To what extent has the internet changed the TV and film industry?

To What Extent Has The Internet Changed The TV And Film Industry?

The internet has been a major factor in the advancement of technology in just about every technological sector, and this does include both the TV and the Film Industry in this technological advancement. Before the days of broadband internet being widely available in pretty much every single household it was a very different era for the TV and Film industry, the main form of change coming in the way that TV and Films were being distributed in these times. If you wanted to watch what very well may have been a VHS back then of the most recently released film you would have to travel down to either your nearest local video rental store or visit one of the major retail stores such as Blockbuster and rent a physical copy of the film which would then have to be brought back into the store after a predetermined time or a charge would be incurred. This was the norm in the rental industry up until the internet revolution.

During this time broadband internet was becoming readily available to just about everyone opening up a huge market gap for both the Film and TV industry to grab a hold of. This new age of the internet came two-fold for the Tv and Film industry, firstly in the form of retail shopping. Stores such as Blockbuster and HMV who where seen to be thriving suddenly became obsolete due to the opening of online retailers such as Amazon and Play.com, this brought a massive hit to brick and mortar stores which can be seen right now due to the closure of both Blockbuster and HMV as most people would rather buy their DvDs from and online retailer instead of travelling out to the store to purchase them, but this is not the only thing that was powering forward online retailers in front of brick and mortar stores as there was also a theory by the name of The Long Tail (2006) by Chris Anderson which came into play. The Long Tail, simply put, states that as stores such as Blockbusters and HMV are limited as to what they can stock they will most likely go for the blockbuster hits first and may stock a few of the lesser known films and Tv series as well, but as online and digital retailers such as Play.com and Amazon are not as restricted with shelf space they can stock a broader spectrum of titles, allowing people who would like to purchase very niche products the chance to with all of these little niche sales almost totalling up to the amount the big blockbuster hits will sell.(More Of Less)

But this is not the only thing that the internet revolution has brought for the Tv and Film industry, Because of the new availability of higher bandwidth packages becoming available things that were just distant ideas such as online video streaming and music streaming where becoming a very near possibility, which as of today sounds ridiculous that a world without on demand video streaming even existed never mind a world without internet entirely but back then this was but a distant dream. Now we take it for granted that sites such as Youtube, Netflix and Lovefilm all exist that we can now watch a massive collection of Tv and Film titles streamed directly to our Home Computers, this created a massive hit for the brick and mortar stores as people did not even have to wait for postal times to watch a massive collection of films now appealing to niche and mainstream markets alike bringing The Long Tail theory back again.

As we can see the new age of digital distribution is being shown to be king in both the TV and film industry, but even they way in which TV is being delivered is not safe in the hands of Netflix. Netflix has very recently launched a new self funded Tv Drama by the name of House of Cards, it is available only on Netflix an has been getting some very positive reviews. But this is not the odd part of what Netflix has done with house of cards, the odd part is the way in which this series has been delivered to the customers. It is customary in TV for a series to be shown with one new episode released each week at a set date and time, and this has been shown to work for countless years helping the audience create a sort of event in which they can play that on this certain day at this certain time is when I watch the episode of this series. They can then also be sure in the knowledge that unless someone else has procured a dodge advanced copy of the series elsewhere that they can have a discussion about the newest episode safely without ruining it for some people who may not have watched the same episode. But this is not the method that Netflix has been using with House of Cards, Netflix has decided to trail out a new delivery system that being that the whole of the first series of House of Cards is instantly available to all Netflix subscribers from the get go, no new episode each week, the whole thing available in one go. This has been met with bot positive and negative views, the positive saying that this is great as it allows people to create their own time for watching as many or as few episode as they would like/have the time for, but many people are also saying that this is ruining the interactive experience that the TV has become with the uprising of Social Media sites(E.g. Twitter and Facebook) meaning that people cannot discuss what is happening in the latest episode being shown as some people may have watched further on and some people may not have reached that point in the series creating massive spoilers for many people.

To conclude there have been many changes to both the Film and TV industry due to the rise of internet technology some of these being positive and some of these being negative. The positives of the internet revolution in the Tv and Film industry are that consumers have now been given a much wider and expansive variety of films to choose from and are also now not limited to what the brick and mortar stores think are going to be selling the best, this means that the consumers now have better experiences in watching films and TV but this is not as good for brick and mortar stores as they as we can see have been left behind and are now redundant in todays current market. Another positive is the ease in which people can now watch TV and film. this is once again a positive for the consumers mostly and a negative for the brick and mortar stores.

The negatives of the internet boom are also bad for distributors and also the content creators themselves as with the rise of digital distribution the pirating scene has also been seen to be growing with this making getting a hold of the newest film and Tv series for free much much easier and almost becoming the norm for some people to get the TV and film that they want. This is very bad for the Film and TV industry as a whole as this means that nobody is getting money for this copy of the the Show / Film meaning that the amount that studios have to produce more content / a sequel  might be greatly reduced. Another downside to the internet boom is the downfall of both little and big brick and mortar stores nationwide. Stores as big as HMV and blockbuster are now going into administration as they have not been able to compete with the likes of Play and Amazon in sales and the rise of online streaming sites such as Lovefilm and Netflix has also had a big impact on these strores.