We’ve spoken a lot this semester about the idea of television, both as a medium and as a device used to access media, but the real question is, what is the future of television? In a society where we can access TV shows, films, and news on the internet on multiple devices, what place does a television have in our lives? While there is more than one answer to this question, the biggest one should be obvious: sports.

I don’t know how sports-crazy other countries are, but it sometimes seems the United States revolves around sporting events. When there isn’t the final for whichever sport is finishing a season—the NHL’s Stanley Cup, the NFL’s Super Bowl, the MLB’s World Series, and the NBA championship are the four big ones—there’s spring training! And when the professional teams aren’t playing, there’s college, basketball’s March Madness Championship and football’s Rose Ball being two prominent college sports championships. One thing new media has been unable to do is create a reliable platform for watching live sports. In this, a television and cable box still reign supreme. It’s a lucky thing for the cable companies.

Another spot television can reign supreme is with news programs for older generations. While many of the younger generations use social media and search news websites to keep up to date on current events, some of those who are used to it prefer to turn on the five o’clock news and get their hours’ worth of what went on in the world today. It’s much easier than combing through headlines on online news sites, especially because some older people still have trouble navigating the internet. As technology moves forward, these older generations sometimes get left behind unable to adapt quick enough to be fluent in mew media.

While sports and news are a couple of huge aspects that still bring in dollars for the cable company, there is still the third aspect, which is popular in its own right: popular television shows. While Netflix can boast receiving whole seasons of shows on its website at once, these episodes aren’t available on Netflix for months after they premier on TV. So while they come out weekly on their respective channels, people watch them. Shows like The Walking Dead compete with football games on Sunday. These weekly TV shows also add an interactive aspect to their premieres. Live Tweet is huge and getting bigger as more and more people tune in to watch a new episode and keep an eye on others reactions as each big event plays out on screen. TV shows add to the phenomena by showing interactive banners on the screen with hashtags you’re advised to tweet and votes you can weigh in on through Twitter.

Sports, news stations, and the evolving atmosphere surrounding weekly TV shows are making it clear that they’re not out of the running yet. While many television shows and films are now available on multiple online platforms, the TV is still the prime screen on which to watch sports and participate in the interactive live tweeting of the next episode of your favorite show.