R.I.P. T.V.

T.V. is dead. Or at least linear T.V. is dead. T.V. that involves sitting down at a set time of an evening and gathering around together. Why bother to be a slave to the clock after work now we have Sky Plus or Virgin OnDemand? Just record it and watch it whenever you want. Watch the most violent film ever at 7am, or Doctor Who at 3am after a night out (bit sad though)...Or even watch it online via Youtube or Google Video - and now the BBC's iPlayer thing they have launched is the latest of these gizmos.

Interestingly my parents believe this is a "bad" thing. I suppose they could be right: the loss of a communal, national, conscious for a truly great T.V. program - Pole to Pole in the early 90s maybe? But the fact remains it will become a rare event. Not that rare, but not common either. The other day I watched all six episodes of The IT Crowd on Google Video over two days because I could. I didn't have to wait six weeks for an entire season. Peep Show series four was on at 9:30pm on a Friday evening. Now I missed most of them because of this as I was out. But by Sunday they were online and I was able to watch them and discuss them on a Monday morning.

Perhaps another reason for this death of linear T.V. is that the companies themselves seem fully of aware of this. Or at least, this must be the reason, surely, for the utter dross that is on every night at the moment? The summer season might not be the best for T.V. but even this year is a new low. Baby Ballroom? Big Brother 8! The BBC is just churning out cookery show after cookery show - although whether or not we should trust the BBC that these people are indeed cooks is another point entirely...

Still though, if T.V. does become a format that becomes random and unscheduled - perhaps all shows just being made "available" at some point during the week - what will this mean? No advertising? Less money? Or more specific shows for more refined audiences? Well, who knows just yet, but like the advent of colour and then extra channels this could be the start of a new, significant chapter, in the history of T.V.