The Future of TV - law vs. technology
Monday, January 22, 2007
I’ve seen the future of TV, and it looks more like a computer or a phone than a big box in the corner. Over the last week, several things have made me think about where TV’s heading (and I’m not talking about the cancellation of The OC).
Being an Anglo-Irisn expat in America, one of the things I long for is access to British and Irish TV. BBC America is obsessed with home improvement and antiques, and still seems to think that Benny Hill is funny.
So I’ve toyed with BitTorrent sites for my fix of ‘Top Gear’ and ‘Life on Mars’. Sitting in front of MacBook Pro watching a TV show works well, but getting the shows onto the computer in the first place is often a time-consuming and illegal process.
If anyone from the BBC is reading this, what I really need is an expats’ TV licence, entitling me to free download access to the full range of the BBC’s output. UK residents currently buy a licence which funds the BBC (commercial stations are funded by advertising, as elsewhere), and I’d be happy to get the online equivalent.
Another option is a Slingbox - a device which allows you to access your cable TV channels streamed over the internet.
A box installed in an accommodating English or Irish friend’s house might work very well for us (and we could return the favor by giving our friend access to US TV with a Slingbox in our house). Technically, though, the slingbox is meant for watching your own TV, so legally sharing your access with your international friends might be a gray area.
But being restricted to watching shows in your own country seems a little parochial when YouTube, BitTorrent and Slingbox give us access to a world’s worth of broadcasting. In this area as others, technology has preceded legality when it comes to TV.
Of course, this gives advertisers (and by extension the networks), nightmares. The current advertising or licence fee models don’t work when your audience is in Santa Fe as well as Slough.
The iTunes store shows one way ahead - smallish payments for individual shows (and Amazon is also now offering a similar service). A world of video on demand, all ending up on your computer is surely the way ahead. But this will need the destruction and rebuilding of current business models and companies, so the reality will lag behind the technology for a while to come.
So if I get the Slingbox sharing thing sorted out, I’ll let you know. Meanwhile, I might be off to commit another crime, even though I’d rather pay to be legal.