It seems to me that the current method of television programming is badly outdated. In the early days of TV, the only way to get the picture to the end users was via broadcasting. These days we have much better technology, yet TV is still broadcasted to us. Let me explain. When you want to watch your favorite show you have to watch it when they broadcast it to you. Or you have to record it when the broadcast it. If you miss it or forget to record it, you are out of luck until they decide to play a repeat. And if it’s a series, it sucks watching episodes out of order. I still haven’t seen the 2004 Thansgiving special of Will & Grace and yes, I’m a little bitter about it. The thing that sucks is there is no good reason why it is like that. Why don’t we have tv on demand? In other words, why can’t I view a list of available shows and choose what to watch when I want to watch it? You may say “You can, see what’s on and pick what you want”. No, that limits me to what is being broadcasted right now. If I want to watch Will & Grace I want to see a list of every episode and pick which one to watch. Rather than airing an episode at the scheduled time, the new episode would be available for viewing at the scheduled time. Then networks wouldn’t have to compete against each other for viewers. And I could watch three different shows that all air at the same time. And most importantly I could watch that Thanksgiving special I missed.
Of course broadcasted channels have their place. I like to go to sleep with an interesting documentary on. So it’s nice to be able to put on the History Channel or Science Channel when I go to bed. So, in my perfect world of TV on demand there would be some broadcast channels. And/or you could set up a “playlist” of shows to play. You channel surfers are just out of luck.
It does seem like we are starting to transition toward something like this. Many networks have shows available for viewing on their websites. That is really nice, but a few episodes available to watch on a teeny, tiny, bad quality screen is far from what I envision. It is a nice start though.
I think the big hurdle here is revenue. How would the networks make their money. Obviously they don’t want to give up their lucrative sponsers. With a TV on Demand system they might as well not have commercials at all, which would be great but without revenue there would be no TV. So they would have to come up with alternative ways to make money. Maybe that is more trouble than it is worth to them and that’s why things are the way they are now. I don’t know. Time will tell.
It’s possible (though highly unlikely) that I’m wrong. If you know something I don’t about this and wish to enlighten me, feel free to keep it to yourself. Just kidding, I’d be happy to hear what you have to say. Post a comment.

I’ve decided to start a series of posts here called “Why not? (Or why?)”. I’m always wondering why we don’t do things differently, or why we do the things we do. I’m specifically thinking about technology but I’m sure I will write about other subjects too. It’s just sort of a vehicle for me to vent and maybe will get other people thinking.