Defining entertainment

Entertainment can be defined in many ways and the boundaries are blurred. For example, some classify gardening as entertainment; others regard it as a job around the home. For the purposes of this chapter it is relevant only to consider those areas of entertainment where wireless communications might play a major role. These might be defined as

• reading,

• listening,

• watching and

• playing.

Entertainment is a major potential driver of communications. The average person in the UK spends about 4½ hours a day consuming entertainment, compared with about an hour for transport (time spent undergoing healthcare is not so easy to define). Measured by use of wireless resources, entertainment would undoubtedly be by far the largest consumer of wireless today, in almost any way that it was measured. Unlike healthcare and transport, entertainment is an area that can undergo sudden change, as the emergence of social networking has demonstrated, and where new devices and technologies can be rapidly introduced, as the iPhone has shown. It would be fair to say that entertainment is at the cutting edge of wireless communications and likely to remain there.

One of the key drivers for change in the entertainment sector is the Internet. In terms of reading, much material is now available on-line, making newspapers less attractive. In terms of listening, files can be downloaded from the Internet and readily transferred to MP3 players. In terms of watching, much TV content is now available on-line and viewing habits are shifting as a result.