AHC: Kill Television

With a POD no earlier than 1900, make it so that television is not a viable medium for popular entertainment and communication by the year 2000.
 
Have a terrible catastrophe hit the wrld causing technology levels to be thrown backe a few centuries.
 
In that case their's no real way, Television became popular because people like being entertained, even more so when they can see stuff, plus TV allows for the creation of fantastical fiction that you can't otherwise create.
 
In that case their's no real way, Television became popular because people like being entertained, even more so when they can see stuff, plus TV allows for the creation of fantastical fiction that you can't otherwise create.

You need to push back inventions about 10 years and have *Hulu, *Youtube, and *Netflix be a lot more successful, and you need to make sure that by then the Internet becomes the dominant form of entertainment, instead of TV.
 
There isn't one really, or at least there isn't one that won't butterfly away most other modern technology too
 
Yeah, you can delay things (such as by having the Coronation not televised which would push back the date for widespread TV purchasing in the UK), but once you've got Radio and Cinema (of which the early versions are around by 1900), someone's going to see that there's the potential for a lot of profit in combining the two, and that's essentially going to give you TV.
 
Yeah, you can delay things (such as by having the Coronation not televised which would push back the date for widespread TV purchasing in the UK), but once you've got Radio and Cinema (of which the early versions are around by 1900), someone's going to see that there's the potential for a lot of profit in combining the two, and that's essentially going to give you TV.

I'm not looking at delaying things, I'm looking at fast forwarding the invention of certain things and successfully convincing people that watching shows on the *Internet is a lot better than watching it on *TV.
 
Not sure if this would do it, but you could have open radio continue, having new stations homestead their frequencies instead of setting up the FCC to assign them -- combine this with ubiquitous personal listening devices, and by the time television OTL was ready for mass market, TTL hasn't got in the habit of families gathering around the radio, among other changes.
 
You need to push back inventions about 10 years and have *Hulu, *Youtube, and *Netflix be a lot more successful, and you need to make sure that by then the Internet becomes the dominant form of entertainment, instead of TV.

The thing is, those things are only used by a relatively small minority now; people (especially here for some reason) may like to go on about how they don't a TV/have'nt watched one in years, but the reality is that the large majority of people, including Generation Y, continue to primarily watch TV, only really using the Internet stuff as additional sources when they can't find something.
 
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The thing is, those things are only used by a relatively smallminority now; people (especially here for some reason) may like to go on about how they don't a TV/have'nt watched on in years, but the reality is that the large majority of people, including of Generation Y, continue to primarily watch TV, only really using the Internet stuff as additional sources when they can't find something.

A lot of the younger members of Generation Y have been switching over to their phones, the smartphone apps, the smartphone games, and Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
 
Circa 1925, someone invents a cheap, compact film projector suitable for home use. It becomes a popular fad among the rich, but remains inaccessible to the masses because of the expense of film prints. Nonetheless, it popularizes the idea of watching films at home, creating a demand for a cheaper, more portable means of distributing movies for home use.

The answer is magnetic tape, a technology which had recently been invented in Germany. In OTL magnetic tape remained a cumbersome reel-to-reel affair until the 70's. But in TTL, economic demand leads to a massive investment in this technology. As a result, the compact cassette is invented several decades earlier, circa 1935. The technology completely supplants vinyl records, and is snapped up by film studios, which begin producing home versions of their films. Initially these are a niche item, but sales increase after the end of WWII, when home cinemas become a canonical fixture of every proud middle-class home.

Because this medium develops as a direct offshoot of the film industry, it is cinematic in its conventions. It consists of newsreels, short subjects, and feature-length films. There are serials, but not TV shows as we know them. There are no commercials, because cassettes are bought at shops, like records. In short, there is no distinct medium called "television". It is simply cinema in the home.

Crucially, the latency inherent in the technology allows radio to retain its relevance and prestige for much longer. People still depend on radio for up-to-the-minute news, sports, etc. Even after it becomes technologically feasible to broadcast live images, the convention persists due to habit and protective regulation fostered by the two industries. The same cultural duality that once existed between radio and cinema continues to exist to the present day, except that cinema migrates from theaters into people's houses.
 
I'm not looking at delaying things, I'm looking at fast forwarding the invention of certain things and successfully convincing people that watching shows on the *Internet is a lot better than watching it on *TV.

Meh, call me when you can get guarenteed fast streaming/download speed connections outside the major cities, and when you can find anywhere on line that allows you to stream Citizen Kane, Star Wars, Metropolis, Star Trek...

Until then people will still need some sort of TV-like device to watch films on at home, so it's far more likely that they'll watch television on the TV than online.
 
Circa 1925, someone invents a cheap, compact film projector suitable for home use. It becomes a popular fad among the rich, but remains inaccessible to the masses because of the expense of film prints. Nonetheless, it popularizes the idea of watching films at home, creating a demand for a cheaper, more portable means of distributing movies for home use.

The answer is magnetic tape, a technology which had recently been invented in Germany. In OTL magnetic tape remained a cumbersome reel-to-reel affair until the 70's. But in TTL, economic demand leads to a massive investment in this technology. As a result, the compact cassette is invented several decades earlier, circa 1935. The technology completely supplants vinyl records, and is snapped up by film studios, which begin producing home versions of their films. Initially these are a niche item, but sales increase after the end of WWII, when home cinemas become a canonical fixture of every proud middle-class home.

Because this medium develops as a direct offshoot of the film industry, it is cinematic in its conventions. It consists of newsreels, short subjects, and feature-length films. There are serials, but not TV shows as we know them. There are no commercials, because cassettes are bought at shops, like records. In short, there is no distinct medium called "television". It is simply cinema in the home.

Crucially, the latency inherent in the technology allows radio to retain its relevance and prestige for much longer. People still depend on radio for up-to-the-minute news, sports, etc. Even after it becomes technologically feasible to broadcast live images, the convention persists due to habit and protective regulation fostered by the two industries. The same cultural duality that once existed between radio and cinema continues to exist to the present day, except that cinema migrates from theaters into people's houses.

I would seriously love to see this turn into an actual TL.
 
I watch tv a lot less than I used to but I still watch it, and call me old fashioned but when it comes to movies I prefer to buy a physical DVD or record something on TV rather than stream or download.
 
I watch tv a lot less than I used to but I still watch it, and call me old fashioned but when it comes to movies I prefer to buy a physical DVD or record something on TV rather than stream or download.
same here. tbph, watching stuff over the internet or a similar function (like netflix) feels kinda like cheating
 
It does, I also hate watching stuff on my lap top screen when I have a full sized one a couple of meters away.
well personally i still watch Netflix on my flatscreen when i want to, and i still use my laptop to watch just about anything else if it's available ONLY on the internet
 
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