About a decade ago, I was forced at gunpoint to write a magazine article about pornography entering the American cultural mainstream, which had been a trope of glossies for a few decades but seemed particularly relevant at that moment. Looking back on it, I know I missed one of the main points. Writers, photographers and filmmakers explained to me why porn stars and obscene art were becoming more commonplace and acceptable, but almost all of them told me that there were limits, that we would never see anything X-rated on television, the most important medium.

Of course, in retrospect, they may have been right that porn wouldn’t enter prime time on TV, but the larger, unstated  point was that television wasn’t going to be anywhere close to the dominant medium for much longer because it was so centrally controlled. The Internet and online video and streaming were greatly reducing the importance of TV, and soon it would always be prime time and whatever you wanted, blue or otherwise, would be available at every second.

From a Telegraph article in which Eric Schmidt points out the obvious–that TV has already replaced by freer and more interactive platforms:

“Speaking at a gathering of digital advertisers in New York City last night, Mr Schmidt refused to forecast when internet video would displace television, instead declaring: ‘That’s already happened.’