Broadcast Television Is About to Go the Way of AM Radio

[Commentary] The new streaming offerings from HBO and CBS are early signs that regular television is the new AM radio. TV is changing for a bunch of pressing reasons: We like to have more control over what we watch and when; streaming over the Internet works well now; we hate paying cable company prices. But more profoundly, television is changing for big, mega-trend reasons.

The forces at work, driven by the Internet and data, add up to a giant generational shift toward a 21st century, free-form, urban, mobile lifestyle and away from the schedules, structures, suburbs, offices and marriages of the post-World War II era. In this new environment, the old model of broadcast TV will last about as long as an ice cube in a freshly poured glass of bourbon. “Our job is to do the best content we can and let people enjoy it in whatever way they want,” CBS CEO Leslie Moonves said on October 16 when announcing CBS All Access, the network’s subscription Internet service. “The world is heading in that direction.” Which is true, except that for anyone under 30, it’s already there. TV will transform into a collage of subscription services, pay-per-view offerings and ad-supported free stuff, all available over any network on any device at any time.

Change happens much the way Ernest Hemingway described the onset of bankruptcy in The Sun Also Rises: gradually and then suddenly. The forces that would break TV built up little by little for decades. Now comes the suddenly part.