American TV article

I found a really good recent article on the CNN website called ‘The transformation of American TV’, which is about the way Americans watch TV is changing, which is very similar to what’s happening in Australia at the moment.

Some facts about US TV:
• 2004-05- Average American house watched more than 8 hours of TV a day, which has increased more than 12% since 1995.
• The ‘typical American home has access to 104 different channels, almost double the number available just six years ago’.
• Even with the huge amount of channels US viewers can watch, they are watching ‘7 percent fewer stations available to them in 2000’, which reflects the changing viewing patterns of audiences.
Peter Francese, a Demographic Trends Analyst from New York says that "People are spending far less time on network television because ... the consumer now has so many more venues that they control. They don't have to wait for a movie to come on TV; they can download it off the Internet, watch it on their computers, television or iPods."

Americans are also using TiVo a lot to record their favourite shows and watch them at a time that is convenient for them, not always at a time that the networks dictate to them. Also, You Tube is a way for people to be able to watch content they may have missed on TV.

He also said "We will never go back to the way it was in the past. Before the invention of the VCR and the DVR, watching TV was a passive act. The broadcaster controlled content and the time you watched the content, and if you missed it, you could never see it again unless it was in reruns".

At the moment, our version of the DVR is Foxtel's iQ box. Hard drive recorders like the iQ box I think are only going to increase in popularity and become a central part of our TV viewing experience in the future.

The article also mentioned how young people are more comfortable with this new technology, so they’re more likely to use it and change the way they watch TV. It says that “young people are experts in multi-tasking and are not content to sit in front of the television and watch one program”. They will watch TV, while they’re on the internet, listen to their music, do homework or watch programs they’ve downloaded while they’re online.