Ben Thompson has written a three-part series on evolving role of television in our living rooms. Here are the links to part 1, 2, and 3. I like his well thought out counter points to the conventional media hype around cord cutting, as if for the new formats to succeed, the old TV networks must die.
The question in the third post in the series about “What is the job we hire TV to do?” is a great question to ask. I think, one of the key jobs that TV does especially well is to provide passive-escapism in the form of sports, news, and drama etc. No other device or medium does it as well as television.
All you have to do is to switch on your TV. If the channel is already at your favorite channel then you really don’t need to do anything. It is completely passive form of audio visual experience. We can argue about the pros and cons about passive television watching. But, if someone wants just sit down on couch and relax, television provides a good passive alternative.
Watching or listening anything on computer, laptop, smartphone, or tablet etc require constant interaction from the user. You have to open the app or website and choose the video or audio you want to enjoy and click it. Once you have watched that audio/video, you have to again go through the same process of looking for the content you want to consume. In some cases, you can create a playlist of content you want to watch. But, it is a lot of interactions for the user.
May be the generation of children who are growing up with smartphones and tablets will get used to consuming content in an interactive manner. But, people who grew in the era of linear and passive TV will still like to watch TV passively. I am surprised that the big media players, with few exceptions like Bloomberg TV, have not tried to satisfy this need of passive consumption on tablets and smartphones.