Television approaching its final screening...

I attended a lecture of Joshua Green's last week and he expressed his ideas that television as we know it will be dead in a few years. I agree. Without some serious and revolutionary changes to the industry, I can see the current format petering out into an uninteresting media format at the bottom of the consumer barrel.

For example, my daily media consumption routine exists as:
- I wake up to the radio, and listen to it until I get to uni
- then I plug in my mp3 player while I read the online news and daily blogs
- I buy the paper and read it over lunch
- mp3s again on the way home
- a bit of drive radio comedy while I check emails at home
- internet and radio/mp3s while I do homework
- radio in the shower
- some book reading before bed
- late night trashy talkback radio just before sleep

On the odd occasion that I am inspired enough to sit down and watch the telly, it's only ever moments before something else needs to be done (feed the dog, work on assignment, call the missus, solve world poverty through blogging, etc). It's either the impersonality of television, or the fact that it requires me to stay stationary and inactive for a period of time that makes it so utterly unstimulating and, therefore, so uninteresting.

Actually getting home and in position to watch the 6.00 news is a difficult task. And when I'm already savvy with the day's current events and news, why would I?

The media writers (namely The Australian's 'Media' section, issued on Thursdays) have been giving the radio industry the ultimatum, saying that they're not contemporary enough, nor willing to change or progress. I think radio's doing fine, it's television that needs to progress. TV programmers think tacky is trendy. It has relied on relatively the same format since its inception back in the 50s--talk shows: same, comedy: same, drama: same, news: same. At least radio has taken on audience participation (I mean real participation). As consumers, no longer are we satisfied with the hypodermic needle communication model, where the media message is injected into society and hopfully received in the intended way. People are seeking and finding their own information, thank you very much, and we'll respond however the bloody-hell we want.

I'm waiting for television to respond...