A JOURNEY TOWARDS TV VIEWING!

          

      TV continued to serve as a significant group medium during 1960s and into the 1970s.  Although the number of channels available to the average household grew to 5 or 6 in the early 1970s, there was relatively little channel changing and the three broadcast networks in the country.  However, the change for TV viewing patterns was planted by a series of technological innovations.  Among the most significant technological innovations introduced during this period was the remote control.  TV viewing became more personalized and channel changing became more common.  One individual could now separate from other household members and watch programs with more niche appeal such as sports, from a bedroom, den or basement "TV room."  However, it is important to understand that this was an evolution, not a revolution in viewing behavior. 

The changes occurred gradually from the early 1970s.  Group TV viewing did not disappear.  It simply became one of many TV viewing patterns. Even now we can see group viewing in the form of team. Likewise whenever there is a cricket match going on there is a group formed a people watch tv together.  Further, group viewing itself evolved.  Now, a family sitting together in the living room watching TV during the evening was just one form of group viewing.  Families also watched as a group in the kitchen or dining room while eating a meal and smaller groups gathered together to watch TV, e.g., a group of children watching from the floor in a den or bedroom.  In addition, the number of channels people actually watched grew much more slowly than the number available to them.  Likewise in today’s time we have more than 1,000 channels available to watch, but an individual only watches 6-7 channels and pays for the rest of the channels. There is a new concept which has been coined i.e. multiplatform television viewing. In this technological era multiple screens viewing and multiple screen's have became the most popular thing among the youngsters. The evolution of TV viewing raises a number of questions about the future. Do people really want to interact with television?  I believe that the answer is clearly yes.  However, some people want to interact a lot and some want to interact only a little.  Further, the amount of interaction is likely to vary by type of program and even time of day. 

Standards and multiple versions of a technology are important as well, but from a consumer perspective the issue is not related to regulation or competition but simplicity and a feeling of comfort that the technology they buy will be around in three or four years.  New technologies must also compete for space in the household.  This is a more significant issue today in technology-dense households than it was in the 1950s.  In my research and my survey in households, many people raise the question: where am I going to put another electronic box? 

Mostly people like to watch tv on multiple screens rather than a single one. During 1970’s and 80’s people hardly had tv sets and now the situation is quite different. Most of the people have latest technologies i.e. computer, laptop, tablet, internet, etc. in this busy schedule no one gets time to watch tv and record their programs on tv, but rather use other devices for the same purpose.

I conclude by saying that this era belongs to technology or this can be called as the technological era. Days are not far when people will not use tv and rather use other devices to watch, record, play there programs.