I'm writing an essay on the impact of emerging technologies on the film and television industries and it got me thinking about the future or to be more precise, how we'll be watching TV and who will be making it.

At the moment TV and the internet are still fairly seperate things, theres been convergence for example the importance of a website for a tv program as a marketing tool and the ability to watch clips of programs online.

On the whole though computers cant download programs fast enough (which makes it perfect for short film) and sitting at a computer just isnt comfortable.

But over the next 10 to 15 years were going to get instant downloads (enitre films in seconds) and a machine that is a cross between a TV and a computer in the living room. We'll no long have to wait for our program to come on, we'll just download which program we want to watch.

The battle lines are being drawn for control of this the internet tv.

This is esentially a battle for the control of distribution, it is now possible for a company to set themselves up and never have their programs shown on tv (e.g black20.com). The low cost of camera equipment and affordable access to a global market means that a production can be filmed and distributed with extremely low cost effectivly cutting a companies depedance on the traditional tv channels.

These new internet companies will make money by producing free content (for example the short films you watch online), free content will make money two ways, direct (advertising) and indirect, indirect being viral marketing people like the free content which builds up a following for your company making them more likely to buy films or tv programs that are longer and have a bigger budget.

Sites like youtube and myspace aim to control this, they want to become the new tv channels making internet film companies dependant on them, eventually they might even be paying film makers to produce content that will be shown no their network.

Traditional tv channels, the companies in control today have alot to be worried about but their wepon is the iplayer. The pop up box that allows you to download clips (or in the bbc's case entire tv shows), they hope to take control of the internet tvs by only allowing to watch tv programs on these iplayers which effectivly restores the status quo.

For film makers its pretty obvious whats prefferable, distribution without the interfearnace of big companies, having complete control of the content you produce but I've really no idea whos going to win.