In 1945, everyone knew that television was the broadcasting of moving images along with sound, over the airwaves to homes for viewing on a television receiver.The content of these early days of television was news, movies, drama, sports, and variety sows. Later television evolved to include distribution of video content over coaxial cable, videotape and videodisc. Although the distribution technology evolved the content remained mostly unchanged.

Today, the media continually touts that "the internet is everything"With consumers routinely downloading audio recordings, programs over the internet, the next wave will be the routine, widespread downloading of video in real time over the internet - a technology known as video streaming.
Alternatively, video could be sent as a large file transfer and viewed at a later time.

Either way, this could be the death knell of conventional television broadcasting, the video rental store, and such physical media as digital video discs (DVD). Consumers would then be able to pick and choose any video and television program for downloading and viewing their convenience.
The old dream of video-on-demand (VOD) will be finally realized.