Hey, Check Out The Future Of Television!
No matter how much effort TV networks and cable companies put into trying to keep the TV world from changing, the future is coming. — And it's awesome! — Check out this live online coverage of the first day of the US Open.
Context & Ripple Effects
This is the latest entry in a debate that has run through the corpus for four years: CNET asked about the internet and the future of TV back in 2005, TechCrunch wondered where programming was heading in 2006, and the NYT tracked TV "changing shape" onto small screens in late 2007. The consistent thread was that convergence kept being predicted faster than it arrived.
What makes this August 2009 post notable is its choice of evidence: instead of another argument about schedules or set-top boxes, Silicon Alley Insider points at a live, marquee sporting event — the US Open's first day — streamed online as it happens. It lands just months after Cringely's May 2009 case for internet TV in America and the NYT's February finding that TV's march to the net had been hesitant — so the post reads as a claim that the hesitation is breaking against live sports.
First-order effects
- TV networks and cable companies — which the piece portrays as actively resisting change — face immediate proof that a premium live event can reach audiences online without their distribution stack.
- Viewers gain a same-day alternative path to broadcast-tier live content, making the cable subscription less clearly the only way to watch marquee sport.
Second-order effects
- If rights holders keep streaming flagship events live online, the live-sports exclusivity that anchors pay-TV bundles comes under pressure, forcing cable distributors to justify carriage fees beyond access alone.
- Advertisers get a measurable new venue around live streams, shifting spend decisions toward whoever controls the online presentation of the event.
Third-order effects
- A pattern of major events debuting online would erode the assumption that exclusive live sports must flow through cable first, pushing the industry toward internet-first rights deals and restructured network-distributor economics.
The trend: Live sport is becoming the proving ground where internet-delivered television stops being a prediction and starts being a product.