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Where is the "pedantic technicality" though? Looks more like a continuum to me.

Consider, here are some activities I do, which of them are you sure is "watching TV" and which aren't? Is it such a clear bright line?

* I watch "Only Connect" - a very difficult BBC Two quiz show - on the iPlayer web site. There aren't any adverts of course because it's the BBC, but this was made to be shown on a broadcast TV channel even if I haven't watched it that way for years.

* I watch the Two Ronnies "Mastermind" sketch on Youtube. Once again this was made to be shown on broadcast TV, decades ago, as part of an episodic show - but now this is just one sketch

* I re-watch the final sale decision scene from The Big Short on Youtube. The Big Short is a movie, this was never made for broadcast TV, and all I'm watching is one clip from a much longer work.

* I watch previews of a friend's review of the entire Nightmare on Elm Street franchise. Most of these were movies. (but there is a TV series) and he doesn't include clips but he does talk about them. This will eventually be a Youtube video, but I'm watching the preview.

* I watch an SC2 AI Arena playback of a match that happened recently between two AIs. It's video, at least by the time it reaches me, but it was never intended to be broadcast anywhere, many of these videos are never watched by anyone they're generated automatically so why not.

* I play a video game with an FMV cut scene, such as Command & Conquer: Red Alert.

* I play another video game with a cut scene but it's in-engine using the game's 3D assets, such as GTA3.

* I join a Teams call with colleagues to discuss progress on our main Project

* I watch a rather hypnotic screensaver of overlapping fractal shapes.

* I read a web page with some simple animated multi-step tutorials. Is it important whether they're animated with Javascript, GIFs or MPEG video?

* I read this comment on Hacker News.




I guess the specific "pedantic technicality" I was thinking of was the "I watch Netflix on a big screen in the corner of my room, but I don't have TV". I get why, in a very limited number of scenarios, that might be useful or interesting information, but a huge amount of the time it isn't.


See, I think the pedantic technicality is the other way around -- that is, saying "Well you're watching this movie on Netflix on a big screen, so that counts as TV." It feels a bit like mocking someone for claiming that the New York Times isn't a novel when they're both things you read off folded paper in your living room. When people say that watching Netflix on a big screen in the corner of their room isn't TV, they're using 'TV' to refer to a medium defined by a fixed programme of highly-scheduled and localized broadcasts. I think that's a much more useful definition than "TV is what you watch on a big screen in your room", because that medium has very unique and distinct features, frequently contains very different types of content, shapes its content differently, and is often consumed very differently. Why isn't going to the movies or playing Charlie Got My Finger on your phone counted as watching TV? Is it the screen size? The location? Or the difference between playing a specific video you've requested and tuning into a schedule of programs being broadcast to the entire region?


I agree with that. Watching YouTube TV on your phone feels a lot closer to watching TV than playing streaming or DVD movies on a big screen.




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