1967: A family is crowded around the TV. It’s Wimbledon and, for the first time, a match is being broadcast in colour. The grass is a bit too green and only those closest to the screen can see the ball, but the response of the players’ show who has won the point. The room is buzzing as Briton Roger Taylor has match point.
2017: A father and son cheer the shot that has just won Andy Murray the point. The ball clipped the line so perfectly that they could see the white chalk bouncing off the court. Dad receives a text from his daughter, who is watching the match on her mobile from the Eurostar in France. “What a shot,” it says. Mum is out – she can see the highlights on catch-up later. No-one else is interested in the tennis, but two sisters are also in the living room streaming programmes onto their iPads.
The way we watch TV is changing. New, digital services from Netflix (US:NFLX), Amazon (US:AMZN) and Sky's (SKY) Now TV are luring viewers from traditional broadcast and cable networks. We are no longer reliant on the chunky box in the corner of the room. Nor do we have to worry about missing our favourite shows – catch-up TV has our back and, if not, many programmes end up on YouTube.
The end of TV as we know it paints a dim picture for the broadcasters, according to some of the more gloomy market commentators. It’s a sentiment that seems to be shared by many investors, who have battered the shares of global media groups in the past few years. But the evolution of the world’s most popular home entertainment system is nothing new and, if history is anything to go by, the ever-changing nature of the TV industry presents an opportunity as much as it does a challenge.