Not definitional but: TV is a large international engineering, entertainment, and journalism complex with a contiguous attitude toward it's 'audience' and in most cases, it's 'customers/clients' (aka advertisers). It is a culture under threat, and reacting to that threat with several contradictory trends- a flight to quality and niche (think HBO and the abandonment of the mass audience model), a flight to immediacy (think 24 hours rolling news) and a flight to audience centrism (think ultra local TV and the cult of UGC). These reactions and more are pulling apart the consensus at the heart of TV- there is no perfect TV anymore, if there ever was.
What was 'perfect TV'? It was the idea of commecially sustainable programming of a wide range and high quality that utilised steadily advancing technology to deliver better pictures and sound to more people and to build ever larger audiences. It was not more choice. It was not revolutionaly technology. It was not a technological fracturing of the audience and their devices. Perfect TV is dead, and to tell the truth it never really existed anyway. Institutions like the BBC (and RAI, RTE etc.) were anomalous in the global TV industry, and we need to recognise that. We need to understand that on a global scale TV is commercial, and the BBC then as now oppoerates along side commercial partners in terms of technology and content. The two key differences are that we don't carry adverts (and so do not have the 'client relationship' that defines most of TV) and that we have, instead, developed a strong social contract. As the technology changes in the global market throw TV globally into turmoil, we will be thrown into turmoil too. TV is what mass communications and publishing was before the internet reached most people's homes. TV the industry- the industrial/ entertainment/ journalism complex- is trying very hard to move into the internet enabled world, but whether it will successfully do so by porting most of it'sbusiness wholesale into the IP delivered infrastrucutre (a la Hulu/ iplayer) or my being an integrated and enriching element of the whole integrated mesh of digital objects and relationships (which can btw include the content that is bottled up in products like Hulu) remains to be seen. Arguably, the internet could by sheer technological evolutionary pressure democratise all content. But that in itself is a threat to the web of business that TV is bringing to the party. TV is a dinosaur sleepwalking off a cliff. a (personal opinion only natch) On Tue, Dec 15, 2009 at 6:12 AM, Dave Crossland <d...@lab6.com> wrote: > 2009/12/15 Ian Stirling <backstage...@mauve.plus.com>: >> Mo McRoberts wrote: >>> >>> Discuss. >> >> TV is live simultaneous transmission of pictures, > > I'm not sure "live" transmission is definitional; most TV isn't live, > although it started off that way AIUI. > >> where you can have a large >> number of people over a significant distance watching one event. > > I'm not sure broadcasting "events" is definitional. > > For me, TV is broadcast video, which is to say, TV is video that a > mass audience watches simultaneously. > > To paraphrase McLuhan, as the medium of our time - computer networks - > is reshaping and restructuring patterns of social interdependence and > every aspect of our personal life, the way video is disseminated is > changing. > > TV is still possible with the internet, but it is a very minor way for > video to be published. > > Just as theatre is still going, but in a very minor way compared to > the prominance it had because electric technology. > - > Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please > visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. > Unofficial list archive: > http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/ > -- Ant Miller tel: 07709 265961 email: ant.mil...@gmail.com - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/
