People are switching off their televisions and getting their favourite programmes and movies online, and once again the entertainment industry is reeling, writes Brian Boyd.
Where do you want to go today? Chances are you'll be going in search of online video content. This has been the year when the couch began to give way to the desk with the surge in online video content beginning to eat into the number of hours people spend watching television.
A strange confluence of events brought about the change. There was the increased availability of broadband, the comparative cheapness and ease-of-use of camcorders, the arrival of something called Web 2.0 and consumer impatience with traditional media formats.
The net video phenomenon only really hit the headlines this year when the video-sharing website YouTube - which lets viewers upload, view and share video clips - was bought by the internet search engine Google for $1.65 billion last month.
YouTube came about two years ago when a bunch of American twentysomethings were bemoaning the fact that although you could easily share photographs online with your friends, there was simply no facility to share videos. They eventually figured out a program to play and share videos online - in the beginning they thought that it would only be useful for people to post up their travel videos.
However, as word spread about the site, people realised they could film anything on video and post it on the site for free. The strangest material got posted on YouTube; the site made internet celebrities out of the most unlikely candidates.
IN TANDEM WITH the spread of YouTube came the Web 2.0 developments. Web 2.0 refers to the second generation of internet-based services, which move net sites away from being passive containers of content into being more dynamic and interactive sites. The best example of the change Web 2.0 has ushered in is the development of social networking sites such as MySpace, where people can communicate directly with each other.
With so many people - particularly younger people - now using the internet for broadcasting and sharing their personal videos, traditional media finds itself playing catch-up with changed viewing habits. Recent surveys have found that, generally, people are spending more time online than they are watching television.
Because people have seen what YouTube is capable of delivering, they are now looking to watch their favourite TV programmes when they want and how they want without being tied to the outdated idea of a television schedule. Globally, television viewing figures are falling and it is largely because of a technology known as BitTorrent, which allows websites to offer a wide range of pirated content - from music to films to TV shows. Programmes such as Lost and Desperate Housewives were largely responsible for nudging people towards these illegal sites where they could download episodes of their favourite TV programme. It wasn't just that people were looking for individual episodes they had forgotten to record, it was more that they were tired of waiting for months for new episodes of these programmes to make their way across the Atlantic.
Earlier this year, US TV channel NBC found itself with a massive hit on its hands in the new drama series, Heroes, which has already been dubbed "the new Lost". Heroes isn't due to air in Ireland and the UK until sometime in the new year, but already thousands of clued-in net users have seen all the available episodes by downloading them from illegal sites.
What is emerging is a TV and film version of the great illegal music downloading wars of a few years ago.
When the Napster website emerged in 1999, it used peer-to-peer technology that enabled people to download any amount of free music to their computers. Napster, obviously, was an illegal service and was eventually closed down because it was in breach of all known copyright laws, but now that the technology has emerged that can illegally download TV programmes and even the latest Hollywood blockbuster, the next few years will see a replay of the Napster debacle as the people who own the copyrights of the TV and film material attempt to close down the illegal sites and get people accustomed to paying for all the material they watch on the internet.
The television world has already begun to react by offering their programmes for sale on official sites. In the UK, Channel 4 has just announced details of its 4oD service, which allows people to legally download current and past programmes at a reasonable price. In another measure to try and pull people away from using the illegal sites, most TV stations on this side of the Atlantic have now promised to air their popular US imports days rather than months after they have been broadcast in the US.
THE FILM WORLD, though, is a lot more problematic. Although the main studios know that digital distribution is going to happen, they are reluctant to let go of their established economic model: a big opening weekend, then robust DVD sales followed by lucrative TV broadcast deals.There has been talk about online films for years, but early attempts at providing a safe, legal service proved to be very expensive and came with ridiculous restrictions on the user in an effort to thwart privacy. On the one hand, the film studios are reluctant to provide an internet service that will effectively decimate DVD sales, but on the other they are mindful of how the music industry reacted slowly and clumsily to counter the spread of online piracy and only after years of copyright court battles began to concentrate on providing safe and legal alternatives.
The bottom line here, though, is consumer demand, and all the relevant research is shouting that people want to watch TV programmes and films on their computers. There's an entanglement of copyright and piracy issues to sort out but, if substantial revenue streams are already being lost to the pirates, there remains little choice for all content providers to act swiftly.
It's time, for all concerned, to get with the online programme.