New Face of Entertainment

Do you watch a lot of television? More and more people ARE NOT. The dissension of viewers from traditional television should be attributed to other sources of entertainment and information that seem to grow every week. Apple's new ipod is one of those gadgets that is leading the techno march towards the demise of traditional television and radio broadcasting. This device not only plays thousands of your favored songs, but also carries enough brain power to hold your digital pictures and hours upon hours of mpeg 4 video files. itunes now features hundreds of music videos and even a few television episodes of some of the most favored (and easiest to contract) television series. Apple computer has also released a new iMac that is designed to be used as a complete home entertainment center, storing all of your music files, video and able to display internet pages at the touch of a remote control. All of this hooked into a central television or large entertainment monitor.

Another newly released handheld called PocketDish allows the user to transfer any files recorded on your DVR to it's hard drive for later viewing. 150 hours of video is almost a weeks worth viewing, and it's all in the palm of your hand on a 7.5 inch hi res color screen.

Something else to consider is that more and more people are spending time watching digital cable (i.e. Discovery, TLC, A&E, etc.) or satellite signals, making traditional broadcaster work harder for every viewer.

I don't believe that tradional television will survive unless it changes it's focus. Small market stations have days where 1A school bond election and dog pound issues are headlines. That's not news, that's filler. As the viewer/surfer becomes more and more sophisticated, that type of content will not suffice.

It's interesting to watch this transistion. Especially if you keep your head out of the sand and realize that this major change in delivery is immanent. That's the way I see it, and I'm right.