A Sign of Things to Come? Online Video Eating into TV in the UK

BBC News reported today that online video is starting to chip away at traditional TV viewing. The survey extrapolates that 43% of Britons who watch online video (that includes mobile phones) have said they watch less TV as a result. However, at this point only 9% of the population say they watch online video regularly.

This is the sort of news that makes broadcasters break out in a cold sweat, but if you take a long view it's not terribly surprising, nor is it terrifying. Fifty years ago television was supposed to lead to the death of cinema, but instead several interesting things happened: (1) Moviemakers tried all kinds of gimmicks to keep people coming to the big screen, like 3D and Cinemascope; (2) broadcasters, ever in need of material to fill airtime, began looking to productions previously seen on the big screen; and (3) both media started to cross-pollinate, with big-screen adaptations of TV shows and longer-form television programming. Interestingly, all of these things still go on today, and the two former adversaries now happily coexist.

We're already starting to see the same thing with online video. I hope that today's TV and movie companies learn some lessons from the past and try to work with this trend, rather than against it (or, worse still, jump into it blindly).