Since the internet has become the number one source of entertainment in the whole world, thus providing accessibility to everything from anywhere, the television industry could not just stand by watching its star fade away. It had to do something, and it did.

The first main innovation was to include television series into the iTunes Store and the creation of Hulu. These are sources from where you can download basically anything that has been shown on television in America. Of course, this service comes with a price, but that price is reasonable. Its only problem is that it is not accessible from everywhere. Due to "geobanning", most countries are excluded from these services. Hulu is only available in America, while this part of the iTunes store is accessible almost exclusively from the world-leading countries, such as the US, the UK, France, Germany, etc. Until this changes, the only opportunity that little European countries are left with are the use of torrent sites. This is not profitable for anyone included in the production process, so these companies should expand their area of services. They are under the illusion that there is not a big enough customer base for these kind of services yet, but based on my experiences, they are wrong.

Another path that the television industry tried to follow was the creation of webseries. These series are created exclusively for internet viewing. They can be original series, such as Take Me Back - the best try so far -, or Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog - a series by Neil Patrick Harris -, or they can be miniseries that somehow relate to the original series, such as Office, True Blood, or Rescue Me webisodes. TV channels may try to keep up the buzz and the hype of their shows throughout non-airing times as well by using the opportunities that the internet offers. Series such as Heroes or Lost invited their fans on investigative journeys by creating websites and tasks to complete each week. Or, in the case of Dexter, creators used the interactivity of the internet to advertise the game, which we can see in the video below:



One more interesting thing in the connection between the internet and television is the opposite of what we have seen so far. It is when the internet is trying to work its way into television. In the case of the webseries Quarterlife, NBC decided to do what no channel has ever done before: to broadcast it on national TV. The website Funny or Die, which is a site full of humorous videos, such as the Between Two Ferns series with Zach Galfianakis (below) has made it onto television just recently. It is very interesting to see how the internet and television are changing each other mutually. And, for sure, we haven't seen everything yet. I'm looking forward to what the future holds.

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