26 The Futures TV Promised Us: Technology Vs. Behavior Few industries have spent more time trying to predict their future than television. What is remarkable is not how often those predictions proved wrong, but how consistently they were wrong in the same way. Every generation imagined tomorrow as an improved version of today: a better disc, a bigger satellite, more channels, sharper pictures, faster delivery. The industry’s forecasts were almost always technological. The revolutions that reshaped television were behavioral. For more than 50 years, the biggest breakthroughs have not come from improving television itself. They have come from giving viewers more control over it. In the 1970s, the future was VideoDisc. RCA’s SelectaVision, Philips’ LaserDisc, and others promised a world in which consumers would build libraries of movies and television programs just as they collected records. Engineers perfected optical media while executives envisioned lucrative new licensing businesses. During the 1980s, attention shifted skyward. Satellite television promised virtually unlimited bandwidth, national coverage, and hundreds of available channels. The 1990s extended that thinking into the celebrated “500-channel universe.” Digital compression meant every interest could support its own network. Television’s future, it seemed, would simply be more television. History chose a different path. The industry’s greatest disruptions rarely emerged from the technologies it expected. Instead, they transferred power from the programmer to the viewer. Home video was the first great surprise. The VCR was revolutionary not because it recorded programs, but because it liberated viewers from the network schedule. TiVo and the DVR accelerated that shift by allowing viewers to pause live television, skip commercials, and build their own schedules. Cloud DVRs eliminated storage limitations. Streaming eventually made recording almost unnecessary by keeping entire libraries continuously available on demand. Each innovation transferred another measure of control from the industry to the consumer. Cable television had once represented one of the greatest values in media. A modest monthly fee delivered dozens of channels that had never before been available. Over time, however, that value proposition steadily eroded. Retransmission consent — first aggressively leveraged by FOX TV network and eventually adopted throughout the U.S. broadcast industry, transformed broadcast stations from freely available programming into increasingly expensive assets for cable and satellite operators to carry. At the same time, programmers routinely required distributors to carry numerous affiliated cable networks as the price of receiving their flagship services. Many of those secondary channels attracted relatively small audiences while materially increasing programming costs. Sports rights became dramatically more expensive. Programming costs continued climbing. Monthly subscription prices rose steadily. Consumers found themselves paying for hundreds of channels while regularly watching only a fraction of them. Consumer satisfaction became smaller. In hindsight, the industry’s effort to maximize the value of the bundle may also have accelerated its decline. Then Netflix changed the conversation. Its breakthrough was not streaming technology. Delivering television over the Internet had been envisioned years earlier by VideoAge’s Dom Serafini in his book TV via Internet, published in 1999. The breakthrough was economic. Netflix demonstrated that consumers preferred paying directly for the services they valued instead of subsidizing dozens — or hundreds — they ignored. Streaming was the technology. Unbundling was the disruption. The competitive battle became about who owned the customer relationship. The means of delivery have become almost invisible. Few viewers care whether programming reaches them through cable, satellite, fiber, broadband, Wi-Fi, or 5G. They care that it starts instantly, plays flawlessly, and follows them seamlessly from one screen to another. The infrastructure has become a commodity. The experience has become the product. That distinction becomes even more important as television enters what may be its most profound transformation yet. Artificial intelligence is often described as a better recommendation engine. That significantly understates its potential. AI is unlikely to change what television is. It is likely to change what television becomes. Instead of searching, viewers will simply ask. Instead of browsing, television will understand intent. Instead of watching fixed experiences, viewers may increasingly receive adaptive ones. Advertising may undergo an equally profound transformation. For more than 70 years, television advertising followed a broadcast model: everyone watching the same program By Blair Westlake* (Continued on Page 28) * Blair Westlake was an executive at Universal Studios for 20 years in various roles, including Chairman of the TV & Networks Group. For a decade, he was corporate vice president of Media & Entertainment for Microsoft. He has served on numerous boards, including the entertainment holding company for the Public Investment Fund, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, KCTS, and Research to Prevent Blindness. “The future is already here. It’s just not evenly distributed.” — William Gibson Television no longer competes primarily against other television. It competes against every claim on human attention and time. VIDEOAGE October 2026 Predictions & Reality
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