TV Integrates with Internet

TV series streaming on the Internet

Once upon a time, watching TV shows meant you had to set in front of a television set. When you missed the TV show, you had to wait forever until it came out on DVD. Since civilization has moved into the digital age, we can watch television virtually anywhere. As long as you have an Internet connection, you can watch television on your computer, laptop, tablet, or smartphone.

Virtually, every broadcast and cable network has its own website that plays its TV shows. Many networks make the viewer wait a day after the show has aired before he or she can stream the show to his or her laptop, computer, tablet, or smartphone. The networks that allow the show to be viewed almost instantly after it has aired charge a fee or needs to be paid for in advanced (videos on demand). 

When the viewer watches his or her favorite TV show, he or she must watch commercials with the show, and they cannot fast-forward them.  The viewer becomes annoyed from watching the same group of commercials over several times before the end of the show. For a fee, companies like Netflicks stream TV series without commercials. This may become a problem for broadcasting networks like NBC, ABC, and CBS because they depend significantly on advertisers.

The Internet is becoming so popular that networks are developing their own web series. The CW Network has its web series website called the CW Seed. The advantage with web series is a viewer can watch several show episodes within an hour because most web episodes are between 4 to 10 minutes.

The Internet provides all types of filmmakers the opportunity to have their film or web series viewed by people from around the world. If it becomes popular, a network may pick it up. For instance, The CW Network picked up Joss Whedon’s Dr.Horrible, and Comedy Central picked up Tiny Apartment.

The one constant is the demand for television series continues to be high. It is the format that has changed, and will continue to change as technology develops. The networks must be able to meet the demands of the viewers, and adapt to the technological changes of TV viewing.