As I tried once more time to break myself free from Comcast and see if I could get a satellite signal from our house (we can get standard feed but the trees are still too tall for HD, so it’s a no go), it got me to thinking about how unnecessary cable channels might eventually become.  There will be a need for a physical cable pipeline for the time being simply because that’s the fastest way to receive internet for most of the population.  But the problem with cable lines is they have a finite amount of space you can shove all that bandwidth-hogging data through.

Before I digress too much further, I got to thinking about how much having standard TV tethered to a rigid time slot is really becoming an outdated method.  Let’s think about this.  If you’re not concerned with seeing a TV show immediately when it is aired (and who the hell watches live TV anymore anyway?), you can watch it on your DVR at your leisure, download that show from iTunes, watch it streaming on that station’s web site, or you can download it via bit torrent.  If you insist on seeing a show on a big screen, you can wait for the season to be available on DVD.  And thanks to Netflix you don’t even have to go past your computer desk to order a movie or a show.  If anyone is still recording shows on a VHS tape, kindly introduce them to the 2000s.

With Video On Demand selections available through our DVRs, we really are in an age where the viewer is empowered.  Of course since none of us watch commercials anymore, part of the price we pay is seeing product placement not only in a scene of a show but sometimes as part of the written script.  While that might infuriate me, it really is an inevitable byproduct of desperate advertisers and I don't see that aspect getting better as time goes along.  Someone's gotta foot the bill so I accept it as a necessary evil.

Sporting events or time-sensitive programming like the State of the Union address still draw large live audiences but even for those I tend to watch a game at least partly delayed on my DVR so I can skip through the commercials and I tend to read the transcript of the State of the Union address verbatim the next day in the NY Times.  But even those are now available to view online, as opposed to a particular TV channel. 

We do have a long way to go though before I’m willing to give up my TV to watch something on a computer on a regular basis.  Will shows eventually become something along the lines of what we now know as RSS feeds that push out any updates to subscribers when there is new content on a site?  If so, count me in.