In 2020 thousands of scripts will be lost to each of us every night because it's wireless video streaming not television. And it seems to be positive progress!

On November 12, 2007, this blog began with a series of posts that offered the following conclusion:

    While the home entertainment industry struggles to cope with changes over he next 5-to-10 years, viewers who want to watch scripted tv will need to adapt. That’s us, folks. And that’s what this blog about.

It's 12 years later. Television technology, video content quantity and sources, and viewing habits all have changed radically.

Whether you think it's the end of a decade or the start of a decade, 2020 is the year to acknowledge "video streaming" as the medium that has replaced "television." Simply, with apologies to HBO, the truth is "it's not TV, it's streaming."

Well, sort of....

The technology shift from television to video streaming

Let's begin with a review of the video streaming technology most all viewers use and the television technology those of us who are "elderly" grew up with.

January is the month for the annual Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas. According to the experts:

    Ground zero for new TVs is CES 2020 this January in Las Vegas.
    Prepare for more 4K, 8K, HDMI 2.1, HDR, 120Hz, OLED, QLED, ULED and ZLED than you can handle (I made the last one up, but it's probably coming soon, too).
    In 2019 8K televisions hit the market from the likes of Samsung, Sony and LG, but they remain ridiculously expensive (the cheapest, a 65-inch Samsung, is $3,500).
    I don't think 8K TVs are worth buying, but OLED TVs are another story. They're my favorite high-end models.
    TVs are a mature technology but that doesn't stop big screens, think 75 inches, from remaining remarkably popular.

Hmmm. Why did I think more and more viewing...

...was done by individuals using "devices" (aka smart phones) about 6" wide such as pictured above? Was I mistaken?

Of course not. In 2017 Adweek noted "consumers are flocking to smaller screens." And this year the LA Times headline was People spend more time on mobile devices than TV, firm says:

    The change has been years in the making, as smartphones have become more ubiquitous and the ways people use their devices has shifted. Phones now let you do more than steal quick glances at social media, and streaming shows and movies on the smaller, portable screens has become commonplace.
    The gap between the amount of time spent on mobile devices and TV has narrowed dramatically over time. Last year, American adults spent nine minutes more watching TV than looking at their phones and tablets, eMarketer said. But TV watching used to be more dominant — just five years ago, adults spent two hours more watching TV than using mobile devices, the firm said.
    The difference in time was even more pronounced for younger Americans, with people 18 to 34 spending 1 hour and 51 minutes on live and time-shifted TV and 3 hours and 25 minutes on the web or apps on smartphone and tablets in the third quarter of last year, Nielsen said.

Television technology has radically changed to the point that the word "television" should be removed from our jargon. A generation is coming of age that has only a vague idea of what "cord-cutting" means, while the majority of the generation immediately ahead of them, the Millennial Generation, has rejected "the cord" in favor of streaming.

And for them "television" can never refer to the device they stare at. We of older generations remember "watching television" on a 'television set", say, a fancy console we called the television or "TV" that looked like this...

... which got its content through something on the roof that looked like this...

Today, streaming video viewing looks like this...

 ..but with a heavy emphasis by content providers making the hand-held-device streaming experience pictured on the right the best possible experience because the results will also pass to that 75" TV streaming experience such as that pictured on the left.

One thing becomes clear while reading the CES stories - "TV" and "television" now refer to the large "devices" we hang on walls to view streaming content. In olden times, we referred to those "devices" as "TV sets." Curiously, those small hand-held devices in the picture on the right are called "phones" which used to mean something that looked like this:

Yes, things have changed. Today the term "video streaming" refers to "a system used by content providers for transmitting electronically.a visual image with sound which is reproduced on devices with viewing screens and speakers, providing to individual viewers in separate locations on demand content predominantly for entertainment but also for education."

The devices have no "cords" connected to them. In the early part of this decade I rejected the use of the terms "cord cutter" and "cord never" which were being used to describe people connected to the internet "cord" instead of the cable TV "cord." But times are different now.

More and more viewers, particularly GenZs and Millennials, rely on devices with no cord attached. They access the internet for video viewing through a "phone company" wireless signal or a local wifi signal. Obviously, at some point down the line there is a cord feeding whatever generates the signal. But the viewer's device is cordless and the viewer may be entitled to either the label "cord cutter" or "cord never" as no cord is directly involved.

In many homes, even though the signal comes to a modem/router through a wire,all viewing devices use wifi. Ironically, also many of those viewers are reverting to OTA live/recorded TV viewing in addition to their wireless/wifi streaming. In terms of "cords" it is like it was 60 years ago in 1960 when we watched TV coming across the airways by radio signal.

In 2013 we noted here:

    Broadcast TV is still around. So are "land lines." In fact, they have something in common - they are attached to a location and were designed to be used with a television set and a telephone.
    Smart phones and tablets and the related YouTube and Netflix apps are not attached to a location but to a person, a subscriber.
    It's not a new Golden Age of Television. It has been the Era of Television. and it seems to me its headed for retirement. Now its the Era of Mobile Diversion with completely different perameters and effects. Find or create your own word - something like "modiversion." After all, "television" is a created word for a technology: "Other proposals for the name of this then-hypothetical technology were telephote (1880) and televista (1904)."

In truth, today we know it is not "television" but rather "video streaming." And the content is provided by "video streaming services" not "channels."

The proliferation of streaming services and content choices

In 2015 Chairman of FX Network and FX Productions John Landgraf infamously noted “There is simply too much television.” He coined the term "Peak TV." He predicted a decline from the 409 scripted series offering new episodes that year. But three years later, there were 495. This year Landgraf's FX research team reported the number at 532 for 2019.

In 2019, despite the fact that Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime, Acorn TV, and literally dozens of other streaming services existed, Apple launched Apple+ and Disney launched Disney Plus. Both offered new scripted series. But Disney Plus includes many thousands of titles from the Disney brand itself, plus Marvel, Pixar, Star Wars and National Geographic content. It will also integrate programming from Fox.

In 2020 AT&T's WarnerMedia will be launching HBO Max. In addition to streaming the content from premium cable channel HBO, it will offer its own exclusive shows and movies, and content from WarnerMedia properties such as Warner Bros., The CW, DC, New Line, and Turner Classic Movies. It will allow access to 10,000 hours of content versus the paltry HBO Go and HBO Now's 2,000+ hours of programming.

Also in 2020 Comcast's NBCUniversal will be launching Peacock which will be the streaming home of popular NBCUniversal properties (think NBC, USA, SyFy, Bravo, E!, Oxygen, Universal Kids). In total, there will be more than 15,000 hours of content available on Peacock. In addition, a big attraction will be sports - think NBC Sports, Golf Channel, Olympics, etc. And early discussion has raised the idea that Peacock could be offered free with commercials.

The point here is that in the foreseeable future we're likely to have available 500± scripted series offering new episodes plus have access to tens of thousands of hours of programming in the form of thousands of old series (we used to call them reruns) and movies.

Back in 1960 at best we had available about 75 TV scripted series offering new episodes and no access to reruns. We had to watch TV live. And we had no recording capability, which meant within a year at most we could only watch new episodes of about 30± shows including Summer reruns.

Of course, most of us can watch only about the same number of hours of streaming video. All we've really gained is more choices. Not that it is entirely a gain. Back then we looked at the TV schedule in our newspaper or TV Guide magazine and chose from three or four viewing choices at any one time. Now you must literally choose from thousands of options.

Perhaps Landgraf was right. There is simply too much television. In terms of this blog, there are now many hundreds more lost scripts. No one viewer can possibly access all the available creativity because there are only 24 hours in each day. Few can allocate more than 20% of them to viewing streaming video.

So we choose. All those other scripts are lost to us.

Oh well....

What about those internet signals after 2020, wired or wireless?

While in the past decade technology shifted to take advantage of cellular wireless access from a device to the internet (which was created for purposes other than video streaming), the fact is AT&T and Comcast are the only internet service provider (ISP) conglomerates involved in providing significant content.

Today the competition is confusing. Nothing is settled, particularly the technology.

On the horizon are newer wireless signal technologies. You may be aware of 5G cellular wireless which is being implemented in a limited way in the U.S.  And in anticipation of the new decade, we must acknowledge a new wireless signal source - low-Earth orbit (LEO) satellites.

The curious reality for 5G is that there are no manufacturers of 5G equipment in the U.S. which has led to a dispute over the use of Chinese equipment which is available and plentiful with the alternate being European company equipment. And even the Europeans are still looking at the Chinese equipment. In any event, 5G implementation will be expensive and likely will not easily be offered in rural areas.

The low-Earth orbit (LEO) satellites could provide service in unserved and underserved areas, but it has its own complications. Those involved in implementation are not currently internet service providers. We should note that astronomers are alarmed because these satellites will interfere with scientific observations of the universe.

In  the early 1920s radio broadcasting became a household medium. By 1960 television became a household medium. Another 40 years later, in 2000, the internet was serving households and it has effectively become the replacement for television in 2020. It has led to the availability of tens of thousands of hours of video, both for entertainment and education.

It boggles the mind. The most comparable historical human experience would seem to be printing. There was a time when one could have read every book in print. Now one could not even imagine such a possibility. Yes, you could probably buy most of the available books on the internet as 48.5 million books are available to buy on Amazon, about 20% of which are available to download as e-books. But in one lifetime no one has the time to read them all.

Yes, there are a lot of scripts lost to every one of us. And yet, more people than ever do get a chance to express themselves to the world. That must be good. Right???

Now what the heck are we going to stream on the TV tonight?