• by George Simpson , Featured Contributor, June 1, 2007

Television broadcasters face "severe pressure" as advertisers abandon traditional media in favor of the Internet, Sir Martin Sorrell, head of WPP, the world's second-biggest advertising company, told The Times of London this past week. Sir Martin believes that, rather than television disappearing, the boundaries between it and the Internet will become increasingly blurred: "Definitions are difficult now. The boundaries between what is the internet and what is TV are becoming more blurred. As a result, media decisions are becoming more complex and puzzling. It is not that simple to separate the two anymore," he said.

Geez, ya know, I'm just not having that problem. There are very clear differences between my computer and my TV set. Let me help his knightliness understand them.

Unless I am perched on the edge of a hotel room bed with my laptop, I am generally sitting bolt upright at a desk chair while I'm online. When I watch TV, I am either in bed or on a piece of furniture that the children have come to revere and fear as "Dad's Chair." The dog has come to know it as The Place Where Crumbs Can Be Found. My wife accuses me of spending entire weekends in that chair, which during NCAA bowl games and March Madness is not only possible but entirely accurate.

While sitting bolt upright at the computer I can find nearly anything in the world I need--from the local plumber's phone number to who said "God speed the day when this knighting fad/ Shall go to the dogs and the dogs go mad" (Ambrose Bierce, by the way), to current radar readings of rain heading toward our Little League practice. I can shop, catch up on Lindsay Lohan's ever-growing rap sheet or find out what Tom Hespos is thinking about today--not ever sure which will be more amusing. Not to mention talk to about 50 people simultaneously via email or IM, a revelation I make with full knowledge that me mum will fire off her own email asking why she's isn't among them.

TV, by contrast, is not a place I go to find out anything, except what is laughingly referred to as local and network "news," most of which I have already read online. Not that I don't enjoy an occasional Modern Marvel or spending an hour learning how to perfect my pumpkin chocolate chip cookies, but I can't ask questions and get helpful information, even from the commercials. Thanks to my DVR, I don't have to wait until some net exec decides when I'll see the shows I like, but neither can I type into a search box and have almost immediate access to video programming, as I can online.

The TV set is an electronic narcotic, especially if the NBA is on, so I fall asleep in front of it with some regularity--something that doesn't happen when I am online, unless of course I am reading a Revenue Science white paper.

There are occasions when I will watch TV with another soul in my immediate family. My 16-year-old, for example, wanders in just as "The Sopranos" comes on and doesn't leave until after "Entourage" is over. There are weeks that this is the only confirmation that he still lives in our house, aside from the thump of music issuing from his room at all hours. I know my wife is watching with me when she shushes me because I keep turning pages of the local newspaper during "Boston Legal."

But going online is a solitary media event. It's not that I don't want to get caught with NakedTeensfromRomania.com on my screen (which I don't), I find it indescribably annoying to have someone looking over my shoulder as I navigate or type. Maybe it's a guy thing. I also hate it when I am looking at photo albums (remember those?) and someone insists on telling me the circumstances of each shot.

But Sir Martin, a truly different thing about online is that you can Google yourself and find out that it was just a year ago when you wrote for that very same newspaper: "There will be constant competition between old and new. Slowly, the new media will cease to be thought of as new media; they will simply be additional channels of communication. And like all media that were once new media but are now just media, they'll earn a well-deserved place in the media repertoire, perhaps through reverse takeovers--but will almost certainly displace none."

Having second thoughts?