In the mix

ROBERT THOMPSON

Director, Syracuse University’s Center for the Study of Popular Television

In the last couple of months it’s really becoming clear that the new technologies [on iPods and cellphones] that we had been staring at like waiting for a pot to boil, are beginning to steep.

2005 has shown us there is now light at the end of the tunnel as far as answering the question “How can you watch TV at work and get away with it?”

Now with one of these little devices you can have your television in your phone and in your cubicle and watch while you’re pretending to get e-mail and balance your budgets.

There are two revolutions going on simultaneously: bigger screens and higher definition, which will make viewing TV in homes like a movie theater, and the opposite, which will completely free TV from the living room. Those counterrevolutions will be battling it out with interesting results over the next couple of years.

Programming on the small screen may require a new form of storytelling, something between radio and television.