Did Internet Kill The TV Star?

With the diversification of media outlets: TV on demand, vodcatching on your phone, internet radio, streaming live news....what has happened to the TV star?

They still exist yet like an endangered species are now haunted by calls for inquests into how much they earn, press smears, too much choice and so on....

Many of us remember when there were only four, if not three, channels to choose from the box.  Perhaps symbolically, the box has been replaced by the screen, and lost it's depth.

Somewhere there's a photo of me, looking very hippie-ish as a child watching TV on the sheepskin rug, but looking toward the kitchen. For many single parents, the TV is a helping hand when you need to get something done without the interruptions, and TV becomes then a baby-sitter: teaching and entertaining at once.

What do you think about TV stars today? Anyone from Simon Cowell to Nigella Lawson - are they compromised in any way by the huge amount of choice and expectation we have, or are they as strong and as independent as TV stars of the past e.g. people like Parkinson, who could forge a name with less worries and more confidence? Perhaps you feel presenters like Russell Brand are talentless and ought to treated some medieval idea of rough justice, simply because he made his way onto our screens by meritorious means and (for a while) wouldn't go away? Has TV ever been a meritocracy?