TV without a television
Many shows now on the Internet
By: Emma Dessau
Posted: 2/14/08
Times are changing and one trend that shows significant change over the years is how students watch their favorite television shows.

In its glory days the VCR was used to record television when people were out of the house doing more worthwhile things than being couch potatoes. Today, there are so many ways to watch TV shows after they air that the thought of buying blank tapes and setting the VCR timer for a channel and hour seems like the biggest hassle in the world.

TiVo and DVR were some of the first threats to the age of the VCR. Offering high quality and digital recordings of anything at any time with just the click of a button on the remote control, they were a huge improvement over the VCR's recording capabilities.

Next came "On-Demand" viewing from cable providers like Comcast or DirecTV, where tons of episodes from various channels were always waiting for when it was convenient to watch them.

Perhaps most prevalent today, however, is the ability to watch shows downloaded from the Internet. For those with laptops and wireless Internet access, which is available all around campus, watching a favorite show is only minutes away.

Services like Apple's iTunes and Amazon.com let patrons choose and download a wide variety of shows in a couple minutes for a consistent rate of $1.99 per episode. Showtime, the premium cable channel, began selling episodes of their hit shows through iTunes in 2006.

According to a press release from Apple, the chairman of Showtime Networks Matthew C. Blank said iTunes offers "a tremendous opportunity for non-subscribers to sample Showtime's programming."

Some students would consider it a bit of a waste to throw away almost $2 for a half-hour dose of television. "I'd rather spend my money doing things instead of watching things," said Jennie Trefren, a 20-year-old junior philosophy major.

There are alternatives to the $1.99 rule. In fact, one of the reasons the Writer's Guild of America went on strike in November was due to cable networks like ABC and NBC streaming their shows through their Web sites. The writers were not getting paid subsidiaries for the alternative ways of viewing television that were becoming so popular.

The hit NBC show "The Office" was removed from both the NBC Web site as well as iTunes when the strike began and has remained unavailable through these outlets ever since.

"The situation is similar to what happened to the music industry," said Chelsea Holland, a 20-year-old junior news-editorial major. "It would be smart to find a way for writers to be paid for their work."

Even with the WGA strike, the opportunities to watch TV online are only growing. Why plan a schedule around catching an episode of a favorite TV show when it will be available online in as little as a couple of days?

This example of how media is evolving and how the old mediums of entertainment are struggling to catch up to make themselves competitive is not going away anytime soon.

Ultimately, the television might find itself sitting next to its old friend the VCR in the dusty closet of expired electronics.

Contact Campus Press Staff Writer Emma Dessau at This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it
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