According to a relatively new study by the IDC (subsidiary of International Data Group) consumers spend twice as much time using the Internet as they do watching the Television.

If you have an Internet connection, chances are you are spending much more time surfing the Web than watching TV. A new IDC study of consumer online behavior found that the Internet is the medium on which online users spend the most time (32.7 hours/week). This is equivalent to almost half of the total time spent each week using all media (70.6 hours), almost twice as much time as spent watching television (16.4 hours), and more than eight times as much time as spent reading newspapers and magazines (3.9 hours).

It is plain to see that these are all just statistics and figures representing this, but in the eyes of the Global Community, is this information really accurate? Has the Internet truly surpassed its rival media? Also, isn’t it interesting that Print Media is not suffering anywhere near as much as some have claimed?

Photo by Bertrand. (License: Creative Commons Attribution)

The Internet can offer us a far more interactive experience than Television can. With new advances and technologies on the Internet allowing us greater access to free multimedia users have taken to websites like YouTube, Guba, Google Video, and the newly-deceased Stage6. Brand new types of entertainment are being created to bring about this change in interactive multimedia. Many users of YouTube and MySpace have set up personal Vlogs for their ’shows’, allowing their viewers to interact with their shows by commenting and posting in their own videos to respond.

Of top of this, the changes in Accessibility and Usability standards on the Internet can also be thanked for the Internet statistically topping TV. It could even be said that the Internet is so accessible in homes today that Television and the Internet aren’t competing, but are working together to provide a better entertainment experience for all of us.

This is a growing concern for those backing Television after the widely-publicised Writers Strike, which effectively torn apart major shows (Heroes, to name one). I think it would be of no surprise to anyone to claim that more people than usual would have turned to the Internet to get their entertainment fixes over that period of time.

Whilst online media is becoming more popular, is original content actually the lifeblood of this new medium? Many videos are effectively clean rips off the Television, and many popular videos on these Social Media websites are just blog posts with an embedded video from the Television. As I said before, it is common for some people to watch a few low-quality episodes of a show on the Internet, then to go out and buy the DVD’s. Many people also go to the Internet to watch their favourite episodes whenever they want, showing where the choice factor becomes important to the consumer.

Another issue is the pastime of watching Television. For many people it is a family activity that the Internet simply cannot replace. PC’s still dominate the Internet and users are more fond of watching shows on their big screen over their monitors. However, in the future I am sure this will change, perhaps allowing media from the Internet to be transmitted using wireless technology to a Television for users to watch.

Of course, we cannot take this into account when dealing with statistics due to the nature of the Internet and the legal issues that come with watching free episodes and clips from Television online. If these were to be mentioned then surely Television would get a huge boost.

In the United Kingdom we are forced to pay a hefty price for a TV License. Without this license we are not allowed to use a TV to pick up any frequencies. The Internet requires no license fee, and many have obviously switched off their TV’s completely and catch up on all of their favourite shows online. Sadly, many networks in America actively block those from other countries from viewing their content, so viewers worldwide go to less legitimate websites to get their viewing fixes, some even download episodes. An example of this is South Park Studios, the official South Park website. They have recently released every episode of South Park online from just a bit after they have aired on TV. Users from other countries have been told they cannot view them, which isn’t a problem, because just by searching on Google we can find three other websites to watch whatever websites we want.

What can we expect for the future then? This author predicts a sharp rise in Television production companies using the Internet for their shows, eventually for these companies to release their shows solely for the Internet community. Sported by advertisements couldn’t these production companies effectively make far more money by cutting out the middle man (or middle-box). Applications like Joost have attempted to bridge this gap, but with extremely poor content (especially in non-US countries) they are nowhere near capable of overtaking the TV or even Social Media as we know it right now.

What is for certain is that Internationalisation will have to take place if piracy is to fall. Viewers worldwide are sick of waiting for shows to appear on our shores, and will download episodes whenever they please. In fact, the UK is the leading country for US show downloads, where users will openly download episodes sometimes months before they come out here.

At the moment it would be impossible to really say what is about to come. With the Internet at bursting point with this media explosion it would require a major networking overhaul for the Internet to become the haven of information that we wish it to be. Whilst the speed of the Internet seems to be changing extremely fast for the changes we wish to see it would take many years for any kind of impact to be made. The systems architecture simply isn’t there, and with legal battles and P2P cases being dragged out every single day in the western world when will these advanced be allowed to happen?