TV at 100: From passive viewing to an interactive, AI-driven future

TV has come a long way since its first avatar in 1926 - and its purpose is being re-imagined once again

Aisha Gaban, an AI news anchor, made her debut on Channel 4 in the United Kingdom this October, saying, “In a British TV first, I’m an AI presenter... I don’t exist... My image and voice were generated using AI.” AI anchors and news presenters, Lisa or Sana, AI Krish or AI Kaur, are, however, already quite widespread today.

 

Since Scottish inventor John Baird used his mechanical “Televisor,” which projected images of moving objects onto a screen, to give the world’s first public demonstration of a true, functional television system in London in January 1926, television has changed significantly. From cumbersome mechanical systems to modern digital streaming, a specialised technology transformed into a worldwide force influencing culture, entertainment, and information.

 

In Radio News magazine’s May 1925 issue, science fiction icon and tech enthusiast Hugo Gernsback made some amazing predictions about television: “In 1935, we shall have radio television... An explorer will take along with him a portable radio station and he will be able to give a lecture right on the spot in the jungle in darkest Africa or up in the unexplored regions — if such there be at that time — of the Amazon.”  Crucially, even in the realm of sci-fi, Gernsback anticipated that this new technology would be utilised for more than just broadcasting, although it would take decades for his vision of point-to-point communication to come to pass.

 

From the grainy black-and-white images of early broadcasts to the ultra high-definition, live-streamed spectacles of today, television has united billions of people across countries and cultures to create shared global experiences, in addition to providing entertainment. It has the wonderful ability to broadcast live events right into our living rooms, allowing us to watch history as it happens. In 1969, some 650 million people saw the Apollo 11 moon landing live. In 1981, approximately 750 million people watched Prince Charles and Lady Diana Spencer’s wedding live, and in 1997, between 2 and 2.5 billion people watched Diana’s funeral. Approximately one billion people watched the 2010 rescue of the Chilean miners live. And for the 2022 FIFA World Cup Final, there were approximately 1.5 billion TV spectators. There’s little doubt that these and many such incidents had a significant social impact. For instance, the 1960 Kennedy-Nixon presidential debate altered the political landscape. Seventy million Americans watched the debate in real time, turning politics into an electronic spectator sport.

 

Television was initially widely viewed as “seeing by wireless.” Nevertheless, the sci-fi element has never truly been erased. Sci-fi has frequently foreseen the development of television, anticipating ideas such as reality TV (The Truman Show), touchscreen interfaces (Star Trek), video calls (Blade Runner), tablets (2001: A Space Odyssey), TV as surveillance to examine themes of control, privacy, and power with the viewer as watched (The Twilight Zone), and even AI-driven content, though frequently exaggerating or emphasising social impacts (like Black Mirror’s cautionary tales).

 

In the end, television aims to give us the impression that we are in a different location, making it appear as though we are actually there witnessing a story unfold. It was referred to as a “psychologically ideal theatre” by renowned early television and film producer Dallas Bower. In his 1936 book Plan for Cinema, Bower explored ambitious 3D projections. In 1960, Pye Ltd even created a mock-up of one of these televisions for an exhibition. Is it what lies ahead? Or is customised watching, immersive virtual reality, augmented reality experiences, and AI-driven content the more appealing future? Ashley Highfield, the BBC’s director of new media, noted as early as 2006 that “if we want to unlock the archive and enable people to search by programme or theme, then we are going to have to have awesome metadata.” AI now improves personalisation by producing insightful search results and recommendations. A “choose-your-own-­ adventure” structure where viewers choose plot lines is depicted in Netflix’s Black Mirror: Bandersnatch, hinting at deeper interaction.

 

One hundred years ago, Baird could hardly have imagined the vast potential and diversity of media that television encompasses in the 21st century, from smart TVs to phone screens, virtual reality headsets to game consoles. TV’s purpose to inform, entertain, and connect is being reimagined as an interactive, data-rich ecosystem.

 

The author is professor of statistics, Indian Statistical Institute, Kolkata