谁来定义“电视”?

When broadcast television entered consumers' lives in the mid- to late 1930s, it was very limited. 只有几个频道, 范围有限, and even more limited content (sometimes just still pictures). Yet as television grew in both scope and popularity, content followed. Soon the airwaves were filled with scheduled video ranging from news to ads to episodic content. 事实上, the first "television guide" was a card sent by a New York City station (WNBT, 现在WNBC, an NBC-owned station) to local television owners. 几年后, published guides were being offered in various cities and, 最终, 标志性的 电视指南 在全国范围内推出. 现在, we have electronic guides built into our set-top boxes (STBs) offering scheduled programming in a grid-like system that became popular in the 1980s.

问题是, 在这种体制下, which probably lasted for about the last 70 years, 广播公司定义了“电视”." They told consumers when programs were going to be aired, 将会产生什么样的内容, 在哪里会有人监视的，什么时候. But as content has become unshackled from the rigidity of scheduled guides, consumers are waking up to the idea that they can define their own television experience. 确定, some of them still want the comfort of a grid-like schedule (as we see in services like Pluto TV and Hulu Live), 但另一些人则想一次性得到所有的东西, bingeing on entire seasons of content over a single weekend. 是的, live content will always be dictated by the time and place of the event, 但, 总之, what "TV" means is no longer in the hands of those who create or distri但e the content.

That loss of control presents a significant number of opportunities for the new generation of broadcasters, the OTT platforms that are springing up every day. With powerful data-collection capabilities at their fingertips, these new broadcasters can forge deep relationships with individual viewers. This was something only dreamed about by those who delivered programming via radio waves, 卫星, 地面光纤. The rigidity of the STB has given way to a flexible alternative—a video player that can be employed on a variety of digital devices to capture myriad 信息. The experience and quality data captured during playback allows these broadcasters to make more informed decisions about content, test new features like social integration and interactivity, 确保高品质, and potentially even personalize the ads that are delivered. (看看天空电视台的AdSmart技术, which can provide different ads to different people in the same household watching the same content on different devices.)

很快地, viewers are now dictating the shape of the TV experience through their interaction with the broadcast platform. 没有一个人 is using that social feature or multi-camera angle view? Kill those features (so easy when the platform is built on microservices). 观众希望看到更多这样的内容? Great—extend it another season and ditch the series that no one watches (and which no advertisers want to buy against).

For the first time in the history of video delivery, the consumer is in charge. 通过行动和互动, consumers produce the data that these new broadcasters use to shape the experience so that it's more amenable to viewers. 最棒的是? As edge computing becomes more ubiquitous and powerful and as AI gets smarter and faster, the TV experience may be personalized on an individual basis in real time. 为什么迪士尼+, Hulu, Amazon Prime, or other OTT platforms look and operate the same way for every viewer? 这是一种旧世界的广播心态, 在哪里 one size (the cable box and electronic program guide) fits all, 在哪里 the broadcaster defines the TV experience. 谢天谢地，这种情况即将结束.

广播公司的时代结束了. 现在是观察者的时代.