Blog #7 Television Options

Quest (1) How does the internet change the current internet model?  Well first of all it gives user's many more options to watch different mediums that their cable provider's do not offer: sites like UTube, Fancast, and many others on the internet can be found either for free or for a small fee to download and pipe via through the user's internet to their television sets.  The internet has become a viable competitor to cable television providers' and network television stations, because people have certain niches and can almost find anything that they want to watch if they look hard enough or are very computer savy. I watch CNN, MSNBC, and shows on Google on the internet that are not available on cable television.  Yes, the internet most certainly has changed the ways people can choose the content they wish to watch on their televisions.  I have UVerse from AT&T, and I also have XBox live where for a nominal fee I can find different radio stations that are not on cable or on the radio.  In additon, I am also a subscriber to Netflix and can go to my XBox Live and find my niche and watch a movie or television show any time I wish to for only $10.00 a month.  The reason this phenomenum is occuring is because of the fast growing technology of digital distribution and its technological development.  Cable television helped revolutionize the digital technological race and the internet did as well; and in our book "The Television Will Be Revolutionized" and written by Amanda Lotz states:
"Producers sold series either to networks or to local stations-a situation that created a significant bottleneck that allowed only a limited amount of programming to get through to viewers"(Lotz, 2007, p. 120).  This to me means that they could not give the viewer all the choices that they wanted and this is where the internet and companies now and in the future will be able to capitalize from this bottleneck (and some are already doing it).  The internet is already able to distribute different niches or venue types to help viewrs' have more choices to what they wish to watch, when they want to watch it instead of having the cable companies acting like mini "Hitlers" to stop people from watching what they want(Lotz, 2007, p. 120).  Another medium is IPTV or Internet Protocol Television that has enabled viewrs' to utulize their internet through their cable providers' like AT&T or Verizon to watch programs" (Lotz, 2007, p. 143).  Another situation is when "product or brand placement came about and refers to situations in which television shows use brand products or present them on screen within the context of the show, yet, even within this simple advertising strategy there have been significant variations"(Lotz, 2007, p. 166).  According to Lotz (2007) the placement of these products can either be free or people will have to pay a small fee in order to watch the content (Lotz, 2007, p.166).