future of television

The Edinburgh International Television Festival, sponsored by The Guardian and ‘powered by’ YouTube, once again featured the convergence of television and the internet. It is less than a decade since the first YouTube video of elephants at San Diego Zoo, which has now been watched by nearly 16 million people worldwide. So far a rather smaller number has viewed The James MacTaggart Memorial Lecture by David Abraham, calling for the preservation of public service broadcasting. The view from the festival is that the future of television is neither doomed, nor is it safe, as Brent MacGregor reports.

The session on ‘How to make money out of YouTube’ was packed, with many sitting in the aisles. A quick poll of the audience revealed that more than half were not just users, but had actually set up YouTube channelshttp://www.asi.eu.com/2014/09/01/edinburgh-festival-confronts-future-of-television/