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S E C T I O N R ᔢ T H E G L O B E A N D M A I L ᔢ C A N A D A ’ S N AT I O N A L N E W S P A P E R ᔢ G L O B E A N D M A I L . C O M ᔢ S AT U R D AY , F E B R U A RY 5 , 2 0 0 5
IN THE SHADOW OF SHIELDS: CAROL’S DAUGHTER WRITES HER FIRST BOOK, R7 ASK CARMEN ELECTRA ANYTHING, JUST DON’T TOUCH HER STOMACH, R3 THE CANADIAN WHO TAUGHT DiCAPRIO TO DO HUGHES, R9
A mind-boggling array of new technology empowers TV viewers to tape entire series with the click of a button, turn their computers into personal recorders, and trade their favourite shows over the Web. ‘You don’t have to schedule life around TV any more; it’s the other way around now.’ SIMON HOUPT
reports PHOTO ILLUSTRATION BY THE GLOBE AND MAIL
TODAY HIS BIG IDEA The man behind the TV revolution, A1 TELEVISION’S NOT THE BOSS OF ME Giving pause to an entire industry, R1
NEXT WEEK Day Two, Monday THE BIG SCREEN Can one of you kids please come in here and turn on the TV for me? Day Three, Tuesday THE NEW AESTHETICS They’re flat, sleek and the latest in arm candy. Day Four, Wednesday THE SPECIALTY CHANNEL How much ‘special’ TV can one man stand? A brave volunteer finds out Day Five, Thursday THE IQ FACTOR Your child watches a LOT of television. Should you be worried?
ill MacEachern’s wife thought he was nuts. For years, the Ottawa software engineer had been reading in the American press and on tech websites all about TiVo, a device that lets people record television programs with the press of a button. But his wife, Teri, didn’t know what the big deal was: They already had a VCR. Still, he recalled this week, she humoured him when Rogers Cable rolled out personal video recorders — one of the generic names for the device — in late 2003. She didn’t even hassle her husband about the $20-a-month service fee. “We were first in line when they came to Ottawa,” he recalled this week. And a few days after they plugged in their machine, Teri stopped rolling her eyes as she realized what Bill had known all along: The device was going to change their lives. “It’s one of those things,” he says, “that, once you’ve worked with it, you don’t know how you did without it.” If you’ve never used a PVR, you too may be rolling your eyes about now. But Michael Powell, the departing chairman of the U.S. Federal Communications Commission, isn’t the only one who believes it is “God’s machine,” as he called the TiVo two years ago. Essentially a large computer hard drive with a cool interface, the PVR — also known as the DVR, or digital video recorder — allows viewers to schedule the recording of an entire season of a show at the touch of a button. It can record 50 or more hours of programming, with no need to worry about whether you’ve got an empty tape or a spare DVD. And it lets viewers pause TV shows as they’re being broadcast. Which is especially important for sports fans. “I’m the king of leaving the room and having the Senators score a goal,” MacEachern says with a chuckle. And as the father of a three-year-old boy and a sixmonth-old girl, he says, “when you’ve got kids, they can interrupt you with no notice, so it’s nice just to hit pause and do what you have to do. You don’t have to schedule life around TV any more; it’s the other way around now.” MacEachern has a lot of company: Few advances in technology
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inspire the sort of immediate affection created by PVRs. A poll last fall by the Massachusetts-based technology-research firm Forrester Research found that 20 per cent of respondents voluntarily used the word “love” to describe their feelings for their machines. Fully half said it improved their lives. Introduced in the U.S. in late 1999, personal video recorders only began appearing in large numbers in Canada in 2003. While absolute numbers of those using PVRs are still low, all of the noise over TiVo appears to have primed the Canadian market for a steep upward curve of adoption: Rogers Cable Inc., which provides cable service in the eastern half of Canada, reports that, in the fourth quarter of 2004, 30 per cent of new subscribers to digital cable took a PVR box. But PVRs and DVRs are only one device changing the way we watch TV. Appointment viewing is quickly dying out, as a boggling array of new technology is enabling viewers to take control of programming to an extent that is making network executives break out in cold sweats. Despite the advent of the VCR, studies show that TV viewers still overwhelmingly watch television when it is broadcast. But if most viewers remain like impressionable preschoolers, dutifully following orders instructing them when to sit, when to watch, and when to take a pee break, a growing number are like spoiled university frosh, drunk on their newfound independence and the knowledge that they can drop in on their classes whenever they feel like it. When they do deign to watch TV, many are distracted. A recent study by the consumer-research firm Knowledge Networks, which has offices across the United States, indicates a greater level of viewer independence than ever before. Threequarters of those surveyed said they engaged in other activities while watching prime-time television, up from 67 per cent in 1994. That included 6 per cent of viewers who played video games while watching TV shows — up from only 1 per cent in 1994. And when something extraordinary happens on television, PVR users are glancing up from their video games and instant-messaging
screens, and sharing it with others. Janet Jackson’s wardrobe malfunction at last year’s Super Bowl was thrust into the spotlight largely because of the TiVo users who captured the moment and posted it to websites, where it became a media phenomenon. Using off-the-shelf computer parts and software, a small but growing hard-core segment of TV fans is also taking to trading shows
over the Net the way millions of people swap songs. Television producers fear that the activity could significantly threaten the economic viability of the TV industry by reducing the value of shows after their network runs. Most shows are produced at a loss, and production companies depend on syndication and DVD sales to clear a profit. See TV on page R15
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