Many students will try to beat the torturing Louisiana heat by relaxing in front of the the old boob tube this summer. Several top cable channels will be unveiling their original programming during the summer months.
USA Network’s “Burn Notice” program kicked off its new season in early June. TNT will be broadcasting the sixth season of its extremely popular crime series “The Closer” starting in July. Finally, AMC’s visually-appealing advertising drama “Mad Men” also starts its fourth season in July.
Obviously all three networks expect good ratings for their respective programs. With changes in technology, however, cable companies are beginning to take notice in the methods people view their programming.Clearly the concept of television will never die out. America’s alarming number of lazy people confirms that.
But the ways in which we watch it have been undergoing serious change in the past few years. Currently plasma and LCD flat screens are considered hot, almost essential entertainment items for students’ living rooms and bedrooms. However, more and more people are tuning in to television on their mobile devices or computers. Why would someone rather watch a TV show on a 3.5-inch iPhone instead of on a 48-inch high definition flat screen?
Simply put — convenience.
Big, flat-screen plasma TVs are still essential to group watching. No one wants to sit around with their boys downing cases of Natural Ice and squinting to watch a Hornets game on a tiny computer screen. This social interaction hearkens back to the beginning days of television when a family would gather around the tube to watch the news and variety shows.
Technology and its ever-growing sophistication has brought us to the point of simply not paying for cable television. Monthly payments for cable and Internet aren’t exactly cheap for the average college student. Instead of paying for both Internet access and cable, tech-savvy people are finding ways to “beat the system.”
The most popular method of this is buying relatively cheap ($12.99 at Best Buy) HDMI cables to connect a computer directly to the television, often in high definition video and audio.
Next the consumer simply finds a website that streams cable. This requires a host willing to send out their paid cable prescription for free across the Internet.
Streaming video is the biggest new Internet trend. We’ve already seen the influence of the Internet in the recording industry. Year by year, record sales have been dwindling since 2000. Now streaming websites threaten to take a bite out of the cable industry.Sites like justin.tv and sportstop.tv are becoming more popular across the globe. Premium channels such as ESPN and HBO can be enjoyed for free, albeit illegally, with a working Internet connection.
Not all streaming is illegal. Sites like Hulu and Netflix have proven to be very popular legal sites for streaming video. Even some of the aforementioned channels like TNT and AMC stream some of their programming online for free. Cisco Information Systems predicts that by 2014 more than 90 percent of Internet bandwidth use will be streaming video, according to cnet.com.
The shift from traditional cable toward Internet TV is not just a bunch of cheap-asses not willing to pay their dues. It is an appreciation of technology and its ability to umbrella different mediums into one unified structure. It just makes sense to have a two for one Internet and cable deal.
—-Contact Cory Cox at [email protected].