Has the internet killed the TV?

The short answer to that is no; the long answer will take a few more sentences.  With the rise of sites such as YouTube and having most major television channels giving people the ability of viewing whole episodes on their computers it would seem like there is now no need to devote time out of your life to watch TV on someone else’s schedule. 

Now you can watch the programs you want when you want to watch them.  Only catch is, for most people at least, you have to watch it on your computer.  That might seem like it isn’t that big of a deal, but quite a few people still watch TV with other people and it is hard to do that while watching a computer monitor. 

The people that claim the TV is dead and that the internet has killed it tend to be more technically savvy and, this is just a guess based on stereotypes, probably spend their time on the computer by themselves.  This might explain why they are so quick to dismiss television as a dead media.  They might not watch shows such as Dancing With the Stars or American Idol, but plenty of people do and they tend to watch it with friends.

Of course the real killer for the notion of the death of television is and likely will always be sports.  For the sports fan there is nothing better than watching the game on a big screen television. It would be all but impossible to invite your friends over to watch a football game on a 15 inch monitor, even if you had one of the 30 inch monitors it would still be a poor substitute for a proper television set in a comfortable living room.  So let us put to bed this notion that the internet will kill off the television because it just isn’t going to happen.