This substantial gain in Internet speeds resulting from the shift to broadband, as well as the emergence of smartphones and compression technologies that enabled video to be accessed over 3G then 4G mobile data networks, provided the technological basis for the most significant adjustments in television technology. Seventy-two percent of homes owned a mobile phone by 2005, and 41 percent owned two or more.27 Though 31 percent of households had an Internet-capable mobile phone, or what were then called personal data assistants (PDAs), only 11 percent used the devices to access the Internet, and just 5 percent of mobile phone homes owned phones capable of receiving television-like video, and even fewer used this feature.28 By 2013, 65 percent of the 235 million U.S. mobile phone subscribers had a smartphone easily capable of accessing and screening video content, though this population spent only an average of 1 hour, 23 minutes per month, or 2.7 minutes per day, using their phone in this way.29
Considering television technology now requires looking beyond long-standard figures such as the number of sets and VCR penetration. As these data illustrate, Internet access and smartphone availability are just as important technological pieces to understanding post-network-era access to television content. And though notable increases are evident in the 2013 figures—so much so as to call a new era of television distribution into existence—it is important to reiterate that 28 percent of U.S. homes still had no Internet access.
Likewise, even by 2005, choice—measured by subscription to non–over-the-air providers and the number of channels available—seemed to have reached useful capacity. There always might be room for more—endlessly so, thanks to broadband-distributed video—but the average number of channels that audiences viewed suggested that few had interest in the expansion of linear channels. Nielsen estimated that despite exponential growth in availability, the number of channels viewed by a household tended to increase only slightly. A household with 31 to 40 channels viewed an average of 10.2, while those with 51 to 90 viewed just over 15. The number of channels viewed remained at 17 from 2008 through 2014, despite an increase in average channel availability from 129 to 189.30 The call for à la carte cable packaging that would allow viewers to select only the channels they desired had begun by the early 2000s, though it would take the perceived disruption of cord cutting a decade later to yield serious industry consideration.
On one hand, there was good evidence that a post-network era was emerging and that the “state” of television needed different forms of evaluation than those that had marked its quick rise to ubiquity. But there were also signs of network-era persistence: Even by 2012, aggregate Nielsen data indicated that despite nearly 50 percent DVR penetration and expanding VOD offerings, time spent viewing time-shifted content accounted for just under 8 percent of time spent viewing.31 Again, that is an aggregate figure, and perhaps the significance of time-shifted viewing gets lost in the use of background television; among some sectors of the audience, time-shifted viewing accounted for well over 20 percent of prime-time viewing. The stakes of such moments of transition are so considerable that selective release of data could affect perceptions just as significantly as not recognizing the new questions and methods that need to be explored.
Digital Control Yields Convenience
Digital technologies allow for such a new array of television uses that it is difficult to sort out the variety of technological affordances provided by different devices and how those then map onto or deviate from how audiences actually use them. The typical audience member may focus only on what different technologies do, and thus organize them differently than I do here, as I am also concerned with how the capabilities of devices also require adjustments in other production practices. This section examines the new conveniences offered by technologies, beginning with technologies that make home viewing more convenient, then those that enable portable (non-live) viewing out of the home, and finally a consideration of how the convenience of breaking from the linear schedule occurs across domestic and portable technologies.
Viewers first gained the convenience of defying networks’ schedules with the VCR, which established a modest beginning that since has been expanded by DVRs and digital devices that integrate Internet and television to vastly expand consumer control. The first technologies made television more convenient by allowing viewers greater control over when they would view, though continued to bind that viewing to domestic sets. By the time these domestic control technologies began reaching audiences larger than early adopters—around 2010—a second expansion in convenience emerged as the technology, infrastructure, and distribution strategies converged to meaningfully establish portable television. These technologies (laptops, tablets, and smartphones) and broadband-delivered aggregators (such as Netflix, YouTube, and Hulu) expanded the nonlinear viewing made possible by the first technologies by enabling viewers to access this content anywhere they could receive a broadcast signal, access a wireless Internet connection, or even receive a mobile phone signal—which, for those with ample financial resources, meant virtually anywhere in the United States.
The first digital control device, the DVR, initially appeared to offer little additional capability than the VCR. Yet its efficiency and ease of use made its contribution significant. While programming a VCR was perceived as so difficult that a joke about the flashing 12:00 VCR clock became ubiquitous, DVRs featured one-step recording capabilities from their introduction in 1999. For some DVR users, time shifting became the default mode of viewing for most programming—particularly in prime time—a difference suggestive of a shift from mere control to convenience. Even early-generation devices featured on-screen menus and programming schedules far easier to navigate and quicker to load than those offered by digital cable systems over a decade later. The remote capabilities available with some machines that enabled viewers to program the DVR from out of the home by accessing it via computer or mobile phone further illustrated the convergence of digital technologies and expanded control.
The ease of recording common to DVRs and their tape- and disc-free, hard-drive–based archive made them a significant threat to the conventional practices of the television industry. VCR users could—and unquestionably did—“zip” through commercials in recorded material, but VCR use tended to be restricted to more isolated occasions of particular shows; based on Nielsen data, MAGNA Global estimated that VCR recording accounted for only 6 percent of the average prime-time audience in 2005.32 Industry analysts marveled at the level of satisfaction earned by DVR technologies, as adopters recounted that their DVR “changed their lives” and professed “love” for the machine. Like many skeptics, I saw the DVR as an insubstantial advance from the VCR, until I used one. I quickly joined the converted as my whole approach to viewing television changed radically once I could easily control so many aspects of the experience. By the 2007-2008 season, as DVR penetration rates reached above 25 percent, networks and advertisers agreed to begin buying and selling advertising based on the “C3” report Nielsen had developed that included live viewing plus DVR viewers who watched recorded programs and viewed commercials within three days of recording.33 DVR penetration continued to grow, and networks agitated for a move to a “C7” measure that would count playback done within a week. Yet, though nearly 50 percent of homes had DVRs in 2013, Nielsen reported that homes with DVRs watched only eleven hours, thirty minutes of recorded programming each month—a mere 8 percent of average total viewing.34
The introduction of the DVR affected television in wide-ranging ways. DVRs were many viewers’ first experience with nonlinear viewing, a way of viewing that growing VOD offerings and online streaming from Netflix or Hulu would expand. The DVR also provided the first clear technological threat to the conventional advertising model of thirty-second commercials embedded in programming, and fear of this technology led to adjustments in advertising strategies and program financing models.
Yet by 2014, just as the DVR had infiltrated nearly half of television homes, its future began to appear uncertain. Distribution technologies such as VOD and online streaming that developed after the initial DVR diffusion suggest that its role in