【明報專訊】Television has revolutionised human lives. On World Television Day, let's look at how the telly has developed and what it might be like in future.

◆Basic facts

Date: November 21

Year of proclamation: 1996

Designated by: the United Nations General Assembly (聯合國大會)

Aim: to recognise the increasing impact television has on decision-making.

◆History of television

Since it was first produced in 1800s, the television has changed surprisingly little in form or function. That is a rarity in the era of rapid technological advances.

1884 ：

Paul Nipkow, a 23-year-old German university student, discovered a way to send multiple pictures through wires. He used a rotating disk to scan the pictures. He had his invention, called the Nipkow disk, patented.

1900 ：

Russian scientist Constantin Perskyi coined the term 「television」 at the International World Fair in Paris.

1907 ：

Using cathode rays and a vacuum tube, scientists developed a new form of television.

1928：

One of the oldest TV stations in the US, named W3XK and owned by Charles Jenkins, an American pioneer of early cinema, came into being.

1950s ：

Colour TV was introduced to the public.

1997：

Pioneer developed and released the plasma TV, which quickly caught on with customers.

2000s：

High-definition TV, all-digital television viewing, and Smart TVs gained popularity.

◆Declining TV viewership

Television (TV) used to dominate entertainment. However, the rise of the Internet has diminished its importance. The conventional mode of TV entertainment, in which TV stations broadcast dramas or shows according to programme schedules, is steadily losing popularity. The flexibility offered by the Internet allows users to watch a show anytime, anywhere.

This poses a challenge to TV industries all over the world. In the United Kingdom, the average number of minutes a person viewed TV a day dropped from 241 in 2012 to 216 in 2015, a decline of 10%. Furthermore, the percentage of UK households having a TV set has declined for the first time ever.

The same story is happening in the United States. Viewership of long form video content (such as movies and television programmes on a TV screen) declined 11% in the US and 13% in the whole world between 2014 and 2015. In Hong Kong, the fall of TV viewership is attributable not only to users' changed habits but also to poor programme quality and the lack of competition.

Emergence of new forms of TV

The decline of conventional TV is accompanied by the emergence of 「on-demand」 TV services. One of the providers is Netflix, a company specialising in the provision of streaming media. It is now a multinational entertainment company that produces its own TV series such as House of Cards (《紙牌屋》). Netflix has entered the Hong Kong market. Other streaming services include Apple TV and Amazon Prime.

Some people believe that, while 「TV」 as a form of entertainment – dramas and shows – will continue to exist, TV sets will become dispensable. This is because anything with a screen in a dwelling – a conventional TV set, tablet or mobile phones - can be used to access programmes of top quality.