TV is dying, says Google expert

One of the founding fathers of the internet has predicted the end of
traditional television.

Vint Cerf, who helped to build the internet while working as a
researcher in America, said that television was approaching its "iPod
moment". In the same way that people now download their favourite
music onto their iPod, he said that viewers would soon be downloading
most of their favourite programmes onto their computers. "85 per cent
of all video we watch is pre-recorded, so you can set your system to
download it all the time," said Mr Cerf, who is now the vice-president
of the Google, the world's largest search engine. "You're still going
to need live television for certain things - like news, sporting
events and emergencies - but increasingly it is going to be almost
like the iPod, where you download content to look at later."

Although television on demand has not yet become a mainstream activity
in the UK, the BBC, ITV and Channel 4 have all invested vast sums of
money in technology which enables viewers to watch their favourite
shows on their computers. But some critics, including some internet
service providers, have warned that the internet will collapse under
the strain of millions of people downloading programmes at the same
time. Over the next four years, it is thought that the number of
videos watched over the internet will quadruple, with people moving
from short clips to hour-long programmes. Broadband companies claim
that the service will cause "traffic jams", which will cost millions
of pounds to sort out and that customers will ultimately end up paying
the bill.

But Mr Cerf dismissed the warnings as "scare tactics", saying that
critics had predicted 20 years ago that the net would collapse when
people all around the world started to use it en masse. "In the
intervening 30 years it's increased a million times over... We're far
from exhausting the capacity," he said. "It's an understandable worry
when they see huge amounts of information being moved around online."

Setting out his vision for the future of the internet, he said he
wanted it to reach as many people as possible. "I want more internet,"
he said. "I want every one of the six billion people on the planet to
be able to connect to the internet - I think they will add things to
it that will really benefit us."