In recent times where technologies have developed and the Internet has had a massive effect on everything. I mean everything... The Internet, as wonderful and inspiring as it is has also had a massive effect on the TV and Film industries. Some good // positive effects and some bad // negative effects to. Myself I am a digital native is were I live and was born in the digital age of Broadband connections in my home along with everyone elses leaving behind Dial - up Internet. Broadband is a quicker service which allowed unlimited browsing time over the Internet. With the advancement of the Internet it has changed how we view television programs and films. Pre-Broadband era films were viewed by consumers like myself going out to the cinema. Films would get released in the cinema and would later on be released on VHS as DVDs didn't exist until the late 1990s early 2000s so the consumers would have to buy a physical copy of the film // TV show. Consumers would travel to video stores such as HMV or Blockbuster to rent or buy a physical copy, take it home, watch it, and return the rented item before the predetermined date or they would be fined for not returning it, resulting in the consumer potentially being banned from using their service again for being and unreliable customer. Renting and buying VHS had negative effects which involved that they can only hold a limited amount of film, in my own experience of using VHS tapes if i was video taping Wrestlemania on the television and I used two blank VHS, I had to swap VHS tapes when the tape was full and replace it with a fresh tape. Their memory was limited and now with DVD disks they can store massives amounts of data on them, including entire television series' and films. With the advancement of technology of the internet I am now able to watch this on the Internet, in some other people's cases, torrent websites, and DVDs which can be transfered to digital copies to watch on my phone, laptop or iPod. This process is called analog to digital. But by consumers buying and renting from shops such as HMV, this was the normal thing to do when purchasing a VHS before the Internet changed the way we view differently. Allowing consumers to do what they do now in the present day.
When Broadband Internet kicked-off and becoming rapidly available to everyone in their homes, it opened up a new, wide gap in the market for the television ad film industries. Websites such as Amazon.co.uk and Play.com were distributing media online for the consumers to buy at just a click of a button on their mouse. With this sort of service becoming more and more popular to the consumer, the high street major players HMV and Blockbuster were falling behind as a result of this. With TV and film being able to be purchased online less and less consumers would comute to the likes of HMV, Blockbuster because of the speed and simplicity of ordering over the Internet. At one time these video stores seemed to be taking off becoming the best way to buy // rent TV and film and now they are almost obsolete due to the rise in the digital age. Chris Anderson's Long Tail Theory (2006) applies to HMV and Blockbuster. This theory simply states that these stores only have a limited amound of shelf and storage space available were as Play.com and Amazon.co.uk are aimed at more niche products and audiences. By this I mean a consumer may travel to HMV or Blockbuster to buy a physical copy of a DVD in person and the store may be sold out of that or not even sell the product. Whereas Play and Amazon would sell these items as they can store more of those title and sell them digitally to the consumer. This in the long run does not benefit the likes of HMV and Blockbuster as their sales fall down on niche products whereas a massive collection of titles are marketed to a niche makret they will make more money in the long run than Blockbuster and HMV only selling the current // up to date products. This is known as more of less.
Another way in which the Internet has changed the TV and Film industry is the introduction is the introduction of Internet streaming and Catch up on Demand. Catch up TV is a service on the Internet or TV which allows viewers to catch up on missed programmes. For instance last week I missed Ant and Dec's Saturday Night Takeaway on ITV because I was out. But thanks to catch up television I was able to watch this TV show on my Apple iPad the day after via an ITV App for iPad. This is the same with other Apps on my iPad with Apps such as BBC iPlayer, 4oD (Channel 4 on Demand) and Demand 5 (Channel 5). These services are available with no adverts or interuptions whilst watching your missed shows to. These services are availble on TV, Laptop // Computer, Smartphones and tablets. Other streaming TV and Film sites include Youtube, Netflix and Love Film. All of these providers give the consumers quick and easy access to all their favorite TV shows and films at the tips of their fingers. This is known as Digital Distribution.
Most recently a TV series called House of Cards became available for Netflix subscribers to watch. Netflix is a film and TV rental service run over the internet and accessed through games consoles such as PS3 and XBOX and the interent. It allows the consumer to borrow the films // tv shows for as long as they want because the service is digital. Subribers pays £5.99 a month to access such a wide range and wide variety of films and tv shows and being able to watch them instantly over high speed internet. This sort of service really attracts a niche market as their range of tv shows and films are of al natures and genres, no film // tv show can hide on Netflix. Anyway the TV series House of Cards is a TV series only available to the subscribers of Netflix. Netflix has put all of the episodes from that series on Netflix at once, the benefit of this is that viewers do not have to wait week by week for a new episode on the television like in some cases now, (me and top gear) they can watch all of the episodes in a row if they want. The service is instant. This has positives and negatives to it. The positive effect of giving the viewers access to all the episodes at once is that they can watch them any time any where at their own leisure. A negative effect is that viwers cannot discuss episodes via social network (facebook, twitter, texting, etc..) which leads to viewers being further ahead in the series thus if they slip up and tell someone something in an episode they might not have seen it, so this can create spoilers for some viewers.
On of the negative effects the Internet has had on the TV and film industry is the creation of torrent websites. This is were content of tv shows and films is illegally distributed for free meaning that the consumer will not pay for it. An example of this is that if you were to go see "Die Hard 6" in the cinema it might cost you £10 to go and watch it, and £10 to buy the DVD, consumers are downloading illegally over the internet via torrent sites to get these films // tv shows for free. This is resulting in less and less people buying DVDs and going to the cinema to buy // watch these films and the cinema companies loss money and potentially risk going into administration. This user generated content is piracy over the interent via torrent websites. This has had an effect as people are getting more and more lazy because they can access torrent websites at the tip of their fingers on their laptops, they are not spending money.
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