TV – A must in everyone's home.
Every hamlet in America could get access to the Big 3 channels: ABC, CBS and NBC. The only other channels that were available at the time were the so-called ‘local' channels, or UHF, which stood for Ultra High Frequency, and were generally under funded local channels with little viewer interest and even less revenue. Advertisers faced the problem that their access to the broad American public was controlled by an oligopoly. This was not likely to change without new technology.
The first technological shift came from the TV guides, which came out in the 1960's. These guides allowed viewers to plan ahead for what they wanted to watch. They simply looked at the TV listings and found the programs that they were looking for, then planned the rest of their evening around when the programs were shown.
Digital TV reception came fairly recently, but it has had a major impact on how people watch TV. When we talk about ‘digital,' we usually think ‘lcd tv,' but digital also means the method by which the program was obtained over the airways, through a cable or from the Internet connection that is increasingly found in every hom.
Internet TV is a new medium which combines the benefits of lcd tvs' high definition and the limitless access to the Web which is necessary to find the programs that people want to watch. Internet TV is now being offered by the new AT&T, which is rolling out an $8 billion program throughout the US to make it possible for people to have the high bandwidth needed to seek out the right programs and download it to their TVs quickly.
TV stands are also changing. Whereas in the past TV stands were used to mount the heavy TV, they now look like control panels from the Starship Enterprise. That's because the new TV stands are doing more than supporting a CRT - they are also allowing the user to control the stereo and video throughout the house without getting off the couch.
This universal access to all media is creating demand for exercise while sitting, but that is the subject of another article.