Telly: the past and the present
In my 18th post, I’ll look at how the launch of on-demand video streaming has changed our watching habits. It will be a journey to the past, but not too distant one (I’m just 35 and will limit this to my conscious lifetime).
Do you remember times when you had to wait for the new episode of your favourite series and there was only one opportunity to watch it? This day of the week had a different dimension. Meetings with friends weren’t as important as being up to date with the series. Sometimes even walking through the city you knew that something “important” is on telly as streets were empty as everyone was watching.
I remember there were always times of the week when a member of a family or a few were sitting in front of the telly and it was their time. Noone could interrupt, or talk, there was no way to pause. You were in another world the one caught in the cubical shaped box with a glass screen, probably with few people by your side. There was a no distraction rule. You couldn’t rewind. After airing, the episode was dissolving in thin air...
If you missed that evening, it was difficult to catch up. If you were lucky there was a repeat the next day, but probably you were at school. You could ask your friends what happened in that episode, but how can you trust them in so personal thing as the perception of things… perhaps they weren’t paying enough attention to the character you liked?
Life was so simple and predictable back then. You had to adjust your timetable to the screening times.
With time things were changing. Lucky individuals had a VHS recorder which someone from the family or a friend could set and record to watch later. The biggest crime was when it was recorded on something you really liked re-watching! I think I had that situation once!
Commercials - time for an extra snack
With the commercialization of telly, we experienced the big arrival of breaks for commercials. It was annoying if you were used to be focused for this 45 minutes and here suddenly you were taken out of the zone for stupid ads every 15 minutes and watching one episode took way longer than normal. But people are clever and we soon realised it’s the best time to go to the loo or grab some snacks, make the tea or walk the dog (it was probably a fast walk.)
Time management evolution
The next stage was decoders with the ability to record the episode of the series, you could set it for all the episodes and didn’t have to worry. I had this system 12 years ago, the best feature was that I could rewind ads and watch it in one go without a need to take a break every 15 minutes.
Still, I had to wait a week for a new episode, but then I had time to digest the latest one and discuss it with friends who were up to date as well.
TV on demand
When tv on demand knocked to our doors, everything went mad. You could catch up with all the old series available, you could binge-watch it.
You didn't have to go to the DVD rental to rent a season, you could make a decision of what you want to watch and have it in front of your eyes in a matter of seconds. You didn't have to wait or adjust your day to the tv programme any more (well unless you like live TV).
In recent years the pay-TV subscription was overtaken by on-demand streaming services. This is a tough fact for broadcasters. They need t think hard how the tv of the future will look like. BBC is trying their best with BritBox, but since 2007 they offer BBC iPlayer what seems to be a good alternative, but still, the competition is really serious.
“Subscriptions to traditional pay-TV services ( such as Sky, Virgin Media, BT and TalkTalk) totalled 14.3 million in Q1 2019, whereas the total number of subscriptions to Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, NOW TV and Disney Life reached 19.1 million (up from 15.4 million in Q1 2018).”
Source: Media Nations 2019 report
The big screen and the small screen
With time television became a more prestigious medium. More often we can see film stars debuting on the small screen (Remember Meryl Streep on Big little liars? Have you heard her scream remix?). Television is a really serious thing now for both actors and viewers, but this is a topic for another story.
The browsing experience
Now if we miss something on the telly we can catch up easily. If we miss it in the cinema (I did it twice recently!) we just need to wait patiently till it premieres on tv. We save the trip to the DVD rental place (btw who has a working dvd player these days?) but also we lose an opportunity to come across another interesting film which may have caught our eye on the shelf of the rental place. It’s difficult to browse online with such freedom.
Binge-watching
For years we were used to a linear way of watching, one episode at the time, but on-demand streaming has changed it, whole seasons of popular shows are dropped on the platform at once and people do not wait to dose it, they submerge in the series’ world for hours…
The approach of dropping all episodes at one was welcomed with an enthusiasm, on-demand providers are rethinking this idea as they want people to keep their subscription for longer and release episodes one at the time. The advantage of weekly releases is that it keeps the buzz about the episode and gives series a longer time in a media spotlight- remember Bodyguard? BBC made a great job keeping us on pins and needles.
The fact that we can watch everything everywhere can help to make our journeys easier and catch up with the newest episodes on mobile while we’re commuting.
The (not so secret) mission
The difference between on-demand and broadcast tv is a mission.
BBC ‘s aim is simple “to enrich people’s lives with programmes and services that inform, educate and entertain by being the most creative organisation in the world. Netflix’s is also simple, “To entertain the world.”
Which one you choose depends on you, just don’t forget about the world outside, we don't know for how long we’ll be able to enjoy it.
Thanks for reading.
If you are interested in a real analysis of the state of tv in the UK read the Media nations: UK 2019 report.
