The typical product cycle has always stood as development, introduction, growth, maturity and then decline. However in today’s techno centric society, the world’s leading companies are replacing decline with evolution.

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This is particularly true with media related products, which have the capacity to fall from maturity rapidly, meaning a need to be consistently evolving. Product redundancy has never been a thing in itself, but the result of swiftly shifting consumer habits. The greatest and still growing consumer habit is the need for a freedom to choose, a subsidiary of this; the need for on-demand content rather than program content. This user demand has shifted print media online, destroyed the video rental businesses, and places a substantial economic burden on the film and TV industry due to the exponential growth of download culture (torrenting). (Chuling, Hua, Chee, 2012)



The use of the word ‘evolution’ is significant as not since the dawn of cinema has it been anything but. Even cinema, however, could be claimed as the next evolutionary step from photography, and photography the next step from shadows on the wall or painting and drawing.



Quickly and without stretching the imagination it can be viewed that since the advent of the media, or even preceding that, to the first markings made by man, that what we call the media today has forever been in a state of constant evolution. “The one thing that does not change is that, at any and every time, it appears that there have been ‘great changes’.” (Du Gay, The tyranny of the epoch, 2003) Yet, there still remains a consistent oversight from which breeds the most overly assertive academic discourse, claiming that today we are in the greatest media revolution to date, revolution implying reversal, upheaval, and complete revision.



In David Morley’s study, ‘Television, Technology and Culture: A Contextual Approach’ he is certain to indicate that a history of speculative discourse often overshoots or completely misses reality. The study offers a realistic, and often conservative view of the current state of the media. It is indicated that the often-misguided nature of this orotund writing is due to a techno-centric approach, where conclusions are made based on the possibilities posed by technology. “This is also to recognize that, empirically speaking, the assumed truths of media studies only pertain to media operating within particular types of sociocultural, legal, and economic frameworks and we must be sensitive to how particular locales produce different media cultures and technological forms” (p.100). As a result academic inferences must be established within certain cultural parameters. (SEE THE DOWNLOAD NATION) Morley stresses that whilst technology has the capacity to implement change, successful products or services must first address a growing demand. Filling a void the public doesn’t know exists will achieve very little.



Morley contextualized his claims by comparing “how a particular technology was instituted” in two small African villages. In one case “a customized hall was built to house some of the latest, high-speed modem computers, in a purpose-built, fully air-conditioned environment.” The hall unfortunately did not connect with the customary pathways of the local villagers and “so this powerful technology was rather underused” (p.85)



In the other case a “Western volunteer left a fairly worn-out laptop with an unreliable modem” to a local café. Whilst an inferior technology, the café was located by the “bus stop and the taxi rank where the local people from the other villages around passed through on their way to the market.” The result was that “this less powerful technology had much more consequential effects than the purpose-built computers” because it fitted with the already established norms. (p.85)



Morley is wary of modern discourse, he remains on the sideline some distance from any form of speculation and he is clear that “we should resist any siren calls to extrapolate a universalized answer from our contemporary Western experience”. Here is where this study hopes to differ, to not shy away from speculation, rather admit it as that.



The shifting media landscape when considered as an evolution, allows for more a reasonable assessment of its changes. The changes are real but - in their current state - indefinable, a multiplicitous range of possibilities existing. It is not this study’s aim to deny the state of evolution, rather to consider the current media landscape as a tipping point, a point at which there are concrete economic and content issues to which a range of solutions and paths could proceed.



Digital distribution or online distribution of TV is quickly establishing itself as the next step in the media evolution. It is a large step, as it will open the gate for TV and Film to become part of the ever-growing convergence bubble. It begs new questions concerning, content, revenue and lifestyle. Whilst this shift may be the reality, it is not the death of TV, merely the altering of it. Print media found its way online and so will TV, and like print media, the form and the influence this change will take is a question of possibility.

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This study will outline:
- The economic issues posed with TV distribution.
- Offer a range of solutions to those economic problems.
- Consider TV in a historical context, looking at HBO and AMC as examples of organizations that have overcome similar economic and content issues.
- Consider an audience that is shifting to download culture and streaming software. Who are waiting for a simple distribution space.
- Ruminate society’s historical norms that surround broadcast TV that pose issues to digital distribution.
- Give an in depth analysis of Netflix, as both the content and economic forerunner.
- Alongside Spotify as a contemporary economic example of online distribution.
- Consider the possibility of shifting the public from free illegal downloading to a legalized distribution space.
- Use this analysis to further speculate and idealize a range of probabilities in distribution and content production.