Here are predictions (OK, guesses) about the future of the tube: 1. Over-the-air commercial television broadcasting, as we know it, is coming to a fast and certain death. If you don't believe it, just look at the continuing trend of rapidly declining network viewership. A few weeks after the start of the current TV season, the New York Times reported network viewer totals this season down about 5.75 million, or about nine percent below last season. The audience is going elsewhere. (See #10 below to find out where.) 2. Despite vehement denials to the contrary, the network-affiliate television broadcasting system, as we know it, will soon end. It has served its usefulness and is now obsolete. ABC chief Robert Iger broached the subject delicately at NAB '98., the largest annual meeting of the nation's broadcasters. Other network executives have followed his lead in recent months. The operative phrase is: "multiple revenue streams." All the networks want a greater return as they produce increasingly expensive shows. They want to sell their premium programs to other media outlets such as cable, satellite and home video. When the networks start demanding income from all of the big three revenue sources -- advertising, subscriptions and transactions -- the old distribution alliances will crumble. 3. Television stations will become independent programmers for their community viewing audience. The day will come soon when a network tells its affiliates that it plans to sell new prime time programs to multiple distribution outlets at once. When that happens, stations are going to respond that they in turn will replace poorly performing network programs with better performing syndicated fare. At this point the cohesive network prime time lineup evaporates. Everybody then jumps into the programming fray for themselves. 4. Viewers are going to pay for the good stuff. Only the dreck will be free. Remember those multiple revenue streams? The premium productions of the future will pull from all of them. You'll watch commercials, pay a subscription fee and pay an additional transactional fee if you want a tape or instant rerun of a show. Free TV (if there ever was such an animal) will not be a pretty place to be. 5-10 are available at: http://www.spark-online.com/november99/media/television/beacham.html by frank beacham This article and many more are available at *spark-online... ____________________________________________________________________________ __ In most urban centres people do not know the neighbours across the hall, yet they will exchange the most intimate details of their personal lives with strangers in Swaziland via electronic chat rooms. In the midst of this world there exists a place where the hangers-on, the merely somewhat interested, and the radically involved members of cyberspace come to raise their hackles, in a community venture called *spark-online. *spark-online purports to "explore the electronic consciousness.Its an e-zine dedicated to understanding very nature of this brave new world we inhabit. Join the fray @ : http://www.spark-online.com ---- Screen-L is sponsored by the Telecommunication & Film Dept., the University of Alabama: http://www.tcf.ua.edu