Recently BBC have finally launched their iPlayer. The iPlayer like it’s forerunner 4OD formally allow the viewers to watch television programmes online, normally for free, creating a more legal, less copyright-nightmare version than the hugely popular YouTube where most programmes are already available. This practice is being heralded as the future of television at the moment with Bill Gates famously stating that soon we will laugh at television, but what does this tell us about the viewing public now?
Constantly in the media we are being told we are too busy, we are being reminded of our hectic lifestyles with adverts such as moneysupermarket.co.uk which vows to save you time by comparing all the insurance quotes for you instantaneously. BBC have spent millions of their annual budget ensuring their transfer to the internet and ensuring their sites continue to provide the amount of information that their television channel traditionally did, being the centre of the viewing public’s life.
Online we are generally thought to be more active audiences as we have to select what we would like to view, we have to choose a website to look at rather than a selection being offered to us like they are on television. This allows us to fulfill our needs as an audience and watch and research whatever actually interests us rather than what the channels are prepared to provide us with information on. For as long as there has been television there has been huge fears that television was simply eroding our powers as an audience and turning us into drones whose lives are run through the box in the corner of the room. Now it would seem that we are being offered the chance to fully break free, still allowed to watch the programmes we enjoy but when we want to see them, bringing us closer to being an active consumer of the television rather than just sitting all night watching what is being presented to us; however the act of watching television is essentially a passive one. We simply absorb what is being presented to us but over time it seems we are being asked for our feedback more through online forums and discussion boards yet at the end of the day this does not change the passivity of the programme watching itself.
With this change into streaming on demand however it is fair to expect changes in the way that television is publicised and advertised. With less people merely tuning into the television to see what is on television channels are going to have to push their programmes across other media so that we will see the adverts for programming traditionally were only on television in between programmes will now be spread throughout the internet and print media. Through this new means of audience consumption we are experiencing a new way of broadcasting and this way seems to be far more individual than other methods contrasting the image of a family all sat around on a night watching television with the lone viewer logging on to their computer and watching their favourite programme this way. Through this kind of technology we are not all becoming members of a global village but instead are withdrawing further into ourselves. Just by the means of using a computer it is difficult to interact with others as more than one person using a computer is often irritating to watch as we are used to being in control of the technology ourselves and not eager to share the access to the information with others; the act of being sat at a laptop is instantly personal as it is visually very hard for more than one person to view the screen at the same time.
Could this kind of broadcasting bring about the gradual erosion of the public sphere that we are used to discussing television casually on a daily basis? This creates a diffused audience with people constantly being aware of what they are seeing and discussing it with their friends and family but if we are no longer watching the same programmes then surely we lose this interaction which most of the time is just comments but often can provoke deep discussions about all different kinds of issues including politics and way we perceive the rest of the world. Through the introduction to these kind of online streams we will be splinting the vast mass media audience into far more fragmented and cult audiences who have the power to consume television in a way that they have not had the power to before, with most of the control leaving the hands of the television schedulers.
This, it seems, is a new dawn for television but sometimes it is nice to have the familiarity of television with everyone sat around merely absorbing the whatever programme we have been told to watch rather than bothering to choose what to watch in an ever expanding catalogue of choice, the way I see it it is not quicker or faster to watch just more convenient for us in some regards but there is the tradeoff for as we can watch it anywhere at any time we have to find it first and download it now, still absorbing more of our time; which if the media is to believed we simply do not have the time to do anymore.
