It seems that my household is all the time getting closer to a cable television alternative, but never quite crossing the bridge.
We have an Apple TV we use to purchase movies and television series, a Mac Mini with a huge hard drive we play DVDs through, and save our existing movies and television series on, and through both of those it’s possible to watch other internet content. Were we still in the US, we would have things like Hulu at our disposal, but that mess hasn’t been sorted out up here in Canada yet.
We have access to about any type of media we want, but one; the background noise television. The one my wife has on while up with a fussy baby at 4am, or I have on when the Leafs are losing and I want to feel like I am being supportive. I’m talking about the programs you don’t look for, you wouldn’t choose to watch, but for one reason or another you have on because something has you in front of the TV rather than outside or reading or asleep or socializing. HGTV is good for this, as is Food Network and cartoons.
Another problem with the on-demand media is too-easily-accessible must see TV. When we start watching the last season of something, it’s very easy to say at the end “Let’s just start the next episode”. Soon we notice we’ve watched the entire season in 3 nights and we have to find something new, leading to huge costs over cable.
For us, I think the tipping point will have to be something along the lines of customizable subscription television.
We know we want to watch House, and we know it airs once a week, when in season. Based on that, and the other shows we select as must-see-TV, generating a playlist that fills 24 hours a day, 7 days a week would be ideal. This playlist could include the shows we request, and then fill in the blanks with other similar programming based on what we like.
A survey could start our experience, and be carried on throughout the program with a like it or not option. If House is our starting point and we like it, but we say we dislike ER, Mercy, and Grey’s Anatomy, the system learns that House is an exception to medical shows, so it doesn’t show us more. It learns we like the Daily Show, so it suggests Colbert Report, which we also like. This may lead to a suggestion of Jon Oliver’s stand-up special, which we would also say yes to.
In this manner, we end up with Toronto Maple Leafs hockey, but not any others, because I can only get away with watching one team in my house. We are mild fans of home reno and cooking shows, so these are filler. House, Dexter, and Family Guy are mandatories, so they are at a set time, every week. In between, we can purchase single episodes and movies for immediate play just like we could regularly. We can add in our own library to the filler content as well, so 13 going on 30 can stay in it’s regular rotation in Missy’s TV-watching life.
The most interesting aspect of this, for me, is that the timeline can be flexible, so even if we know House is scheduled to come on at 8, if we’re out for dinner, we can skip back to that part of the timeline, adding Tivo-like capabilities.
I suspect some version of this will be introduced to iTunes at some point when the legal hurdles can be cleared, and I’m betting they’d probably do it better than most other places. Certainly better than the cable companies are handling their business right now.
