in the home, the initial contrast between the experience of using computers and watching television led users to differentiate between screen media according to whether they required us to push or pull content, lean back or lean forward, and pursue leisure or work. Subsequently, however, digital technologies have come to dismantle these early differentiations and tendencies of use and have allowed for the previously unimagined integration of television and computers—of all types—in the post-network era. This integration occurred concomitantly first with the growth in home computer ownership, which rose from 11 percent in 1985 to 30 percent in 1995, 67 percent by 2005, and 80 percent by 2013.17 Second, the rapid diffusion of smartphones—devices in 65 percent of homes owning televisions by 2013—further disrupted expectations of devices and the capabilities of screens even since preliminary suggestions of the post-network era emerged. Mobile devices, however, are not necessarily used for mobile viewing: 2013 research revealed that 64 percent of smartphone TV/video use occurs in the home, suggesting that most use is simply for the convenience of viewing more places within the home.18 Smartphones have quickly accustomed their users to expect to be able to engage in any “computer” need from any location, which has encouraged expectations of convenient access to television content.
The technological experience of personal computing and smartphone use is important beyond the growing convergence of media in the latter part of the multi-channel transition period because of the new technological aptitudes and expectations embodied in their use. The presumption that technologies “do” something useful and that we “do” something with them has played a significant role in adjusting network-era behavior with regard to television. The media theorist Dan Harries refers to the blending of old media viewing and new media using as “viewsing.”19 Thinking about such activities as being merged, rather than as being distinct, takes important steps beyond the binaries between computer and television technologies commonly assumed in the past and addresses the multiple modes of viewing and using that audiences began to exhibit by the end of the multi-channel transition. The distinction of “computing” has also become as unstable as “television,” as computing has moved beyond the PC and become integrated into a wide range of mobile devices used constantly and in an array of contexts in a manner that makes the notion of computing as an activity done at a desk increasingly residual.
Related generational differences have also played a key role in changing uses of television.20 Many of the distinctions such as broadcast versus cable—let alone between television and computer—that have structured understandings of television are meaningless to those born after 1980. Most members of this generation (dubbed “Millennials” or “digital natives”) never knew a world without cable, were introduced to the Internet before graduating from high school, and carried mobile phones with them from the time they were first allowed out in the world on their own.21 The older edge of this generation provoked a new economic model in the recording industry through rampant illegal downloading, while their younger peers may own elaborate music collections that lack any physical form such as CDs.
Acculturated with a range of communication technologies from birth, this generation moves fluidly and fluently among technologies. Anne Sweeney, then cochair of Disney media networks and president of the Disney-ABC television group, cited research in 2006 indicating that 40 percent of Millennials went home each evening and used five to eight technologies (many simultaneously), while 40 percent of their Boomer parents returned home and only watched television.22 Similarly, a 2006 report by IBM Business Consulting Services emphasized the “bimodality” of television consumers in coming years. It predicted a “generational chasm” between the “massive passives” (mainly Boomers who retained network-era television behaviors), “gadgetiers” (members of the middling Generation X who were not acculturated with new technologies from birth but were more willing to experiment with them), and “kool kids” (the Millennials).23 Younger generations, who have approached television and technology in general with very different expectations than their predecessors, have also introduced new norms of use. For example, the television scholar Jason Mittell reflects on the significance of the arrival of a DVR in his home at the same time as his first child, and notes that when she came to ask, “What is on television?” the question referred to what shows might be stored on the hard drive, as she had no sense of the limited access to scheduled programming assumed by most others.24 The widespread availability of control technologies provides a different experience for younger generations, who may never associate networks with television viewing in the same manner as their predecessors. As the generation that came of age using television to watch videos and DVDs and to play video games becomes employed in the industry, it will enable even greater reimagining of television content and use.
At a summit entitled “The Future of Television” sponsored by the trade publication Television Week in September 2004, all but one of the panelists used evidence drawn from observations of their children’s approach to television as justification for their arguments about the new directions of the medium. In addition to their children not operating with a model of television organized by networks and linear schedules, the executives noted, with awe, the mediated multitasking that defined their children’s television use. Research that continues to show growth in all media use supports these anecdotes. For example, as of 2007, time spent viewing television had not diminished despite continued expansion in time spent using the Internet; instead, multiple media have come to be simultaneously used. By 2012, the industry had termed this “second screen” use and found that 85 percent of tablet or smartphone users use these devices while watching television at least once a day, mostly to check e-mail or social media or send text messages.25 Generations who are growing up with smartphones and tablets are accustomed to using multiple technologies to achieve a desired end, whether to access information, find entertainment, or communicate with friends. Such comfort in moving across technologies—or what those in the industry refer to as “media agnosticism”—has been crucial to the adoption of devices for watching television and ways of doing so that further facilitate the shift to the post-network era.
In sum, while features of a post-network era have come to be more apparent, such an era will be fully in place only when choice is no longer limited to program schedules and the majority of viewers use the opportunities offered by new technologies and industrial practices. Post-network television is primarily nonlinear rather than linear, and it could not be established until dominant network-era practices became so outmoded that the industry developed new practices in their place. The gradual adjustment in how viewers use television, and corresponding gradual shifts in production practices, have taken more than two decades to transpire, which is why I distinguish this intermediate period as the multi-channel transition. During this time, viewers experienced a marked increase in choice and achieved limited control over the viewing experience. But the post-network era allows them to choose among programs produced in any decade, by amateurs and professionals, and to watch this programming on demand on main “living room” sets, computer screens, or portable devices.
Implications of a Post-Network Era
I used to start each semester by surveying my classes in search of a show we all shared in common to draw examples from throughout the term. This was a pretty easy feat in my first few years of teaching in the early 2000s. Usually I found a show on my first (Friends) or second (ER) try. By 2007, I gave up on such unanimity. Instead I now gather a sense of what different factions of students might be watching, as it has been a while since I taught a class in which we had all seen the same show at least once (yes, even American Idol, Jersey Shore, or Real Housewives). This development illustrates an important consequence of the choice in viewing provided by the post-network era. The hundreds of channels offering programming by the end of the multi-channel transition significantly fragmented the audience. Then, by the end of 2010, viewers could readily access hundreds of television shows from any era on DVD or online, and an amateur video clip could reach as large an audience as a network show. Although only early adopters may have been viewing television in these new ways by this time, these developments suggest additional coming fragmentation.
One of the first
