Back to the boob tube
By Peter Griffin,
It’s been a big year for Kiwi TV, but the most promising moment was largely ignored
[Screen]
When Philo Farnsworth was a schoolboy growing up in Idaho in the early 1920s, he scribbled a diagram in his schoolbook that would prove to be the blueprint for the first electronic television.
Farnsworth, who went on to invent the cathode ray tube, demonstrated the first public television screening in 1928. But when his obituary appeared in US newspapers in 1971 few Americans would have recognised the name. Television has from the outset been a ruthless game, and Farnsworth was a victim of businessmen determined to claim his technology for themselves. He died in obscurity and poverty.
As I sat in New York’s Music Box Theatre last month watching the play The Farnsworth Invention, which tells the story of Farnsworth’s pioneering television days, I was thinking of the massive changes television has gone through this year alone. I’m sure 2007 will prove to be a watershed year for the medium—high definition really entered the public consciousness, the price of HD plasma and LCD screens plummeted, and the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 consoles introduced Blu-ray and HD-DVD players.
A digital free-to-air TV platform was launched here in the form of Freeview. TVNZ launched its online TV streaming platform TVNZ OnDemand and announced it would be going high definition for 80 percent of TV2 primetime viewing on Freeview from the middle of next year.
Meanwhile, TV3 made big gains against TVNZ in the viewership stakes and welcomed a stream of defecting producers who regrouped to start TV3’s Sunrise programme. We now have two strong local broadcasters competing vigorously for our attention—that’s a good thing.
Overseas, Joost.com, the online peer-to-peer TV network developed by the Skype founders, went live and dozens of deals were struck to get the major TV networks online. The fight to control the most powerful medium in the world continues as audiences drift and 2008 will be a make-or-break year for those jostling for position in the industry.
“Anyone can buy a half-hour TV slot, line up their own advertisers and reach a national audience instantly. It’s the user-generated content model that the Internet has nurtured, adapted for TV”
But for me, the most promising development in the TV industry came with what many would consider a relatively modest development: the formation of Triangle TV’s Stratos channel, which is now being broadcast on Freeview (channel 21) and Sky TV (channel 89).
For the first time in New Zealand’s television history, regional TV now has a national outlet—via satellite. You may not have seen much of Triangle to date but consider this. On Stratos, any group with something to say and the means to shoot and edit the results can walk up to Triangle with a tape, buy a half-hour TV slot, line up their own advertisers to pay the way and reach a national audience instantly. It’s the user-generated content model that the Internet has nurtured, adapted for TV.
Numerous TV producers are already doing local shows which are supplemented with content from DW-TV, Voice of America and Al Jazeera.
Stratos isn’t getting much promotion at the moment, and its presence on the Sky network is really just a spoiler tactic on the part of Sky to deter people from giving up their Sky subscriptions in favour of Freeview, which is free if you have the receiver and satellite dish.
But it exists as a medium for New Zealanders to create material and send it into hundreds of thousands of the nation’s living rooms, and the power of that can’t be denied. I think we’ll see Stratos flourish in 2008 as competition for TV slots drives the quality of programming. Stratos really needs a couple of hit shows to get people tuning in, as they did for Prime TV when it claimed some winners with shows like Top Gear. For me, 2007 is the start of the revitalisation of our jaded TV industry.
We’re getting more content and more outlets for locally-generated content. Combined with the rise in webcast TV content, this will bring more diversity and more of a local flavour when it comes to TV viewing. As someone who was ready to switch off the box entirely, that may just keep me watching.
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