As of today, broadcast TV in the USA is offically digital. In an effort to close the “analog hole“, we now get all of our broadcasts coming in lucious 1’s and 0’s. There’s a really good read (with suprisingly civil comments).
Summary: with digital broadcast TV being seen as one of the ultimate forms of DRM to preserve the broadcast TV business model, TV as a business is now officially in denial. Much like the newspapers have been for the last 10 years.
What I find interesting is that I would basically agree that TV advertising revenues are basically out of whack, but what happens when they “normalize”. The biggest victims will be the professional sports leagues and athletes. Now, I love sports, but I don’t have much love lost for the outrageous salaries of pro athletes. Wall Street got their come-uppance, and in a couple of years it will be sports’ turn. The NBA has already started taking steps, they actually DROPPED their salary cap by 10% next year.
So now that the finance guys are no longer paid ungodly sums, and pro athletes are soon to follow, maybe being a professional geek (engineer) is not a bad thing.