Stray thoughts on the changing nature of entertainment in the post-digital age.

A simple truth: there’s some dissonance between the way people (want to) consume video content and the way TV serves it up.

And it can be summed up in 2 points:

• Users want to decide what they want to watch. TV networks want to decide what their viewers will watch, and when they will watch it.
• Users want to binge. To experience each story in its fullest form, without any artificial interruptions. TV channels want to get users coming back more often, and hence drop an episode at a time.

How does this end?

Badly, for TV networks.

With Netflix now going global (sorry, China) and the advent of smart TVs loaded with YouTube and other apps, it’s only a matter of time.

Unless (and here’s where I get really creative), TV networks reimagine how they curate and serve content. And use technology to offer video on demand, many episodes at a time. Putting the choice back in the hand of the user, without straining the limits of their Internet package.

Serving ads programmatically, or not at all, depending on the package you’ve bought.

This will need some serious collaboration. Between networks, DTH operators and possibly even OEMs.

But it’s one way to make sure that the TV doesn’t become just a giant projection screen for your Netflix-and-Chromecast.