2MTL 64: Doctor Who's Unpredictable TV Future

We can't predict what Doctor Who will be like fifteen, ten, or maybe even five years from now. The rate of change in the way we communicate and obtain our entertainment has gone past "crazy" in the last few years and is inching toward "scary." Speaking of scary, while I can't predict the show's future, I can imagine a couple of dire scenarios!

I got the idea for this podcast thanks to the new Did You Know 4.0 video, embedded above. Find out more about the educators and futurists who put it together at the Fischbowl. As influential as their "Shift Happens" message has been in education and commerce, I'm almost ashamed to have spun their work into a commentary about a TV show. Almost.

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5 Comments

  1. I really hadn't thought about it this way. I thought I had come to terms with this whole new media thing, but the impact it will have on Doctor Who (something I really care about) just never really occurred to me. It really does make you wonder.

    And thanks for pointing toward the video, I'd not seen it before, and it's really quite fascinating.

  2. the words that kept passing through my head when I listened to your thoughts in the latest ep were "fad", "young" and "passing".

    All this Twitter, Facebook, YouTube etc nonsense really doesn't matter much when we compare it to established, ongoing concerns like the BBC.

    We will always still see Doctor Who on television. Look beyond all the young foppy haired fools and their IPhones and digital portable devices and see the millions, hundreds of millions around the world, who still seem to cope with this old-fashioned television in the living room situation.

    And i don't think it's something that is going to change. Youth will always experiment with the latest thing, but as one gets older one realises the tried and true methods of delivering content have been there all along.

    And please don't compare teh millions of YouTube videos of kids riding skateboards, filming the family cat, or other such distractions to something like Doctor Who. Drivel like that will always outweigh professional content like Doctor Who, so to base an assumption on just quantity is flawed.

    And piracy is a fact of life, to be sure. But that hasn't stopped the networks to continue to produce new and existing programs.

  3. First of all, I loved the subtle swipe at everybody's favorite reality-show host, John Barrowman.

    Secondly, wow, do I think Trevor is wrong. It's one thing to argue that numbers of videos in and of themselves do not equal evidence that older style media is dying–I'd agree with that. What *does* convince me that things are changing more rapidly than anyone had perhaps once predicted is the very fact that today's youth, and I include anyone under 35 or so in this, has already gone a long way toward adopting new ways of experiencing media. And, in case we forget, the children are our future. Perhaps in the UK, where the BBC is supported by tax dollars (!!!), there is a stronger sense of stability–here in the US, however, the times are changing. No one yet knows whether the future of media is YouTube or Netflix or Hulu. One thing is certain, though–the future is not CBS, NBC, ABC, and FOX. The idea of broadcasting itself is dying a slow death–the content will always be there, but definitively not in the way we're used to it.

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