How iPad will Save Television

How the iPad Will Save Television

Inside Television 591
Publication Date: 2-17-12
By: Hubert O’Hearn

A few short celebrity notes before we get on with a few thoughts about the iPad and television. First, if you weren’t around at the time, you have no idea how big a star Whitney Houston was in the mid to late-eighties. At the time, I lived in Toronto and there were three huge record stores on Yonge Street each lit with enough neon signage to make Las Vegas look like a Carmelite nun. For you kids out there who have no idea what I’m talking about, a record store was where you went to buy things that fit in milk crates. In any event I recall one summer afternoon in, I think, 1986 and all three stores had pulled down their Michael Jackson displays for Thriller and replaced them with Whitney Houston. She was that big, both literally and poster-sized.

There’s a quite wonderful line in an equally wonderful novel by the Canadian writer Andrew Kaufman called The Waterproof Bible. One of the underwater humanoids who comes up on land (yes it has its science fiction elements) says that what we humans don’t get is that there are no happy or sad endings. It all depends where you stop telling the story. I’d prefer to end my thoughts on Whitney Houston’s story about 1993. The reasons I think are obvious.

Second note: Is it just me, is it just coincidence, or does it not seem that on the sports side celebrity athletes are going from unknown to meg-maxi-superstars in no time flat? Tim Tebow had started maybe four games in his professional career and he was a featured character on Saturday Night Live. Now Jeremy Lin, who starts at point guard for the New York Knicks in a ‘oh what the hell’ move by coach Mike D’Antoni, becomes a massive phenomenon after two games. At this writing, he’s been quite phenomenal for his first six; but still, they were printing T-shirts and running his picture repeatedly on the back cover of The Daily News after two games. It’s a wonderful story if it sticks. 

Billie Piper as Rose: Doctor Who, that's who!

What I really want to talk about is the iPad. I’m still relevantly new to it, however I am intrigued that one thing I am truly enjoying about it is the one thing I thought I’d never use it for: watching TV. I’ve just never quite understood the pleasure of watching programming likely to be available on a large screen on something 2 to 7 inches diagonal.

Well it does have something going for it and that is dedicated, on-demand channels. When I bought the iPad I immediately turned to the Guardian (guardian.co.uk) for tips on the best apps to load into it. They suggested the BBC iPlayer. What I love about it is that there are masses of free content: included are an excellent HARDtalk interview with Patrick Stewart, Michael Palin’s Pole to Pole, and the start of Jamie Oliver’s career with The Naked Chef. In short, taste stimulators across the spectrum. After a show ends, a very polite reminder comes up asking if one would like to spend a meagre $8.99 a month to have access to the entire BBC archive. Yes, including Doctor Who - the Billie Piper years.

This is what makes the iPad so intriguing in terms to television’s business model. My satellite bill is about a hundred bucks a month and there are times when there’s nothing on. For that same hundred, I could have roughly eleven stations within whose programming I can pick and choose. What seems the better choice to you? The iPad way is clearly the better way for broadcasters as they de facto will be making money off old content with virtually no costs added for delivery. Be seeing you.