Vint Cerf, who has become known as the "godfather of the net" said at the MediaGuardian Edinburgh International Television Festival, while talking to television executives, that TV as we now know it will soon come to an end.
Cerf is one of a small group of researchers at Stanford University in California who helped build the Internet and is also a vice president of search giant Google (GOOG).
He added concerning the television industry: "85% of all video we watch is pre-recorded, so you can set your system to download it all the time. You're still going to need live television for certain things - like news, sporting events and emergencies - but increasingly it is going to be almost like the iPod, where you download content to look at later."
He also said at this time about 85 percent of all video is pre-recorded and able to be set to download whenever we want.
While it won't end the need for news, emergency broadcasts and sporting events (anything live), it will disrupt the rest of the industry.
I wonder if that's even going to last, as live broadcasts will increasingly become part of the Internet experience, like the huge amount of the Beijing Olympics that will be streamed online. The only thing hindering that will be broadband market penetration.
Cerf notes the extremely fast download time in Japan as one of the factors hastening this to become a reality. "In Japan you can already download an hour's worth of video in 16 seconds," he said.
The only question remaining about this is when, not if it's going to happen. Cerf encouraged the entertainment executives that it wasn't a cause to worry, rather a time for opportunity, and to look at it from that perspective.
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