When we talk of radio we are usually referring to the communications medium (sound broadcast to a receiver via radio waves), the receiver itself (a stationary or mobile radio set) or the content (radio programming). In discussing the latter, the content, that we tend to be unambiguous. If we listen to a song on the radio, we say that we are listening to the radio. When we listen to the same song on a CD or as an MP3 file, we do not say we are listening to the radio. It we listen to a recorded version of a radio program, we are likely to refer to it by its format (MP3) or as a 'podcast'. It's clear, then, in our minds and in our conversation, that the scope of the word radio is limited to that medium and the message - but only when that message is conveyed by that medium. Of course, the obvious exception to what I've just said is internet radio. In the case of internet radio, we are using an alternate communications medium (internet protocol (IP) packets) and a different receiver (some sort of IP-enabled device, most commonly a computer). Nonetheless, we are clear in how we express our relationship to this new version of radio: "I am listening to radio over the internet" (not "I am listening to the internet"). If we listen via the internet to a program streamed by a conventional radio broadcaster, we would call it a radio program. However, the same content, if streamed or downloaded as a discrete element, becomes a podcast or MP3 file in our vernacular. If it's being streamed as part of a continuous music stream, we think of it as an online music [streaming] service, not radio. The term "radio", then, is used in clear and generally unambiguous ways.
The usage of the word "television", on the other hand, has been getting muddier and muddier as time goes by. In the beginning, the sole delivery mechanism for television was via over-the-air radio frequency (RF) waves from a station's transmitter to a viewer's home antenna. From there, the signal was delivered to a single receiver (the TV set). TV was the medium; TV was the message; TV was the device.
Along came cable TV, where multiple antennae at the cable company's headend replaced the consumer's own antenna. The signals collected (aggregated) at the headend were retransmitted to the consumer over the cable company's network. Today cable companies acquire their signals in a variety of ways (antenna, satellite, fibre optics) and the retransmission is shifting from analogue to digital, but the basic concept remains the same: cable TV replaces the antenna in the consumer's home. Satellite TV is functionally equivalent. Similar means are employed by the satellite operator to collect and aggregate the content. That content is then beamed up to a satellite which, in turn, transmits the content back to earth. Like cable TV, satellite replaces the home antenna. Along with the wide-spread adoption of cable and satellite, we've also seen a proliferation of TV sets within the home. Today, both cable and satellite offer a vast array of content that would never be available to viewers who only had a home antenna, either because the signal in question doesn't reach their antenna due to geographic limitations or because, as is the case with many digital stations, there is no over-the-air broadcast of the content to begin with. Nonetheless, TV remained the medium, the message and the device. And, until very recently, that was pretty much the state of television: a signal, received either over the air, by cable, or by satellite for subsequent delivery to a fixed-location TV set.
Of course, we've long had VCRs, and with them the ability to record TV content for subsequent viewing. VCRs introduced a minor disruption in the flow, but they haven't fundamentally changed the transmission mechanisms or the devices upon which we eventually view the content. If we bought the same content on tape (for example, a season of Friends episodes) we might, when watching the tapes, say that we are watching Friends, or that we are watching a tape, or... that we are watching TV. Compare that to listening to a CD - in that case, we would never say we were listening to the radio. Why? Well, I think there are a couple of reasons for that.
The first reason is that recorded music pre-dated radio. With the introduction of radio, recorded music was broadcast for the first time, but the recorded music itself was, and continued to be, available in its own right. TV content, on the other hand, was born for the most part with the television (the medium) and that content was, for the longest time, only available by way of that medium. Only within the last 15 years or so has it become possible to "own" TV content as a discrete element that existed outside of the TV set. Consequently, for 40 years I Love Lucy was a TV show, it was TV content, it was always very closely associated with the medium for which it was created. Today I can watch an I Love Lucy DVD on a stand-alone DVD player - no TV set or transmission involved - yet the experience remains that of "watching TV".
The other reason is because how we think about our audio devices has evolved over time but that's not the case for television. In the early days of audio components in the home folks talked of listening to the phonograph or, perhaps, the wireless. These were separate, disconnected components. When we first interconnected them, via what came to be known as the "hi-fi" and was subsequently displaced by the ubiquitous "stereo", we identified what we were listening to either by the medium ("the radio", "a record", "a tape") or the device ("the receiver", "the tuner", "the turntable", "the tape deck"). Sometimes we would say we were listening to the "hi-fi", or, now, "the stereo". These devices have a distinct name (hi-fi / stereo) that is different than any of the components they connected; they have a distinct role as a audio switching and amplification device.
The modern TV is very different that that of yore. Previously, the TV set included a tuner, a display device (the picture tube), and an internal amplifier and a speaker for sound reproduction. When we first added VCR functionality to our homes, we didn't introduce a new switching device the way we did with the hi-fi/stereo. Rather, we piggy-backed on the existing connection (possibly a built-in cable connection or a matching transformer) and the TV remained a dumb appliance. The VCR, in fact, was the switching device. Over time, the TV set did evolve and came to incorporate multiple input connections and it took on the switching function. But - and this is where TV differs from the audio world - we still called this new enhanced device a TV set. Consequently, we are "watching TV" whether we are watching 'broadcast' television, a video tape or a DVD. So, when we say we are listening to the radio, we generally mean just that - we are listening to a radio broadcast on a radio device. We don't say we are listening to the radio when we are in fact listening to a CD. However, when we say we are watching TV we may mean one of many different things. Perhaps if the leap from stand-alone TV set to switching-capable audio-video entertainment device been more dramatic, as was the case in the audio world with device integration occurring only with the introduction of new built-for-purpose hardware, we would now have a name that accurately describes (or at least differentiates) the device from the medium in the TV world. But we don't. So, while radio refers to a transmission medium, a reception device, and to the specific message that travels between transmitter and receiver, TV has a much less-clear definition. It refers to a transmission medium, a reception device, and a specific message that travels between transmitter and receiver. However, it also often refers to any content viewed on a TV set. More confusing yet, we now tend to refer to any video content on any video device as TV.
Take a 'mobisode' broadcast to a cell phone as an example. By any traditional standards, the cell phone is not a TV set. Arguably, as well, the transmission isn't a TV transmission since it does not use any of the conventional TV transmission mechanisms. As for the content itself, what make this TV? The content shares similar properties to TV in that it is comprised of both an audio and video signal, and it may in fact be content that is shown on TV as well. But what if it isn't? What if this is content that is produced exclusively for the mobile device? Well, certainly we've adopted the practice of referring to such content as TV - and perhaps justifiably so.
So what about the internet? Certainly any content that was produced for television that is subsequently consumed on the internet is still television. What if that content resides side-by-side with home videos at any of the many content aggregation sites such as myspace.com, YouTube or even iTunes Video. Does that mean that the famous video of Bowiechick playing with her new webcam constitutes TV? Having been uploaded to myspace and YouTube, it now co-exists in cyberspace with other uploaded content including commercial television content. Other than the original intent for which they were created, such content is more alike than different. And if Bowiechick's video aired first on America's Funniest Home Videos, would it then have a greater claim to being television even though the content was identical? What if it was available on myspace first, then aired on AFHV? Does its status change such that it now becomes TV but wasn't before?
Clearly, the definition of what constitutes TV is anything but clear. It's a transmission medium, a device, a term for a specific type of audio-video content, as well as a generalized term for audio-video content. I may "watch TV on my cellphone", but I don't "watch my cellphone". Likewise, I may "watch TV on the internet" but I don't "watch the internet". I'd sound redundant, though, if I were to say "I am watching TV on my TV" but how else do you accurately describe the experience of watching a television broadcast (as opposed to, say, a movie DVD) on a standalone TV set and differentiate that from, say, watching a mobisode on my cellphone? Gone are the days when simply "watching TV" was an unambiguous description of any activity. Today, TV is the medium, TV is the message... TV is the experience. Our definition of TV must be broad, but we must also qualify carefully what we mean when we speak of TV to ensure we are clear on which 'TV' we are discussing.
The usage of the word "television", on the other hand, has been getting muddier and muddier as time goes by. In the beginning, the sole delivery mechanism for television was via over-the-air radio frequency (RF) waves from a station's transmitter to a viewer's home antenna. From there, the signal was delivered to a single receiver (the TV set). TV was the medium; TV was the message; TV was the device.
Along came cable TV, where multiple antennae at the cable company's headend replaced the consumer's own antenna. The signals collected (aggregated) at the headend were retransmitted to the consumer over the cable company's network. Today cable companies acquire their signals in a variety of ways (antenna, satellite, fibre optics) and the retransmission is shifting from analogue to digital, but the basic concept remains the same: cable TV replaces the antenna in the consumer's home. Satellite TV is functionally equivalent. Similar means are employed by the satellite operator to collect and aggregate the content. That content is then beamed up to a satellite which, in turn, transmits the content back to earth. Like cable TV, satellite replaces the home antenna. Along with the wide-spread adoption of cable and satellite, we've also seen a proliferation of TV sets within the home. Today, both cable and satellite offer a vast array of content that would never be available to viewers who only had a home antenna, either because the signal in question doesn't reach their antenna due to geographic limitations or because, as is the case with many digital stations, there is no over-the-air broadcast of the content to begin with. Nonetheless, TV remained the medium, the message and the device. And, until very recently, that was pretty much the state of television: a signal, received either over the air, by cable, or by satellite for subsequent delivery to a fixed-location TV set.
Of course, we've long had VCRs, and with them the ability to record TV content for subsequent viewing. VCRs introduced a minor disruption in the flow, but they haven't fundamentally changed the transmission mechanisms or the devices upon which we eventually view the content. If we bought the same content on tape (for example, a season of Friends episodes) we might, when watching the tapes, say that we are watching Friends, or that we are watching a tape, or... that we are watching TV. Compare that to listening to a CD - in that case, we would never say we were listening to the radio. Why? Well, I think there are a couple of reasons for that.
The first reason is that recorded music pre-dated radio. With the introduction of radio, recorded music was broadcast for the first time, but the recorded music itself was, and continued to be, available in its own right. TV content, on the other hand, was born for the most part with the television (the medium) and that content was, for the longest time, only available by way of that medium. Only within the last 15 years or so has it become possible to "own" TV content as a discrete element that existed outside of the TV set. Consequently, for 40 years I Love Lucy was a TV show, it was TV content, it was always very closely associated with the medium for which it was created. Today I can watch an I Love Lucy DVD on a stand-alone DVD player - no TV set or transmission involved - yet the experience remains that of "watching TV".
The other reason is because how we think about our audio devices has evolved over time but that's not the case for television. In the early days of audio components in the home folks talked of listening to the phonograph or, perhaps, the wireless. These were separate, disconnected components. When we first interconnected them, via what came to be known as the "hi-fi" and was subsequently displaced by the ubiquitous "stereo", we identified what we were listening to either by the medium ("the radio", "a record", "a tape") or the device ("the receiver", "the tuner", "the turntable", "the tape deck"). Sometimes we would say we were listening to the "hi-fi", or, now, "the stereo". These devices have a distinct name (hi-fi / stereo) that is different than any of the components they connected; they have a distinct role as a audio switching and amplification device.
The modern TV is very different that that of yore. Previously, the TV set included a tuner, a display device (the picture tube), and an internal amplifier and a speaker for sound reproduction. When we first added VCR functionality to our homes, we didn't introduce a new switching device the way we did with the hi-fi/stereo. Rather, we piggy-backed on the existing connection (possibly a built-in cable connection or a matching transformer) and the TV remained a dumb appliance. The VCR, in fact, was the switching device. Over time, the TV set did evolve and came to incorporate multiple input connections and it took on the switching function. But - and this is where TV differs from the audio world - we still called this new enhanced device a TV set. Consequently, we are "watching TV" whether we are watching 'broadcast' television, a video tape or a DVD. So, when we say we are listening to the radio, we generally mean just that - we are listening to a radio broadcast on a radio device. We don't say we are listening to the radio when we are in fact listening to a CD. However, when we say we are watching TV we may mean one of many different things. Perhaps if the leap from stand-alone TV set to switching-capable audio-video entertainment device been more dramatic, as was the case in the audio world with device integration occurring only with the introduction of new built-for-purpose hardware, we would now have a name that accurately describes (or at least differentiates) the device from the medium in the TV world. But we don't. So, while radio refers to a transmission medium, a reception device, and to the specific message that travels between transmitter and receiver, TV has a much less-clear definition. It refers to a transmission medium, a reception device, and a specific message that travels between transmitter and receiver. However, it also often refers to any content viewed on a TV set. More confusing yet, we now tend to refer to any video content on any video device as TV.
Take a 'mobisode' broadcast to a cell phone as an example. By any traditional standards, the cell phone is not a TV set. Arguably, as well, the transmission isn't a TV transmission since it does not use any of the conventional TV transmission mechanisms. As for the content itself, what make this TV? The content shares similar properties to TV in that it is comprised of both an audio and video signal, and it may in fact be content that is shown on TV as well. But what if it isn't? What if this is content that is produced exclusively for the mobile device? Well, certainly we've adopted the practice of referring to such content as TV - and perhaps justifiably so.
So what about the internet? Certainly any content that was produced for television that is subsequently consumed on the internet is still television. What if that content resides side-by-side with home videos at any of the many content aggregation sites such as myspace.com, YouTube or even iTunes Video. Does that mean that the famous video of Bowiechick playing with her new webcam constitutes TV? Having been uploaded to myspace and YouTube, it now co-exists in cyberspace with other uploaded content including commercial television content. Other than the original intent for which they were created, such content is more alike than different. And if Bowiechick's video aired first on America's Funniest Home Videos, would it then have a greater claim to being television even though the content was identical? What if it was available on myspace first, then aired on AFHV? Does its status change such that it now becomes TV but wasn't before?
Clearly, the definition of what constitutes TV is anything but clear. It's a transmission medium, a device, a term for a specific type of audio-video content, as well as a generalized term for audio-video content. I may "watch TV on my cellphone", but I don't "watch my cellphone". Likewise, I may "watch TV on the internet" but I don't "watch the internet". I'd sound redundant, though, if I were to say "I am watching TV on my TV" but how else do you accurately describe the experience of watching a television broadcast (as opposed to, say, a movie DVD) on a standalone TV set and differentiate that from, say, watching a mobisode on my cellphone? Gone are the days when simply "watching TV" was an unambiguous description of any activity. Today, TV is the medium, TV is the message... TV is the experience. Our definition of TV must be broad, but we must also qualify carefully what we mean when we speak of TV to ensure we are clear on which 'TV' we are discussing.
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