(originally written for ALARM Magazine in January 2006)
There are more buzz words right now in the television business than ever before. It’s virtually impossible to go to a morning meeting, drinks after work, or any time in between without hearing a sea of acronyms like VOD and DVR. The day that Apple announced the new video iPod would be capable of downloading episodes of Lost and Desperate Housewives through the iTunes store, I got the feeling that many TV sales executives were quietly looking for new careers.
Without a doubt, all of this emerging technology is going to change the business of television as dramatically as it will change the way we watch it. But, as far as I’m concerned, there is no need for panic. I believe the landscape of television will remain surprisingly the similar through all this madness. Without any real data or Nielsen numbers to back it up (Nielsen is only metering 25 households with DVR at the time I write this), the following are a few of my own predictions about the direction of emerging technologies in TV.
Before we predict anything, however, I think it would behoove us to reflect on some similar situations from the past. Remember when we thought no one would go to movie theatres any more once everyone had a VCR? Or how 200 channels of cable was going to do away with network TV? Oh, and at the height of Napster’s popularity, when big record companies and Metallica were trying to get us to take pity on them, retail music sales were at an all time high. Panic about new technology from an existing business is usually either unnecessary paranoia or clever marketing.
Take VOD or, for the uninitiated, video-on-demand. This technology lets you choose particular movies or episodes of a series that stream directly from the cable company to your screen. This great for certain things, like catching up on all the episodes of Entourage you missed while on vacation, or sampling a few episodes of that great new series on Showtime that no one watches. But VOD will not, as some have put forth, replace the jobs of those who schedule television networks. If you’re sitting down to watch some reruns of Happy Days, it’s pretty doubtful you care whether it’s episode #53 or episode #67. In fact, the whole reason you’re watching Happy Days is so that you won’t have to make any decisions for the next 30 minutes.
This has to do with whether you want television to be an active or passive medium. Much of this new technology is making TV much more active, giving people what they want when they want it. But, I think there will always be a place for passive TV watching as well. It works like this: I own the film Point Break starring Keanu Reeves and Patrick Swayze. I enjoy this ridiculous film immensely. Rarely, if ever, do I remove this disc from my shelf and place it in my DVD player. However, I can count several times in the last year that I flipped on the television and was excited to find this film on cable. I then proceeded to watch the movie, edited for television, with freaking commercials in it.
Now, you can call me lazy, and you would be right to do so, but I am not alone. There are some times that I want to pick out the particular movie or TV show I want to watch, and there are other times that I just want to unplug a little and be entertained. People will watch shows like The Facts of Life in reruns, but no one wants a Facts of Life on-demand channel where they can pick out specific episodes of Facts of Life. If TV was all on-demand, it wouldn’t be TV anymore, it would be the internet.
DVR and TiVo are a little different, mostly because you don’t have to choose exactly what to watch, you just tell it what you like and it will record it, allowing you to watch it later while fast forwarding through commercials. This last part is what really scares the advertising industry.
But, there is another saving grace for old-fashioned TV here, and it’s the water cooler. Since the days of crowding around a black and white to watch Ed Sullivan, through finding out what crazy thing Archie Bunker would say this week; from wondering who shot J.R. to dropping everything for the O.J.Simpson verdict, television has long been a great communal experience for America. It’s the most popular, most universal art form in our culture, perhaps even in history. So, even if I could watch this week’s episode of 24 whenever I please, I think I’ll watch it tonight. It would be terribly disappointing not to be able to talk about it tomorrow.
There are more buzz words right now in the television business than ever before. It’s virtually impossible to go to a morning meeting, drinks after work, or any time in between without hearing a sea of acronyms like VOD and DVR. The day that Apple announced the new video iPod would be capable of downloading episodes of Lost and Desperate Housewives through the iTunes store, I got the feeling that many TV sales executives were quietly looking for new careers.
Without a doubt, all of this emerging technology is going to change the business of television as dramatically as it will change the way we watch it. But, as far as I’m concerned, there is no need for panic. I believe the landscape of television will remain surprisingly the similar through all this madness. Without any real data or Nielsen numbers to back it up (Nielsen is only metering 25 households with DVR at the time I write this), the following are a few of my own predictions about the direction of emerging technologies in TV.
Before we predict anything, however, I think it would behoove us to reflect on some similar situations from the past. Remember when we thought no one would go to movie theatres any more once everyone had a VCR? Or how 200 channels of cable was going to do away with network TV? Oh, and at the height of Napster’s popularity, when big record companies and Metallica were trying to get us to take pity on them, retail music sales were at an all time high. Panic about new technology from an existing business is usually either unnecessary paranoia or clever marketing.
Take VOD or, for the uninitiated, video-on-demand. This technology lets you choose particular movies or episodes of a series that stream directly from the cable company to your screen. This great for certain things, like catching up on all the episodes of Entourage you missed while on vacation, or sampling a few episodes of that great new series on Showtime that no one watches. But VOD will not, as some have put forth, replace the jobs of those who schedule television networks. If you’re sitting down to watch some reruns of Happy Days, it’s pretty doubtful you care whether it’s episode #53 or episode #67. In fact, the whole reason you’re watching Happy Days is so that you won’t have to make any decisions for the next 30 minutes.
This has to do with whether you want television to be an active or passive medium. Much of this new technology is making TV much more active, giving people what they want when they want it. But, I think there will always be a place for passive TV watching as well. It works like this: I own the film Point Break starring Keanu Reeves and Patrick Swayze. I enjoy this ridiculous film immensely. Rarely, if ever, do I remove this disc from my shelf and place it in my DVD player. However, I can count several times in the last year that I flipped on the television and was excited to find this film on cable. I then proceeded to watch the movie, edited for television, with freaking commercials in it.
Now, you can call me lazy, and you would be right to do so, but I am not alone. There are some times that I want to pick out the particular movie or TV show I want to watch, and there are other times that I just want to unplug a little and be entertained. People will watch shows like The Facts of Life in reruns, but no one wants a Facts of Life on-demand channel where they can pick out specific episodes of Facts of Life. If TV was all on-demand, it wouldn’t be TV anymore, it would be the internet.
DVR and TiVo are a little different, mostly because you don’t have to choose exactly what to watch, you just tell it what you like and it will record it, allowing you to watch it later while fast forwarding through commercials. This last part is what really scares the advertising industry.
But, there is another saving grace for old-fashioned TV here, and it’s the water cooler. Since the days of crowding around a black and white to watch Ed Sullivan, through finding out what crazy thing Archie Bunker would say this week; from wondering who shot J.R. to dropping everything for the O.J.Simpson verdict, television has long been a great communal experience for America. It’s the most popular, most universal art form in our culture, perhaps even in history. So, even if I could watch this week’s episode of 24 whenever I please, I think I’ll watch it tonight. It would be terribly disappointing not to be able to talk about it tomorrow.
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