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Thus far, all these technological advances were major achievements for the electronic and computer industry. Analysts saw the immediate advantages of all these technologies and how they were going to affect businesses and revenues. These technologies are McLuhan’s “medium”, however what is McLuhan’s “message”? How is this affecting society? (McLuhan 8)

By looking at society with respect to music, it can be seen that over the years as the technology has progressed, it was a novelty to be able to download music. To have nearly instant access to music libraries that were once difficult to come by. From personal experience, many users or even parents of users would sit by their computer for hours just downloading music and attempt to grab as much music as possible. The whole music downloading phenomenon was blasted all over news sources on TV, radio and print. For a while it was “cool” to be able to download music online, and those who were not doing this were old fashioned. It has been many years since music downloading started and has become main stream, these behaviors that were once so talked about, have blended into society that no one really hears about them. It is just a natural behavior, which is now moving to a different content stream: Television.

During the time of music downloads, the DVR brands, Tivo and ReplayTV, battled it out, and Tivo became the most popular company. Within in mainstream America, Tivo became a buzz word with people often saying they have a Tivo, even though they have a ReplayTV or generic DVR box. Combining different technologies into DVR boxes, it is possible to network DVR’s together to view content from the another DVR or even transfer it to a computer. This would be useful if one has a DVR in the living room, one in the bedroom and a computer in the study. Only one DVR needs to record the show, then with networking, a viewer can view it from any three of the devices. Giving users choices of where and when to watch.

Two other small devices have been popular during the 1990’s, the mobile phone and the PDA organizer. Two devices made for two specific things yet now both are able to play music and video.

Although the technologies have attempted to remain separate for some time, there is now a digital convergence taking place where devices are able to have multiple functionality. For example dealing with media: computers can play and create DVD’s; cell phones and PDA’s can play songs and videos; and cell phones can actually make videos. These devices at one time were coined by Apple’s CEO Steve Jobs to be digital devices in a digital lifestyle where the computer was the digital hub. (McConnell) It is very difficult to just take a look at only one device to examine it. All these devices at some point go hand in hand, or at least becoming that way.

P2P software was available to download music content, but the type of content wasn’t restricted. It was possible to download films and TV shows that people had digitalized or ripped from DVDs. P2P users started to download and illegally exchange copyrighted video content online. The problem, at least for studios, is that there is no way to shut down this network. The only way to attempt to counteract the copyrighted video downloading is to offer this content online.

Offering content online can come in two forms: downloading or streaming. Downloading transfers the entire file onto your computer before viewing it. Streaming works by the content (in our case video) being sent to you over the internet, you watch it and then the data is not kept but disappears, this way, you never get to keep the content. There are many web sites that are dedicated to do this, such as, ifilm.com or Current.tv. These sites deliver content that has been made generally by individuals, independent film makers by using the Internet as a distribution method. Streaming TV content over the Internet has been done several times by major networks. For example, Sci-Fi channel which is owned by NBC made the first episode, “33” of the new series of Battlestar Galactica available for viewing from their web site. The stream was using Real Player, so the quality was okay but not as good as TV.

The problem with streaming content at this present moment within the United States is that its not high quality. According to the survey conducted, 41.9% of people will still watch content on their computer even though it has a lower quality than TV. Although this is approaching the 50% mark, its still not good enough to get people to watch streamed video on their computer. (Appendix Q16)

Downloading copyrighted TV shows, is a major problem within the United Kingdom as it responsible for 18.5% of the worlds piracy, and an astonishing 38.4% of Europe. (Keegan) From the survey, although only 13 people participated from the UK, 66% of them had downloaded content. (Appendix X1) To deal with the problem, the BBC started a beta program on October 5th, 2005 that called IMP. (Scuttlemonkey) This new trial service allows viewers in the UK to download any of the 500 TV shows that have aired during a week by the BBC. Each episode is available for download the day after the TV airing and is viewable for 7 days. The show is distributed using a special P2P software program that includes a Digital Rights Management software so that the TV show can not be viewed elsewhere by other people. However, the TV show itself is of true TV quality. The service also allows you to transfer the video to a mobile device. Currently this trial has 5000 users, but it will be available for any UK citizen when released to the public. Eventually the BBC hope to go global. (“BBC IMP”) Data from the survey, shows that 81.1% of people would download and watch TV on their computer if they wanted to either re-watch or watch it for the first time because they missed the show. It seems if the desired content is available for download, and the only way to view it is on the computer, then people will do so.

In the United States, only a week after the BBC IMP release, on October 12th, Apple announced the latest iPod, the new Video iPod. Along with iTunes 6.0, the iTunes Music Store now had the ability to sell for $1.99 a few ABC TV shows including: Desperate Housewives; Lost; Night Stalker, The Suite Life; and That’s So Raven. Along with these TV shows, music videos, and numerous shorts from Pixar - Steve Jobs’ other company – were available for download. (“Apple Video iTMS”) The videos can be either viewed on your computer, or on the new Video iPod, allowing you to view content on the go, which is when most people would view this content. From the survey: 46.4% of people would watch content while they commute; 33.95% while walking, and the remain would watch it while at work. (Appendix Q22) This last result is particularly interesting as employees should actually be productive with work related material rather than watching TV content, yet they would still watch it there.

The introduction to the Video iPod and the iTunes Music Store that now sells TV shows started a revolution in TV viewing. Although everything is still so new, other networks such as NBC and CBS announced on November 8th, they will offer a few of their shows for on-demand viewing. However, instead of selling their shows online, they will offer them for 99 cents via Comcast’s on demand service. (“CBS, NBC”)

Both Apple and the Comcast’s on-demand service sell their video content for $1.99 and 99 cents, respectively. Their price points are definitely in the correct range for content as anything higher most people will not purchase them. Again, from the survey, 25.7% of people will pay 99 cents, 12.2% will pay a $1.99 but the majority of 40.5% will not pay anything at all. (Appendix Q11)

Apple though proved that Video-On-Demand through the iTunes music store is going to be very successful. Only 20 days after the launch, Apple announced that 1 million videos had be bought by iTunes Music Store shoppers. (“Apple 20 days”)

McLuhan’s message can really only be seen after the technology has settled. It has been 6 years since music downloading first started in the society. Now it has become translucent, but video downloading, at least now with the start of legal downloading. It will be several years before it becomes completely blended in.

The changes within the society can be seen though, even now. Music downloading has lead society to expect content to be available online. We see that by the IMP trails by the BBC that they are legitimizing this aspect of social thinking. Currently, by data from the survey, 70.3% just expect video content to be available online. Out of those, 66% of people also download content. (Appendix X2)

In the United States migrating content to mobile devices has thus far been a little slow when compared to other places in the world such as Japan and Europe. On November 19th, 2001, Japanese company NTT DoCoMo launched their i-motion mail, a video messaging system using mobile phones. (“i-motion mail”) Four years later, Japanese mobile subscribers can stream and watch TV shows while on the go. There is no need to download to a computer and transfer the content to the phone, it comes directly from the satellites to the phones. For example, special edition- made for mobile- episodes of Fox’s hit series 24 were available from October 3rd of this year.

According to data from the survey, 65% of the participants have never used their video content viewing capabilities on their phone. In a few years this number will change because McLuhan’s message would have propagated through the society and with all the video now being delivered, people will want to download and use their mobile phones for viewing video content.
The world, especially through the use of the internet has become a global marketplace, or directly from the words of Marshall McLuhan himself, a “global village”. (Global Village) McLuhan a man definitely thinking a head of technology was describing how all electronic mass media make the entire world small. No longer are countries separated by mountains and oceans, physical borders, or languages, now through the media of images, and sounds, we are a mass of one village, a global village. Although many do not realize this term was coined by Marshall McLuhan, it is heard time after time again with regard to the internet, for the internet truly is a global village. The internet has made a tremendous change to today’s society in the way it reacts to everything, especially with mass media. It allows viewers, users, the ability to pick and choose what they wish to see and here. It has also changed the society into an informational society, always wanting more. At one time, information was found only in libraries and stores, but now with people go online to research, to read, to listen to music and radio, to watch online specific content, or to watch TV shows.

Technology is constantly changing and again is Marshall’s “Medium’. These changes are seen and made for the obvious things: Napster to allow people to download music; Superdrives to allow users to make their own DVDs; Mobile phones to make phone calls on the go; DVR’s to make recording TV easier. These were the main obvious reasons, but looking back and seeing how the society has changed, we see that these uses were once talked about but now have blended in within today’s society. The Napster craze has driven people to expect to have immediate media satisfaction, and to expect content with regard to music or video instantly available when they want it. DVR’s have also helped with that by changing the way people view TV. Only watching shows when they want to.

Importantly though, it is the drive of the society to demand all these options be made available. The days have gone when one had to shift through channels of content in hope of a good show. Now a simple jump online, and new content is available for immediate viewing.
Therefore, people are starting to move away from the TV, but mainly as secondary media viewing source. From responses from the survey, most people enjoy sitting down in front of the big screen and watching TV there. There will be a convergence with all the technological devices, and someday will dissolve the line between computer and TV.

Society will continue to change and TV networks, along with other distribution channels will have to adjust to the wants and demands of the people. Hopefully, IMP from the BBC will go global and the village will seem even smaller than McLuhan had once envisioned it.
Of course, there is always negative responses to all this technological change. Constant bombardment of advertising can bring all these advances down. However, that said, technology will always be developed to counteract any of this.

The medium is the Message, is more of theory that you have to let it ride out to then look back and see, how did society change? If it is anything like what happened during the past decade, life is going to be bombarded with mass media on every small device that one can carry.