Internet Will Replace TV?

So you’ve heard about people who’ve dumped traditional TV in favor of watching complete episodes of their favorite shows online at such free sites as hulu.com.

What you may not realize is the trend is toward more Internet time at the expense of television, whether it’s digital or analog. TV, as we know it, may be just another fading format.

What leads WMB to that conclusion? Based on a research survey by Forrester, the average U.S. consumer now spends as much time online as watching television. A tipping point toward online could be on the horizon.

The online/TV statistic marks a big shift for the United States at large; this is the first year in Forrester’s survey that people have reported spending equal amounts of time on the two activities — 13 hours a week, the Wall Street Journal reports.

It’s not because people are spending less time watching TV; those numbers have remained about the same. It’s because Internet usage has grown so dramatically — 121 percent in the past five years.

We, at WMB, suspect many of us have shifted our daily habits and routines. More online time means less time for radio listening, reading books, magazines and newspapers offline, exercising, going outdoors and, sadly, quality face time with family and friends.

The authors of this free blog admit being in the same trap: It takes time to develop quality posts on a variety of topics, get the facts, the links and photos, and then package it three times a week. It’s a labor of love, but it comes at a price – free time to do other things.

And, let’s face the ugly truth, being online is pretty much a solitary activity, even if you have a zillion friends on Facebook and e-mail everyone on your Yahoo address list. It’s just you and the keypad – desktop, laptop, smartphone, netbook, whatever your communication device of choice.

E-commerce and social networking have seen the biggest rise in popularity since 2007, Forrester’s survey of more than 40,000 people shows.

Three years ago, about a third of Americans shopped online, and now nearly two thirds do. About 35% of people visit social-networking sites like Facebook regularly, up from 15% in 2007.

Even the things generating the loudest buzz (or trend hype?) in the tech world — microblogging services such as Twitter and streaming radio like Pandora — haven’t fired up the imagination of the online crowd.

Reading blogs is something done by only 18% of people, according Forrester. So, if you’re reading this, consider yourself in the minority!

“The reality is these activities will never have the mass appeal of something like e-mail,” which is used by 92% of people, writes Forrester researcher Jacqueline Anderson in the report. Her theory is that people are most likely to adopt technology that fills a general need and fits easily with other things they were doing anyway.

Though WMB doesn’t conduct surveys, we use Google Analytics to measure our viewership’s interests (which led us to introduce ChinaWatch, WMB's weekly digest of news from China, as a regular feature).

We suspect, however unscientific, many of you watch TV on digital flat screen or analog sets as you travel online via laptop or desktop in the comfort of your home. It’s a natural fit because it puts you in the cockpit of information.

For example, you could be watching Anderson Cooper’s TV news reports on CNN while checking out breaking sports news on espn.com, a form of personal multi-tasking that immerses you in need-to-know developments.

Yes, you could toggle between the CNN and ESPN TV channels with your remote, but what fun would that be, unless you did that while texting?

Seriously, based on a combination of price and convenience, the day may come when you find just one information and entertainment format works best – and that’s online. Given the tech advances of last decade, that day may be closer than we all realize.

As for me, I practice what I preach at writenowworks.com. If you like this post, please share it.