Advances in technology are rapidly changing the way we “consume” entertainment. MP3 players with gigabytes of space on them mean we can take around entire jukeboxes in a player smaller than a pack of cigarettes. Satellite radio means we can get non-stop music or uncensored talk radio from anywhere in the country. Using my PC, I can record audio streams from thousands of radio stations anywhere in the world and burn them to an audio or MP3 CD for listening later in my car (or on a portable player).
But one of the biggest changes that will come is to the way we view television. Already DVRs like TiVo, ReplayTV and Scientific Atlanta’s Explorer are making just about all TV “commercial free” in a sense. There are very few shows that Lisa and I watch “live” these days as it’s just far more enjoyable to record it and use our DVR’s “super fast-forward” feature to skip through commercial breaks in around 5 seconds. Even for shows that we watch “live” – like 24 and Lost – we typically wait until around 20 minutes into the show before watching so that we can skip through all the commercial breaks and still finish the show at the usual time. And the easy-to-use interfaces on these DVRs mean that even Mom & Dad can record their favorite shows – either a single show or an entire series – and watch them at a time of their choosing.