Is traditional TV in extinction?

New technologies have obviously changed the old media, and the way we use it. One of the most affected sources nowadays is television, which became the most influent and important source in the field of media, but now has been pushed into the background, in favour of other sources, such as the Internet and his possibilities to access to many contents very easily.

Is TV, in the way as we know it, in extinction? For many people, it has been the media that represents best XX century, but audiovisual contents have now new sources to be available all around the world.

Television reached the number of 50 million viewers in thirteen years, but the Internet only needed four years to get the same number. According to this fact, it seems evident that audiences, contents and also the media, will need an important restructuration, according to the new communicational system, introduced by the web.

One of the examples of the expansion of TV through the Internet could be YouTube, probably the most famous platform online for sharing videos, not only about TV contents, but also used for the personal moments that the users want to share with the world. In the last years, YouTube has been used also for live transmissions, as it happened with Coldplay’s concert in Madrid last October.

This is the reason why many web pages have been launched, in order to offer TV contents to users that don’t want to be attached to schedules or timetables on traditional TV, or simply because of the freedom that having the contents available at any time is giving us. Users can access to all the contents just in one click, paying every month, in a system similar to the one Spotify is using for music. Many companies have already offered their contents, and more and more TV channels are developing their own platforms, in order to offer the viewers more possibilities.

Another concept related to the evolution of TV is “Smart TV”, a system created and developed by some commercial brands, such as Philips or Samsung, to create “intelligent TV”. Access to contents via streaming is available with this new generation of devices, but also navigation on the web is possible if you own one of these televisions. 

Google is also about to launch is platform, Google TV in Europe, opening a new market that integrates again TV and the web, to create a multiplatform able to offer many possibilities to their users. The following video explains how Google TV works:

 

According to a report of eMarketer, in 2015, the 60% of American population will be only consuming online contents. Maybe this is another fact that helps us understanding that TV as we know it is dying or, at least, changing.

 

New generations are not as used to watch TV as the older ones, now, every child grows up with a computer, and maybe the future of the TV is not as clear as we may think. Personally, I think that TV has to adapt to modern times, adopting a new role in media. Maybe the television was one of the most important sources in the past, when access to the news in real time wasn’t as easy as is now. So, the future of the TV is still uncertain, but we have to pay attention and see how is developing, because maybe we are now the witnesses of one of the most important changes concerning the media.