The Future of Television

When television first started to become popular in the 1950s, it must have seemed like amazing technology nobody could have even dreamed of just a few short years earlier. Watching TV soon became one of the most popular forms of entertainment and making sure you caught your favorite TV show every week was important. For many people, it was surely the highlight of their week. As technology developed, so did TV and by the 70s most shows were in color, as opposed to the black and white of the first TV sets. As time went on even more, the pictures became clearer and TV sets that used to be bulky became increasingly thinner. The amount of TV shows that were available also increased dramatically, and various cable TV companies around the world could provide customers with almost endless choices of TV channels.

However, technology continues to develop daily as we are still in the midst of the technological revolution, which began in the late 1990s, and in my opinion TV is becoming obsolete.
The rise of the Internet, and the fact that it has become relatively inexpensive and increasingly widespread in the 21st century, has changed the way we consume and enjoy entertainment, which includes TV. Arguably it all began with the advent of Youtube in the early years of the 21st century, and we saw the phenomenon of youtubers becoming successful and popular, especially with younger people who were the first generation to grow up with Youtube and the Internet. Youtube and online entertainment has continued to grow and the top youtubers are now able to make large amounts of money.

Furthermore, in the last 5 years especially, we have seen the birth and rise of online streaming services such as Netflix, Amazon Prime and Hulu, and today it is a multi-million dollar industry. Netflix in particular has been lauded for its original shows such as Stranger Things, which has become incredibly popular. In fact, these days it’s not even unusual to see major celebrities in Netflix original shows, and the company’s growth seems to have no limits at the moment.

Although many do still watch TV, the rise of services such as Youtube and Netflix has arguably already done damage to the traditional TV industry. The fresh and interesting content that these services are able to produce due to the fact that they are independent companies, removed from the traditional TV companies and their standards of operation, seem to truly draw in an audience in a way TV cannot anymore. It’s also worth noting that many popular TV shows are also available on Netflix.

In addition, TV is much slower, and audiences these days prefer to binge watch a series of a show in one day instead of having to wait every week for a single episode. Although Youtube makes use of advertising, Netflix is advertisement-free due to being a subscription service, which many users prefer. In addition, a Netflix subscription is, month-to-month, much cheaper than having satellite TV.

Ilze

Vocabulary

obsolete (adj) ? old technology which isn’t useable or useful anymore
consume (v) ? make use of; buy
lauded (v) ? praised; complimented or highly respected
draw in (phr v) ? attract; cause people to be interested in