What do you think the future holds for television?

[jabuddy]

What do you think will happen in the future in terms of television (as we go into the next decade). Question may be vague but that's because I'm interested in everyones opinions. Some questions to consider include, whether reality television die down, will NBC be good again, will the good old fashioned cartoon market still exist or will tweens devour it? and will the sitcom genre be dead by the time this decade ends. Just give me your taughts of what you think the future of television will be like.

[Colin Anderton]

I actually believe the television future holds nothing of any interest whatsoever.

Much more "reality TV", and I won't need to pay my licence fee every year.

I am seriously thinking of opting out of modern TV, and making up my own viewing schedules, composed of all the classic programmes I've got on DVD. In fact, there's so many I have a number of sets I haven't even started on yet.

But what they dish up on TV today, they can keep! In fact, I don't even mind if they repeat their sins of the past - and junk it after broadcast (with the exception of anything with Stephen Fry or Martin Clunes)!

Colin.

[Simon Smith]

Yes, it is rather sick that so many classic shows are missing so many episodes, whereas modern disposable guff is all digitally preserved. I wonder if 50 years from now people will still be interested in Season 2 of Idol Kitchen Swap Makeover.

The sad thing is there ARE still people who CAN make quality television today, but they are being marginalised by all the "reality" guff. At this rate, I think television will lose its importance as a form of entertainment by 2040.

[Simon Smith]

Further:I too watch far more Classic television than modern. I watch "Gold" Channels far more than current tv ones(hardly at all for the latter in fact).

[Deleted]

Mar 23, 2012 8:34:44 GMT Simon Smith said:

Yes, it is rather sick that so many classic shows are missing so many episodes, whereas modern disposable guff is all digitally preserved.

Heh. I have to laugh because it's very true. What an irony. Almost like a sick joke!

I gave up on TV a couple of years back as it was increasingly offering nothing to interest me. These days I watch exclusively DVDs or tapes. I still get to see bits of current broadcasting whever i'm at friend's houses and what I see largely confirms that I was right to have mine taken off.

There is increasingly little drama in peak time slots (with those places being filled ever more by reality shows, fly on the wall docs etc.) and this is sadly a trend I see continuing. You can't tune in any more to get a balanced evening's viewing as you once did; I do believe that people still turn on in large numbers hoping to get this though. As Simon says, there is talent in TV but it's being employed on fodder and low grade trash. In the past, TV was ideas-driven (even if it didn't have the budgets). Nowadays everything looks glossy (too glossy, in fact) but this merely hides the fact that there is little creativity any more.

The whole experience of television has become more "in yer face" too; a greater proliferation of intrusive screen logos, an increase in loud and brash hard-sell trailers between programmes (even on the BBC) all delivered with the desperation of someone pleading "please don't turn over!", leaving you without a moment to catch your breath. ITV squeezed in an extra ad break per hour some years back too, leaving less time for the actual programme. All these things though mean that TV isn't something i'd want to turn on for pleasure any more!

My predictions for the future are bleak too. TV will carry on losing it's importance as newer media such as internet viewing, pay per view downloads etc. take more of a hold (a state of affairs which TV itself has acted in a "too little too late" fashion to try and slow down by offering less of real quality rather than more.). This isn't a new thing though and has been slowly creeping in by increment since at least the late '80s. But it's far more discernible on screen in 2012.

[Alan Turrell]

I couldn't agree more with everything said already,i also never watch anything on tv today it's absolutely dreadful all those channels but nothing worth watching . When you get programmes where people get paid for filming someone falling over as in that Harry Hill show , i can't even remember the name , you know tv has had it's day. Unfortunately my wife has it on so i find it hard to sometimes get away from it.Like others here i watch i my dvds of of old shows you can't beat them . The other day i saw Joan Collins saying excatly the same thing to that Philip Scofield more or less implying that tv today is crap , i think he quickly brushed this comment aside , probably knowing he's one of those talentless people she's on about getting paid thousands like that Ant and Dec it's disgraceful. I personally couldn't care less if nothing was preserved from tv from the last 20 years it means nothing to me at all.

[Deleted]

The TV of today is for me, nothing but endless spam. I can't stand watching it. Devoid of Quality... it's like a sausage factory - keep on banging out endless repetition, superglued into the same time slots so year after year, each days schedules are almost identical to the last. Jeremy Kyle? Bargain Hunt? Pointless? Deal Or No Deal? Eggheads? Shows of that ilk just seem to never ever end... day in, day out. Their entertainment value to me is zero. Then there is the big obsessions with anything involving the words "Cowell", "Soaps", "Football", "Celebrity", "Dance" and ulp... "Reality."

You sit through the same old drivel, day in, day out, week after week. All the while you are now bombarded with annoying pop ups telling you what's on next, 5 minutes before the show finishes, only to then be told all over again when they squash the d**n credits. I hate being assumed I am a brainless idiot. Extra ads and endless plugging... even on the BBC is depressing. One has remote controls - press one button and one can see all the information they keep flinging in your face onscreen.

And is it just me, but most times I glance at TV's showing whatever rubbish is on, I am appalled by how pixellated it mostly looks? The avi or mpeg compression looks terrible. Digital TV is total crap - prone to cutting out, stuttering or jumbling stuff up. We've lost analogue TV broadcast from trusty tape for a load of garbled unsightly nonsense that looks and is plain awful? And you call THAT "progress?" Pull the other one.

I manage quite happily without a TV. Unfortunately, the rest of my family cannot hence I get to see snatches of it. I haven't sat down with the family and watched a show for goodness knows how many years because what short blasts I see insults my intelligence. I watch DVD's of old shows for pleasure. It angers me that all of today's rubbish is digitally archived or recorded. I would gladly pay to have every episode of the shows I listed above to be wiped off the face of the Earth. But no... instead we have largely incomplete archives from when TV was worth watching and endless barrages of nonsense from the last 15 years or so.

For me then, TV has become worthless wallpaper. It is meaningless to me. I see no future for it since there is no way it will ever return to a less dumbed down version of what we have now and will just keep on getting worse.

[Bernie King]

IN DEFENCE OF MODERN TV.......

Nope...can't think of anything useful. I agree with all of the above. When we only had 3 analogue channels they were packed with well made, interesting programmes and you had to be really unfortunate to find nothing of interest on at least one of them. There was no pixilation or Norman Collier-like sound (ooh that dates me!!). The audience were treated like adults and even kids tv credited the viewer with a modicum of intelligence (Soldier and Me, Children Of The Stones, The Changes, Timeslip, Freewheelers etc).

The sheer number of channels available today has diluted the gene pool, necessitating foreign imports, reality TV and endless game shows. Where are the Plays For TODAY? Where are todays Pythons? The answer is...they ARE there, but to find them requires such effort and wading through so much dross.

The acting talent is there, the writers are there, the tv production talent is there so why are we served up a diet of inconsequential rubbish as Strictly I'm a Big Fat Celebrity Masterchef On Ice, Get Me Out Of Here Lord Sugar.

But...I HAVE THE ANSWER!!! and I bet NOBODY on this forum has thought of it before (LOL!) Why don't the BBC and ITV open up their archives, either as freeview channels or internet services and show their great old programmes, which were made to be seen by millions and are currently seen by few if any!! This forum regularly demonstrates the commitment of a dedicated band of individuals (you know who you are!!) in recovering these shows and the desire of the rest of us to actually see them.

Could it be that the major TV companies are actually frightened of showing classic TV in case it generates better viewing figures than the current tosh. Instead of these "+1" channels, how about "+20/30/40 years" channels and use the bandwidth for something constructive.

I must say I feel strangely cleansed by getting that lot off my chest. Thanks to the original poster for providing the opportunity. This is BK, News At Ten, climbing down from his soapbox. :-)

[Greg H]

I don't think theres any hope for a renaissance in British telly. Highly unlikely. We will probably still get the odd decent show, but nothing that justifies the license fee.

My last television broke down a few years back and I didn't bother to replace it. My co workers etc are all somewhat suprised when I state that I don't own a television and have no interest in getting a new one.

As I stated somewhere once before on this forum, its a pretty shabby state of affairs when American TV drama (nothing personal) is vastly superior to British produce as imo the oposite has generally been true.

We still get the odd decent sitcom like Fresh meat, peep show etc, but its pretty slim pickings in the uk.

Its a shame British television isnt condemned to repeat the past, at least that would be watchable......

[Dale Rumbold]

And I thought I was cynical ... while I agree that much of what is output for the masses is inexorably bad, especially reality TV shows, anything purporting to be stand-up comedy, and Ant & Dec, there is still a couple of hours per day that is worth watching (I am only talking the ex-analogue 5 channels here). And, to be honest, a couple of hours a day of new stuff is a more than sufficient call on my time! I do watch some of the long running shows like Coronation Street and Casualty, and would now be happy for them to be stopped, as long as they were re-shown from the beginning! )How I miss Granada Plus) .
I have no real need for new plotlines in that sort of programme.
It's not just TV : I have the same attitude to reading books : I now only re-read novels that I know I like, and any new stuff is exclusively non-fiction.

[Deleted]

To me though, it's exclusively TV that has gone so far downhill. For instance, you can always find interesting new books to read and there is plenty of new music by young artists coming up that is good (you might have to look harder or seek it out in different ways now but it is being made). You also get some good new cinema and theatre too.

Television though has been so severely dumbed down in recent years (particularly with regard to peak time slots as off-peak schedules have always been a dumping ground for the weird and the not-so-wonderful). The evening schedules now are proportionately (over)loaded with soaps, reality shows, saturation-level cookery shows, low grade docs and other ephemera where once they were also balanced out with plays and imaginitive dramas by class writers that stimulated as well as entertained and sometimes good comedies too. A balanced evening's viewing was the key though and this fact made you want to tune in for the duration.

What happened?!?

[Richard Marple]

I still find enough to watch, even if I have to think a bit "out of the box". I've been lucky to find some decent stuff tucked away in the schedules.

In fact on a couple of nights a week there's been almost back to back programmes I've wanted to watch, normally on a night when I'm busy.

I'm not really someone who has the TV on just for the sake of it.

BBC4 seems to have lots of interest for me, hopefully Dirk Gently will have the same "promotion" that Little Britain & Gavin & Stacy had.

Live action imports don't get much screening on the main channels these days.

[Julian Jones]

Sad to think that in this age of so much disposable TV that it will be held in archives whereas the TV or the past was disposed of where it was actually much more worthwhile than most of what exists today.
I doubt that in 40 years there will be a forum bemoaning the fact that so many episodes of The Only Way is Essex et al were accidentally wiped when that massive electro-magnetic pulse effected the digital archive...

[Greg H]

Mar 23, 2012 15:28:01 GMT @laurencepiper said:

To me though, it's exclusively TV that has gone so far downhill. For instance, you can always find interesting new books to read and there is plenty of new music by young artists coming up that is good (you might have to look harder or seek it out in different ways now but it is being made). You also get some good new cinema and theatre too.

Television though has been so severely dumbed down in recent years (particularly with regard to peak time slots as off-peak schedules have always been a dumping ground for the weird and the not-so-wonderful). The evening schedules now are proportionately (over)loaded with soaps, reality shows, saturation-level cookery shows, low grade docs and other ephemera where once they were also balanced out with plays and imaginitive dramas by class writers that stimulated as well as entertained and sometimes good comedies too. A balanced evening's viewing was the key though and this fact made you want to tune in for the duration.

What happened?!?

In all fairness it is british television which has died the death as one of the arts. Such a shame.

Can you imagine the BBC employing a Potter or a Kneale now? such an unadventurous and boring medium it has become.

[Rob Moss]

Mar 23, 2012 13:12:27 GMT Bernie King said:

Could it be that the major TV companies are actually frightened of showing classic TV in case it generates better viewing figures than the current tosh.

I was with you right up to this point, but this comment is so completely wide of the mark. TV companies shy away from massive scale archive repeats because a woefully small proportion of the total audience watches them, which is why UK Gold went from being a treasure trove of vintage telly to being a combination of modern stuff under five years old or older stuff from a pick list of about ten tried and tested series.

Much though most of us would love to see it happen, if any of the major channels went over to showing anything much in the way of even remotely less well known material, they'd start haemorrhaging viewers faster than you could say "off switch".