TV When -- and Where -- You Want It

New Video Technologies Free Viewers From the Couch

Michael K. Simmons Jr.'s two jobs occupy every day of the week, straining his otherwise loving relationship with TV.

But new technology is here to help. Simmons has learned how to download basketball games from Web sites like ESPN360 and snippets of the Grammy Awards show from Yahoo. He records shows such as "Lost" and "24" to his laptop.

"I pretty much can catch anything I want," he said. Nearly 70 percent of his television viewing is not live. In fact, it is not even done with a TV. Downloadable television keeps the Fort Washington resident tuned into popular culture and water-cooler talk at work.

As media and technology industries offer new modes of watching video, consumers' relationship to television is starting to change. The box in the living room no longer dictates when and where programming is consumed. New products and faster wireless Internet speeds give customers more control, and some say they're exploiting that to make television cater to their lifestyles.

Some watch e-mailed snippets of "Saturday Night Live" on their computers on Monday morning. Instead of waiting for next week's episode, viewers are catching up on entire seasons in one sitting. Some scroll through nine innings of baseball to catch the best 15 minutes of highlights. And who needs commercials? Or program guides? Both are becoming relics of the past for a younger generation of on-demand viewers who cannot imagine being tied to a specific time or place to watch a broadcast.

For Andy Tao, portable television means more entertainment on an otherwise dull 40-minute Red Line Metro commute between Brookland and the National Institutes of Health, where he works as a cancer researcher.

"The good thing about TV shows is that it's about four hours' worth on one DVD, so it lasts me about two days during the commute," said Tao, 28, who caught up on past seasons of "West Wing" on a notepad-size DVD player he received for Christmas. He's also working his way through "Alias," "24" and "Friends," he said. "I even signed up for 'Desperate Housewives' to see what all the hype is about."

The usual keepers of television viewership data -- Arbitron Inc. and Nielsen Media Research Inc. -- have yet to collect data about this kind of alternative and online television viewership. But there is some evidence of a shift; since launching in October, Apple Computer Inc.'s iTunes has sold more than 12 million downloadable videos. Cell phone television provider MobiTV Inc. said it has more than 500,000 subscribers through various carriers.

In a recent report called "The End of Television as We Know It," International Business Machines Corp.'s business consulting group predicted billions of dollars in lost advertising revenue as recorded video becomes the norm. Another study showed that interest in portable television is much more intense among the rising generation of consumers; 48 percent of those ages 13 to 17 said they are interested in watching a feature-length film on their cell phones, compared with 23 percent among those 55 and older, according to a survey by research firm Parks Associates.

In recent months, technology companies such as America Online Inc., Apple, Yahoo Inc., Google Inc. and Microsoft Corp.'s MSN, as well as production studios and networks ABC, CBS and NBC, have announced dozens of initiatives to encourage that transition to watching television on non-television devices.

The shift away from traditional TV came by accident for John Grimes, a physics professor at Towson University.

"Our VCR kicked the bucket a few years ago, and we never replaced it," said Grimes, who turned to his computer to fill the void.