The End of Broadcast TV as We Know It? 91
mattnyc99 writes "The DVR revolution is nothing that new—and neither is the Neilsen ratings company's adaptation to it. But Glenn Derene at Popular Mechanics argues that users have officially pushed us into a new era of television, wherein viewers now shape the way that networks make money, which means we'll start to see users control the way the networks choose programming. From the article: 'The systemic use of ad ratings as one of the standard metrics for assessing viewership is a sea change, and it's perhaps the sign that as an industry, broadcasters and advertisers are sailing into uncharted waters.'"
No, Really (Score:2, Interesting)
This will also throw the TV advertising market into chaos... will ad spots become something like Google's adSense, but in visual?
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I can only imagine shows "coded" to let a server know which ads should go where at playback... but that would mean having a (very turn-offable) connection to the show's server. Would they try to scramble show content (with a 'playback' key) to make you have to connect to their server?
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Re:No, Really (Score:5, Insightful)
Oh wait, I can't buy a new DVD player that does this. What makes you think television would be any different?
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Tivo == VHS? No, not quite... (Score:2)
For example...
What if, when I was FF'ing in my Tivo, what if 2 copies of every commercial were coded into the broadcast? What if it plays a commercial designed for high-speed viewing that gets displayed when I FF? It would probably look more like a banner ad on your screen than a commercial as we know it, but it's still advertising.
What if the Tivo takes product-placement to the next level, giving you t
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Might I add here that I don't see any reason to have high-quality content for free... shows such as "Lost" must pay for themselves somehow, and I (for one) am only all to willing to contribute in order to make sure that such content continue. Need we rely on a
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Product placement inside shows has already r
Re: Viewing slots (recording slots) (Score:2)
What is it with DVR's (over VCR's) that is causing a paradigm shift?
Pffffft (Score:2)
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No, just the metrosexual Cavemen buying auto insurance.
Part of the new wave (Score:4, Interesting)
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Re:Part of the new wave (Score:4, Informative)
But less than half - perhaps much less than half - of American households have broadband service.
Subtract from that the number - the rather large number, I suspect - who don't have or don't want the "media center PC."
Those who don't want to watch TV on the small-screen PC monitor. Those who don't want to be drawn into the complexities of wired or wireless "slingboxes."
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Except for "live" events like sports, news and a very small selection of entertainment programming, I think we are on the verge of a major revolution where instead of being tied down to a broadcast schedule, we can get programming by either downloading it to a home server machine or by the on-demand playback through your digital cable box. That essentially makes the who
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There is nothing new in production for home video.
Disney has been in this market since the '90s.
But Disney can take a $100 million loss on a theatrical feature like Treasure Planet and still remain solvent. The independent who tries direct-to-video with a project as innovative and expensive as Deadwood can sink without a trace.
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A question... (Score:3, Interesting)
Assume that network broadcast TV is dead.
What would be your ideal programming of video content?
Would you want adhoc channels put together by others to your tastes?
Would you want just one or two key programmes?
How would you want to get your news/weather?
What about current affairs/politics?
Are long running independent serials good, or do you want story arcs?
What place the one-off?
When there are no constraints, what is the best way of getting your interest in content and delivering it?
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What would be your ideal programming of video content?
I'm not sure.
Would you want adhoc channels put together by others to your tastes? Would you want just one or two key programmes?
Sometimes, I guess. I'm not sure.
How would you want to get your news/weather? What about current affairs/politics?
Unbiased and accurate, I guess. At least I can say that the big problem with news and current affairs coverage is that it's so terribly biased, full of BS and propaganda that it's as good as useless.
Are long running independent serials good, or do you want story arcs?
I reckon most people want long running independent serials, except for the ones that don't.
What place the one-off?
They both have one-offs.
When there are no constraints, what is the best way of getting your interest in content and delivering it?
If I could have my way, I'd have free-to-air TV with a 'skip this crap' button. In all probability I'd be watching TV from 10 years from now, by now.
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If the shows are high quality this works fine.
Would you want just one or two key programmes?
No.
How would you want to get your news/weather?
Neither of these is currently done by the telivision. Nor would I ever watch tv to get this.
What about current affairs/politics?
No.
Are long running independent serials good, or do you want story arcs?
I want character development and plot. I don't care how it's accomplised.
What place the one-off?
What?
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
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At least in Australia, that's not advertising (according to the non-binding voluntary non-guidelines of FACTS [freetv.com.au]). As far as they're concerned, it's not counted as advertising unless it covers 100% of the screen.
I'm dreading the day they start running 719x575 "banners" over programmes...
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The TV Guide Network (TVGN) has been doing this since day one, and it's growing. If the guide part is the program, then the ad part is now over 75% of the screen.
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Same as any commercial... You skip right over it, and assume the part of the show you're missing isn't important.
Alternately, the really empowering part of DVRs is that you aren't tied to the airing of a show during the time of day that you're home... The pop-ups on the fir
Product-Audience-Boredom (Score:2, Informative)
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There are at least two kinds of TV with completely different models for revenue. One of them is where the content, the show, is the "product" to be sold. It will be well suited to adapt to pay-per-view internet channels. The other way is where the "product" is the viewer herself. The TV channel is essentially using the TV shows as bait to lure enough eyeballs to the TV so they can sell these viewers to advertising. American broadcast TV is for the mos
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Yeah, yeah (Score:5, Insightful)
TWW
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Perhaps to check the spelling of "to"?
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You are too kind; I just did what any pedantic git would have done in my place.
TWW
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"Encyclopedia" is to "Wikipedia" what "Library" is to "Some people at a bus stop"
You, sir, clearly have not visited a publicly-funded library in recent times.
It's also worth noting that the spectacular growth of Wikipedia was largely fueled by the decades of built up frustration caused by the glaring and persistent inaccuracies that riddle "proper" encyclopedias. The primary function of encyclopedias was not to be well-written but to look good on the shelves of families who never opened them.
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From the very beginning of cable internet access and DSL, the ISPs have had FAR more than enough bandwidth to provide all the video you could want. What they don't have, however, is a big enough internet pipe to handle unicasting it all.
There are a couple solutions. The most obvious transition is simple multicasting. Have dozens of TV streams coming over the in
What wishful fantasy is this? (Score:2)
Yes - already happening (Score:2)
Quality Qounts (Score:1)
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Just disconnected the dish (Score:1)
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Most DVRs are a waste of time (Score:1)
With the amount of utter crap on TV and dozens of channels, it's an essential feature.
Except that it's not at all... (Score:1)
I just bought a rooftop TV antenna and I know many other people who are doing the same. I'd cancel my satellite service if there were an easy and convenient online way to watch the 3 cable channels I'm interested in at a decent resolution.
Live Events (Score:1)
An example--the SuperBowl. Always considered the grand daddy of advertising costs. People aren't going to watch it 'later', so will the prices for ads during this program jump?
Other examples are shows to which people are going to want to watch immediately or be left out of the 'water cooler convesations'. Granted the Sopra
And lo, there came DRM, abiding in the shadows... (Score:3, Interesting)
So guess what's coming...
Content Protection and Copy Management (documents [dvb.org], EFF critique [eff.org]) a sort of super-DRM that applies not only to a single TV receiver, but pervades every device to which the protected content might be copied. Although there are reassuring words about this regime only applying to "premium" content, all the mechanisms are there to disable recording, restrict the number of devices having access to the content simultaneously and cause the content to evaporate after a certain period of time. So the broadcasters are clearly thinking about how to preserve their income stream.
Of course, we shouldn't be surprised, even public broadcasters are getting addicted to rights-management. Although you can make a perfectly good permanent copy of an off-air MPEG programme stream from any BBC broadcast, if you're part of the BBC's iPlayer pilot you donate your Internent bandwidth to their P2P service and in return receive a Windows Media file of the same programme at one quarter of the resolution which self-destructs 7 days after you first play it. It's not quite clear who this is protecting now, but it's not a great leap to suggest that unencumbered recording is now seen as an historic error by the controlling suits.
Of course, if you want TV programmes in their traditional sense, they have to be paid for somehow. The BBC, despite their current DRM frenzy, are guaranteed an income from the TV licence fee (or at least until the government decides otherwise). Advertising revenue is, though, inexorably dropping. In the UK the rules for commercial broadcasters were relaxed to permit sponsorship and, in future, product placement, but that's not going to make a huge difference to lower-profile content. There's also been a major scandal over the use of premium-rate phone lines which have been used to supplement the income stream of a wide range of programmes under the flimsy pretext of "interactivity". So the advertising model may well be doomed.
There are payment models which continue to work: pay per view (the traditional cinema model), subscription (eg cable, satellite) and the reviled but suprisingly resilient TV licence. If advertising-supported TV no longer makes economic sense, it might mean the end of broadcast TV as it's know in the USA, but it's not necessarily the end of broadcast TV in countries which have other ways of funding free-to-air television.
I suspect that applying DRM to try to shore up a declining industry is more likely to kill it off quickly, though!
There's one thing TV can do that the web can't.... (Score:1)
Live sport.
Movies, shows, news, whatever - people love to be able to watch on demand, when they've got time.
However, live sport can't be done 'on demand'. People can, and will, go out of their way to watch a game as it's happening. Unlike a movie, it's NOT the same if you tape it and watch it later, no matter if you can skip the ads.
Live sport will keep my TV in use for a long time yet.
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Re:There's one thing TV can do that the web can't. (Score:1)
You apprently are not a subscriber to http://www.mlb.com [mlb.com]...live sport on the web...
TV as a separate device is obsolete. All displays are now computer displays and the network really is the computer.
Re:There's one thing TV can do that the web can't. (Score:1)
I do it all the time with racing program - it's fantastic.
Years ago, when I thought I really want to be in media, an old timer told me the only reason for programming (e.g. TV shows, music on radio...) was to keep the commercials from running into each other.
Yet, when 9 to 11 minutes out of 30 is dedicated to commercials and another one or two minutes is promos, I'm REALLY glad much of my viewing is delayed using a DVR.
I can't wait for the criminalization of zapping (Score:2)
In Control Now (Score:2)
Product Placement and Sponsorship (Score:2)
it's about time (Score:1)
I wish I had the capital to start my own television network.
I would become profitable within 1 year.
My network would be called TIN "The intelligence network"
I would only air smart television.
My advertisers would be offered 3 minute spots for professionally shot mini-movie adverts.
3 minute-spot would be $6 million.
There are only so many of them.
Subject (Score:3, Interesting)
That's funny, because I could have sworn the SEVERE STORM WARNING which started crawling during Jeopardy the other day indicated that the network cared more about their advertisers than their viewers. I'm not sure what gave me that impression, but it may have had something to do with the fact that the crawler disappeared when the commercials came on (after having displayed no information past "SEVERE STORM WARNING IN EFFECT FOR THE FOLLOWING--") and reappeared as soon as the commercials were over. But that's just crazy, right? Surely the networks care more about informing their viewers about potentially hazardous conditions than they do about offending advertisers, right?
Pardon me while I have a hearty laugh.
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Re:SEVERE STORM WARNING (Score:1)
fool, that's your local station doing that (Score:2)
if it were LA, they'd have live helicopter shots of low-flying Toyotas and houses sliding down hills.
but it wasn't, so it was your local network-affiliate station.
ads & eyeballs (Score:2)
Free TV is not free-you surely pay for it! (Score:2)
I do not watch Free TV any more because I hate the frequent program interruptions, and I don't want to expose my mind to this ad garbage, my brain after forty years still contains ad slogans I picked up in my childhood.
Because I do not watch TV, I would like to avoid paying for it, but it is practically impossible.
And because I pay for it I feel somehow entitled to view any movie or TV series ever broadcast on ad-supported TV, no matter
DVico HD + MyHD + VideoReDo + ImgBurn= HDTV no ads (Score:1)
To get around this, I use both DVico's and MyHD PCI HD cards to record all of the sh
it won't change anything (Score:3, Informative)
Internet TV (Score:1)