Jarvis starts gently:
I suspect that Fincham and I disagree only by a matter of degree — though that may be like missing by five degrees when building a bridge from either end, meant to meet in the middle. He believes in the value of linear TV channels and seems to think that the internet is a nice complement. I believe that television has the opportunity to grow in untold new ways — in programming, distribution, choice, interaction — and that the old channels are becoming the complement to the new.
Thereafter the chasm grows. The bridges are missing by miles. But then this is a case of two people coming from opposite ends of the spectrum - and little light is usually shed on a subject when this is the case.
What I do like though is Fincham's robust defence of the idea of a traditional linear TV channel at a time when so many in the BBC seem to be embracing the brave new world with an almost self-destructive enthusiasm.
When we've lost the distinction between terrestrial and digital, it will be replaced by a new distinction – between channels that originate, and channels that don't.
And between channels that have range, and channels that are niche.
Because we take these mixed genre channels for granted, I don't think we treasure them enough. Because they've been around for years, they can sound like something from the past. They're not.
When I was growing up – this isn't an exact analogy, but it's got some similarities – department stores were sorry places. The world seemed to be passing them by. You could have been forgiven for thinking they were in terminal decline. No, they weren't.
They just needed refurbishing, refreshing, they needed to be made modern. Now look at them. Try getting into Selfridges on a Saturday morning – you're trampled to death in the crush.
The equivalent of Selfridges on a Saturday morning, you might say, is a mainstream channel on a Saturday evening. Seventy per cent of the population have access to up to 400 channels, but for the last two Saturdays more than 15 million people have come to two of them as BBC ONE and ITV1 take position and fire arrows at each other.
Robin Hood versus Ant and Dec, Strictly Come Dancing versus the X Factor – these are the high street battles of modern television.
My own view is more ambivalent. At the moment, for the vast majority of people, internet TV is still viewed in 'lean forward' environment of the PC or laptop while traditional linear TV enjoys the 'lean back' world of the sitting room. The battle will only be truly joined when these two worlds converge - as they surely will.
That's the point where we'll really find out if that so-called 'lost generation' of younger TV viewers has really evolved into a different species of viewer.
1 comment:
Apple's awkwardly-named iTV (http://www.engadget.com/2006/09/12/apple-to-release-itv-video-streaming-box-in-2007/ ) might go a long way to blurring the gap between linear and non-linear TV when it's launched, especially if the BBC start streaming all of its channels online (supposed to be within six months).
But the iTV will be more useful to many younger people not because of its ability to stream normal TV around the house, but because we'll be able to watch our downloaded American programmes on a proper telly.
This might please Mr Fincham even less.
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