Fergus Cassidy

Television unplugged

PREDICTIONS about television's future are gathering like storm clouds, but the weather frequently rains on the forecaster's parade.

I'm not expecting to read television's obituary notice in the death columns any time soon. If there is a closedown, it'll be the first one I've seen since the time Irish television closed down well before midnight. When a show billed as 'Late, Late' finished at 11.30pm.

But I'm biased when it comes to television and tend toward defensiveness when its doom is suggested. I've been watching 'the box' since the days when valves would light up a room. And occasionally my life.

It'll probably do that again tomorrow night, when RTE screens a new documentary series assessing the life of the lord of the lies, Charles J Haughey.

I remember like it was yesterday when he went on television and solemnly told the nation that we were living beyond our means. Every time I pass by the old Werburgh Street 'Labour Exchange' (Hatch 19, Tuesdays 10.10am) in Dublin, I'm thankful to television for that one moment of Haughey hubris as he stared out from the screen advocating belt tightening.

Tomorrow night, television gets a chance to say what couldn't be said back then, or wasn't allowed to be said. Or was too afraid to say. Here's hoping.

State control of television is now a distant memory, busying itself with carving out a public service future and all which that entails. The medium is firmly in the grip of the market place and competition, dependent almost exclusively on advertising revenue.

In many ways television's problems are a result of its own success. The remote control and a massive explosion of available stations means there could be something better on somewhere else.

Feeding this programme-devouring monster is never ending and it won't be long before every programme that has ever been made will be shown again and again. And again. Hence the screaming sirens when a new series is about to be aired. New is a big deal, a cause for celebration.

Left to its own devices, who knows what direction television would go in, but like all technology it doesn't exist in isolation.

Television had a long gestation period and arrived into a culture that either laughed at the idea or feared it. TV was going to seriously threaten radio and kill off theatre and cinema altogether. Like me, people voted with their eyes, and yet the curtain didn't come down on theatre or cinema.

Television was certainly a disruptive technology but it had that in common with so much of what came before it. History hasn't recorded any candlemakers cheering on the light bulb.

Because television was once a disruptive technology, it should be well positioned to deal with another one. The internet shared some of the same birth pangs as television: it'll never take off; too expensive and way too complicated. The internet was also predicted to destroy the cinema and music businesses. And now television.

"While the online audience gets bigger and broader, the TV audience continues to fragment", said Tom Hyland of PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) in the US last week. PwC and the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB), which sells nearly 90% of online ads in the US, jointly announced the highest online ad spend ever in the first quarter of 2005 ($2.8bn).

Greg Stuart, chief executive of the IAB, noted that "the continued and steady growth we have experienced over the past two years is a clear indication that this medium [online] delivers results and is fast becoming accepted as part of the mainstream".

Television is watching this closely and responding in various ways. One of which lies in the direction mentioned by the IAB in their report: "Marketers continue to recognise the relevance of interactive as an integral part of their marketing mix".

Two-way tranmission was once unique to the net but that's changing as fast as you can hit the red button. Stations have developed browsers, some of which have the look and feel of the online variety. Other tricks include widescreen formatting and improved sound.

Time-shifting or on demand programming is definitely one direction television is very keen to pursue, mirroring the web-like facility of being there at the behest of the viewer not the broadcaster. What Ashley Highfield, the head of the BBC's new media unit, likes to call "Martini media" - any time, any place, any how.

This September the BBC is launching a pilot scheme involving 5,000 people who have broadband in their homes. Using the BBC's media player software, these guinea pigs will have access to over 190 hours of television and over 300 radio programmes. After seven days, the programmes will cease to work on their computers. The programming will also be distributed using peer-to-peer technology pioneered through the internet.

Highfield described the experiment as possibly being "the iTunes for the broadcast industry, enabling our audience to access our programmes on their terms. "We'll see what sort of programmes appeal in this new world and how people search, sort, snack and savour our content in the broadband world".

Television still has an appetite.