NYT's and WSJ on "The Future of TV"

written by:

Details

Published on Monday, 11 October 2010 15:02

Last week two important pieces on "the future of TV" ran in America's top-tier media. First on Wednesday Jessica E. Vascellaro from the The Wall Street Journal wrote about Time Warner CEO Jeffrey Bewkes' admiration and trust for Google TV:

"The chief executive of Time Warner Inc. said he is turning to Google Inc. as an ally in his push to bring cable shows to users across various devices and that the Web giant's new service for accessing and searching Internet programming on TVs isn't the threat many television distributors fear."

Click below to read full article... 

Jeffrey Bewkes, who oversees a company that includes the TNT, TBS and HBO cable networks, also predicted a "massive amount of competition" for Netflix Inc. and Hulu LLC as more content owners make their TV shows available through operators on demand and online and as cable and satellite companies improve their experiences.

"When all of the content on the big screen works like the content on the little screen what will happen? The programming will trump the interface," he said.

Then on Thursday in his weekly personal tech column, David Pogue from The New York Times announced that "TV's Future Has Arrived (Almost)".  As he reviewed Apple TV and then Roku's new box his most positive remarks were related to Apple's a-la-carte TV model:

TV SHOWS 

Here is what could be the real game-changer: $1 a show, on demand. Imagine: you wouldn’t need cable. You wouldn’t need channels. You wouldn’t need a TiVo. Any show, any time, for a reasonable price. If any idea ever had “THE FUTURE” stamped across its forehead, this one is it.

Unfortunately, that future requires the participation of the TV networks, and few of them are playing ball with Apple. You can choose certain shows from ABC/Disney, Fox and the BBC — but the selection is pretty puny. Right now, $1 on-demand TV is a brilliant idea in search of studio executives with a clue."

Has the popular, mainstream media in America finally and fully embraced the "future of TV"? Technophobes and social media addicts have always known that with all the new media possibilities the TV industry would finally have to adapt. What's more exciting is when the tech prophet for the average high-net-worth person (Pogue) and a tech writer for America's (and the world's) daily business bible (WSJ) realize the potential that Apple TV and Google TV will have on the world.

The race has officially begun to define and reinvent TV. Sadly, both Pogue and Vascellaro failed to elaborate on how social media platforms' (Twitter, Facebook, etc.) integration with these new in between TV and computer devices will play a factor in who wins.