What impact are technologies such as iPlayer, 4OD and You Tube having Essay

What impact are technologies such as iPlayer, 4OD and You Tube having on audiences and broadcasters - Essay Example The current scenario is as Negroponte surmised in the mid-nineties, â€Å"wholly new content will emerge from digital, as will new players, new economic models and a likely cottage industry of information and entertainment providers† (1995, p. 18). In the recent years, emergence of new technologies like the iPlayer, 4OD and You Tube along with the merging of various market forces have led to contention over the fact as whether traditional form of broadcasting would be soon obsolete, owing to widespread Internet use, or whether the audience would switch over and browse Internet primarily through their televisions. The industries that function within the arena of mass media and communications face persistent pressure in the form of ever-growing demands from their audiences, and they must necessarily conform and evolve in order to meet these demands and survive the stiff market competition. In order to retain their audience, the television industry adopted the process of converge nce with Internet, where it became possible for â€Å"multiplexing - the ability to offer ancillary digital streams of data, image sound and interactivity simultaneously† .... Discussion The introduction of modern technology in the arena of television industry during the late 1990s signalled a sort of abundance, when the number of channels being aired increased, while simultaneously expanding their worldwide purview, along with the addition of new storage and interactive faculties. The complete switch over to digital TV from the older analogue version started region wise in UK, from 2008 and is expected to end by 2012. Even though the changeover to digital version is nearly over, the switch over to a high-tech Smart TV (that converged TV with internet) until the end of 2011 was relatively low, where observations reveal that until recently only 12% of the British people had a Smart TV in their homes, a figure which is now progressively increasingly (Brilot, 2012). Within communications and mass media sector, television is the last segment to have received internet connection (Brilot, 2012). It was viewed that the chief successor to the traditional form of t elevision broadcasting services would be the internet-based video streaming sites that would offer a revolutionary mode of interactive sessions, along with personalised television programs (Harries, 2002, 219). Therefore, it was regarded that the online video streaming websites would turn out to be a main competitor for the traditional form of television broadcasting. However, recent reports show otherwise, where it is observed that traditional live TV viewing is still more popular amongst UK audience (more than 90% of the total population prefer ‘live’ TV viewing), than the modern technological developments, that include iPlayer, 4OD and You Tube viewing (Bairamian, 2010). Besides this, despite various sites that offer direct viewing of videos (like YouTube or iPlayer)