Net to be whupped by TV in attention battle

Define "telly watching"

As people spend more and more time at home (on average) not doing the things they used to, like reading, and domestic chores, and as occupancy of dwellings tends towards unity as it is, more people will get recorded as watching telly than before, even if all they do is have it on in the background. The telly is usually on in our house, even if we're doing something else, so growth in TV watching doesn't actually preclude growth in PC use.

They base this on what?

I almost totally stopped watching TV after more endless "reality" TV nonsense and year long mini-series that, because they make money, stopped making sense after a few episodes.

Balls to Telly

Half the people i know use th internet more than watch the tv, i myself only went back to t.v when i bought a digital stick for my laptop so i can record what i want to watch without the endless hours of crap.

It's all very well there being 30 + channels but how often is there actually anything decent on, people want to be entertained and they will seek it elsewhere if t.v cannot provide

Hurray for the Internet

Re: Balls to Telly

Yes, everything on the internet is ace.

When?

So they're promising 170 hours per week by 2012? That'll be handy for the Olympics.

More seriously, have these researchers spoken to the other researchers who found that the presence of broadband knocked several hours per week off the household telly viewing time? At least one of these findings must be wrong.

TV may not be dying...

...but traditional "Broadcast TV" certainly is. I can't remember the last time I turned on my TV and actually watched a show while it was broadcast. I'm very close to canceling my cable subscription.

PVR/DVR technology and "time-shifting" means fewer people will actually tune in during normal broadcast hours. And if you miss a show, simply download a torrent and watch it on your PVR. Or wait until the whole season is out on DVD, and watch as many episodes as you like, back-to-back.

Yes but not for TV

Yes the net takes time away that I might have spent watching TV.

That doesn't mean I watch programmes on my computer/spend hours on YouTube.

I have chosen to go on the net to do something else. Falling over each other to make sure I can watch your TV programmes on the net is pointless.

Things like the BBC's iPlayer only work for me because the DRM can be broken so that I can watch things I forgot to record on my TV. Why would I want to watch stuff on my computer when I can sit on the sofa watching it on a screen four times the size?

TV w/tivo still better for me

My internet usage has dramatically declined over the past 5 years, even more so over the past 10 years. At home I probably spend maybe 15-30 minutes worth of time online a day, I really only visit less than half dozen web sites(only so many articles are posted on the reg each day). At work probably a couple hours, very little of which is non work-task related. 10 years ago I was online probably in excess of 10 hours a day fairly regularly, instead of doing work for college I was online learning things that lead to a really good career path.

On the flip side my tivo almost always has something to watch, yesterday probably watched a good 8 hours of tv(about a third of that being the Dallas/Green Bay game last night).

I've just lost interest in the internet, the more time goes on the less I am interested in it.

Already 2 hours of tv for me this morning(95% of which is CNBC, I'm not an investor I just find some of the stuff they talk about entertaining, the other 5% is local morning news). I've had tivo for 6 years now, without it I probably would be as burned out on TV as most people seem like they are.

one to many or one to one

The thing about the internet is that to scale up, you need a new connection for each new subscriber. Apart from a PC, that means more connectivity, more network infrastructure, wider pipes. Compare that with enlarging a TV aurdience - all you need is more TVs.

From a simple economic point of view, it is easier and cheaper to double the size of the TV watching audience than the number of internet subscribers

However 2012 is only five years away (well, just over 4 if you count Jan 2008) so whatever happens, it won;t change very much in that short space of time

TV usage is displaced by the Net, not Net Video

There is a difference. The TV usage displaced by Net usage goes to websites, not to Internet video sites. TV's loss is the Internet as a whole's gain, but Net video sites gain only small crumbs of that (then again those crumbs can be quite lucrative since the cost of production is zero and the cost of transport is steadily decreasing).

TV isn't going away....

...but I predict it will change immensely in a few years.

Already, I have a MythTV machine, which records all the broadcast shows I might want, and is more than capable of playing anything I might happen to bittorrent.

Just imagine when 100MBps+ broadband becomes widespread-- folks might opt to purchase subscriptions to the shows they enjoy, much like magazine subscriptions are now. Of course, there will also be sharing and copying, but if the subscription prices were reasonable (say, $30 a year for House or The Shield) I can see a lot of my customers who are currently struggling with the technical complexities of bittorrent jump to a subscription model in a heartbeat. Especially if all they had to do was buy a standalone component, similar to a DVD player.

The technology is functional now, and the first company to, say, license the Slingbox and build it directly into a modern TV will push it over the edge. Why would anyone willingly use broadcast, if their neighbor has a TV which records what they want, skips commercials, and allows downloading? FFS, I could build a device just like that now, if it weren't for the massive amounts of patents I'd violate. This isn't an issue for the likes of Sony or JVC, though. I'm certain they have folks who can recognize the competitive advantage that such a device would give them, making it more than worth licensing the pertinent technologies.

As soon as such a device becomes widespread, the television ad market will entirely collapse, in much the same way that the theatre behemoths did in the 1940s.

Without advertising revenue to support the production of entertainment (and I imagine that a season of The Shield is expensive to make), the networks will be forced to move to a subscription model or be strangled of funds.

The analog to digital back to analog process (And not web 2.0) will ultimately be one of the most momentous social changes humanity has ever seen.

TV isn't dying, it's evolving.

I am so f**king bored

with both TV and internet. There are very few programs worth watching.

Sure, you may argue the Internet has more available content - but is it any better than TV? At least with TV I don't have to pay when I go over my data cap.

And no, I don't wander back and forth between the TV and the Internet. I actually go out and do stuff. See that? The thing through the window? Pull back the curtains - no, I don't care if it casts a reflection on you monitor screen, just pull 'em back. That, boys and girls, is we call "outside". Admittedly, if you're looking at a wall, it doesn't look like much.

Get off your asses and go do something with your life. Sheesh.