It's the message, not the medium

Are television stations becoming irrelevant? When we thought of television just a few years ago, it was often in terms of the most successful network. For example, in the US it was NBC's Thursday-night lineup of great comedies; here in Australia Channel 9 was a powerhouse across the board. There was an audience out there that almost never changed channels. Now, the focus is very much on individual shows. MasterChef is the perfect example: with it, Channel Ten earned supreme ratings glory, without it, Ten was relegated to fourth place on some nights. The fact is that, despite the stations' sneaky attempts to keep us glued (usually by running popular shows beyond their scheduled finish time), we are more willing than ever to switch stations to follow the programs we like. We'll also record, time-shift and download the shows we want to see and often, horror upon horror, fast-forward through the ads). That's why the longterm future for successful TV networks won't be as simple broadcasters, but as producers and distributors of the content people want to see. In the short term, though, they are creating digital channels in the hope that their mix of reruns and cult-appeal first-run shows will attract the audience members who aren't tuning in to the main stations. Eventually, though, we'll all be able to download legally whatever we want whenever we want. The channels' biggest hope then will be to create more and more "event" television, like MasterChef, that relies on us all watching it at once, tweeting about it as we go, and chatting about it over the watercooler the next day.