphones for entertainment and content consumption.
So the TV is dead? Right?
The familiar TV experience of 90’s and 00’s is most definitely dead. Or at least dying in my not-so-expert opinion. The weekly dose of magazine programs and package dramas are no longer the mainstream.
But future of TV is bright (No Pun intended). The technology of content delivery has shifted tremendously from one way to a lot more versatile and viewer oriented. Think about the flourish of digital set top boxes in recent years which lets viewers a lot more control over what to watch. Then you have the disruptive streaming services like Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime and so on. Original contents like House of Cards and The Grand Tour give more production value than Hollywood and BBC. Release of entire season lets viewers enjoy shows at their own pace.
All bigshot technology companies like Apple and Google are now increasing their involvement with TV. Apple TV lets you watch live sports and what people are saying about the game on Twitter simultaneously. Android TV lets you grab four controllers and play together on your TV. LG just announced a wallpaper TV that’s thinner than a photo frame. And the list of innovations for TV keeps going on.
TV is going to be the center of activity in the house soon. New families will plan their new apartments based on where they should keep the TV and the WiFi router. It will do far more than spew out contents. It will bring people together.
