Idiot box...

[Myxomatosis]

So, I was browsing my Netflix selections recently and came across a Criminal Minds spin off called "Suspect Behavior". Loved it, watched every episode, got the cliffhanger season finale and said... "Mkay, I want season 2. Is it out yet?"

So I did some browsing online and found out the show was cancelled after the first season... Ending on a cliffhanger with questions left entirely unanswered. Looking more into the matter, it seems that a lack of advertising coupled with poor production lead to low ratings... but then I saw the actual viewership... and apparently the show average 9.3 million viewers. I thought "That doesn't seem that low." and figured I'd do more looking into the matter... At this point it also revolved around the fact that a LOT of shows have been getting cancelled recently.

Eventually came across this article from 2009. (http://roomfordebate.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/02/27/how-network-tv-brought-america-together/) It posed a great question in my opinion... Are we going to see the end of network television before too long? By the sounds of it, CBS, Fox, and all the major broadcasting networks just can't afford well produced shows anymore without those shows producing almost unrealistic ratings.

In addition we now have youtube, netflix, hulu, various third party streaming and other sources to get our tv intake.

At any rate, I figured this might be a refreshing topic to break away from the usual political discussions. Where do you think tv is going and how much longer do think it may last in its current form? People are getting more and more into the commercial free, on demand nature of the internet, it seems.

[Tonus]

Anytime you get a large shift in the way something is done, it can take time for things to get sorted out. Both resistance to the new ways and a rush to embrace them have something to do with it. In the end, money still matters, and until media companies find a reliable way to make the internet profitable, they'll fight it tooth and nail (which is what so much of the copyright battles are about) and at the same time they'll try to find ways to adapt it to their needs (Netflix and Hulu being two such attempts).

Being relatively conservative in their business approaches, most large businesses and industries would prefer to reject anything new and have it disappear. But I think that by now it's pretty clear that broadband access will continue to get faster and more affordable and that the Internet is not going to go away. Right now I think we're at a sort of midpoint in the process, where companies will start to invest money and effort and begin to shape the future of media.

It's pretty exciting, IMO. There is some pain and inconvenience that comes with it. Many times, the pioneers in a field wind up being among the first to fail financially, and others step in and become the big successes (something that is being muddied by the increase in government intervention due to the increases in the size and number of large corporate entities). It's possible that in ten years, internet-driven TV is the norm, but that Netflix, Hulu, Youtube, and others will no longer exist.