Television.... what does it do?

Till grade ten I remember watching television very religiously. Greater part of the time was spent on watching sitcoms. Below are few sitcoms containing high recall proteins:

Marshal: A detective solving murder mysteries
Sabina: Saga of a magical woman
Mayamruga: One of the feathers in T N Seetharam’s large sized cap which was widely viewed and obsessed serial amongst elder generation would not be an understatement
Mahabharatha and Ramayana: A Sagar productions, who etched the image of Raama and Krsna as Raama and Krsna in our minds!
Shaktiman: The Superman for us Indians, Mukesh Khanna who spins like a top but in air at the speed of light. He was the only savior of all evil. The villain to me brought humor than what he was supposed to bring as a villain.
Duck Tales: A Walt Disney Production, very popular during that time amongst toddlers and even now I guess
Swat Cats: An animated series created by Christian and Yvon Tremblay and produced by Hanna-Barbera and Turner Program Services. I learned the adage ‘Curiosity killed the cat’ which was often used by The Deputy Mayor of Megakat City

Evenings during weekends were time for Hindi or Kannada movies which I habitually missed for better and energetic activity, playing cricket. In spite of giving deaf ears to directors and actors plead to watch their movies they still didn’t give up their hopes. Sanguine bunch of people I tell you!

In the "Facebook" of social networking sites, youtube, blogs and podcasts where does the ‘idiot box’ stand today? (You go back and reread)
Pardon, I meant ‘In the "world" of…..’
Who thinks television as an integral part of one’s life like before?
This augurs the obsession with T N Seetharam’s and Sagar Productions sitcoms has transcended to Facebook, myspace, LinkedIn, Twitter, hi5 and more. Don’t muse, Orkut is defunct or something like that.

Despite the fact that there are myriad watchable, knowledgeable and enjoyable programmes aired it doesn’t interests us as much as Internet. Colossal load of information waiting to be viewed on the net divert the attention from television and leaving the ‘idiot box’ as NOT a source of entertainment or knowledge.
Television is no contender for Internet due to disadvantages, portability and speed.
Why would you wait for 9 ‘o’ clock news on television when you can read/hear/watch latest happenings around the world with a jiffy delay on your iPhone or Android phone from anywhere and everywhere in the world? Unlike before you get to choose what you want to read/hear/watch.

Here is a supporting article from Harvard Business Review which gives statistics and talks about the declining trend in television viewership especially amongst the younger generation in spite of diligent efforts from the media strategists and advertisers.

To conclude, unless there is shift in the way television is perceived there won’t be any surge in the number of television viewers but the plummeting trend will continue.

An observation worth sharing

The below article appears as a metaphor for life to my mind. It seems like the author has streamlined it to digital marketing after realising this concept and practice of 'Get Active Everywhere Else' relating to one's life or maybe he hasn't and it's purely my vantage point on the article.

Sharing the link tzoo.bz/bfr4 if you feel hostile staying on my blog page for long ;-)

Get Active Everywhere Else...

By: Mitch Joel

Have you ever wondered why there is such a struggle to build a sense of community around the digital marketing initiatives you are developing? Community building goes well beyond the famous movie line, "If you build it, they will come" from Field of Dreams. There is one critical piece of the puzzle that most marketers and self-proclaimed "community managers" forget: It's not about what's happening on your space as much as it is about what you're doing on the communities that serve your industry and space. You will have no semblance of community unless you are an active community member in the other spaces. If I had to do this job all over again and start from scratch right now, what would I do? Without question, I would start a blog and fill it with relevant and valuable content for the community, but I would spend 10 times as much time adding value to the five or 10 existing communities where my potential members might be hanging out, reading, and connecting. It's not a ploy and it's not a trick; I would do this because I am interested and want to engage with the other community members. I would also be hopeful that those community members would be appreciative of my contributions and take a chance on checking out what I'm up to on my own space. Give more than you get. Some people hear that phrase and think it's about giving more on their own space (blogging more or tweeting more). Big mistake. The "win" (if you can even call it that) is to give away more on existing/other communities and spaces. To be valuable and relevant there. This strategy does seem so counterintuitive at first blush. The idea is to populate and add value to someone else's platform and community? Yes. Hugh McGuire (from Librivox, Bite-Sized Edits, and a co-host on Media Hacks) said it beautifully andsuccinctly: "Don't blog to be known... blog to be knowable." It's subtle... and it's true. The community decides when it's a community... you don't. When you are an active member of an existing community, its members will, if everything goes well, become proud participants and members of your community. They don't owe it to you -- and just because you created a platform doesn't give you explicit rights to any community. As mentioned here, there, and everywhere:Community is something that is earned after time and value. Community is not something that happens when you need it, it's something that you build over time and is suddenly there for you when you need it. If you want to build a community, be an active community member everywhere else first... and mean it.