[Infromation Technology] Television's survival in the midst of disruptive innovation

Unless one is really working in the industry, it is hard to track the newest trends in a timely manner. Probably, the fastest evolving industries are all related to information technology business, directly or indirectly. Economist periodically publishes a report regarding the changes in technology. As far as I can recall, the last topic was dealing about social networking websites, and its growing influence on our everyday lives. I was interested in this topic primarily because of its potential appearance in the interview scenes. How would one value Facebook? These kinds of questions are quite interesting. But, as always, you can’t really go about preparing these questions in a silo approach; you have to have at least some preliminary knowledge regarding the business. And, I have to admit that unless one is a CS major, it is really hard to conceptualize these matters, let alone getting insights.
The topic I came across just a minute ago, talks about how the giant media, television, survived in the midst of innovation age. The devices that were popular when I was a teenager disappeared quickly. However, it seems that only television has successfully maintained its status as a traditional entertainment tool. What are the secrets behind its long-lasting influence on our daily lives? This week’s Economist article pinpoints several factors.
First, TV has a “natural advantage”. It is immune from piracy threats and it functions as a social networking means. People like to talk about famous TV programs during social occasions, and if one shows ignorance in those topics, it is very likely that he will get alienated from others.
Second, in order tackle the online contents providers’ threats, TV companies have developed platforms to mitigate those risks posed toward them. TV companies have teamed up and launched a joint venture called “Hulu”. It generally provides TV shows that were shown on their channels. Their main objective is to prevail over Google’s invasion. It is not yet comparable to Youtube and other online giants, but it sure has a distinctive feature that could one day be on par with its competitors.
Third attempt is developing a subscription based provision. If one is authenticated, one can view contents in any devices he wants. The important aspect of this move is that the companies are moving from an “ad-supported” model to a mixture of advertisement and subscription model.
Alluding to the reporter’s word, TV companies “silently domesticated” the disruptive technologies. Let’s see how this battle proceeds.