TV is Dead! Long Live TV!

05/19/2006 - 09:07 AM >> Death of TV, Tech & Society, Tech Trends

It’s everyone’s favorite time of year again: the upfronts! That wonderful, magical season when we learn once again why TV is so special to us, and by us we mean goliath advertisers. Unfortunately this year seems a little less shiny than in years past.

First piece of bad news, most teens can’t even name the TV networks:

Most teenagers can’t name the four top television broadcasters, finds an online poll Monday.

Almost 80 percent of 16- to 18-year-olds were unable to name the big 4 broadcasters, said Bolt Media.

Of the total audience, which ranged from 16 to 34 in age, 33 percent correctly responded with NBC, ABC, CBS and Fox.

A vast majority of respondents - 85 percent - said they spend their free time on the Internet, compared to only 69 percent who said they spend their free time watching TV.

If that wasn’t bad enough, one of the biggest advertisers simply decided not to show up:

Johnson & Johnson, the New Brunswick, N.J., health-care products maker, has informed the major TV networks that it is planning to sit out the annual selling bazaar, the time of year when TV networks secure ad commitments for about 80% of the coming fall season’s primetime ad inventory. J&J spent almost $500 million on network-TV ads last year, according to TNS Media Intelligence, although not all of that is necessarily committed in the upfront market.

J&J’s decision is a sign of how the balance of power in the TV industry has shifted to advertisers, who are less dependent on network television nowadays, partly because of the growing list of media options like Internet and even cellphone advertising.

To add insult to injury, the advertisers who remained are demanding lower rates because of DVR users skipping commercials:

You can bet the DVR will be a divisive issue as network executives and advertisers gather in New York this month for the annual “upfront” scrum, when most of the haggling over ad rates happens. Some big ad agencies say they intend to pay only for “live” viewing, such as the 10.6 million homes that tuned in recently for ABC’s Grey’s Anatomy .

Mike Shaw, ABC’s sales president, publicly blasted the ad industry’s position as “unfair and unjust” and intimated he wouldn’t negotiate with those who won’t pay for more than live viewers.

This is shaping up to be a fantastic year for TV.

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MySpace Attacking iTunes

05/15/2006 - 10:45 AM >> Death of TV, Future Formats, The Digital Revolution

We swear we are not making this up:

News Corp.’s MySpace.com will begin selling episodes of Fox’s “24” next week as part of a plan to turn the popular teen Web site into a business rivaling Yahoo Inc. and Apple Computer Inc.’s iTunes, according to the Wall Street Journal.

MySpace, one of the fastest growing Web properties, will begin selling episodes of the show “24” for $1.99 per episode from seasons one and five, the report said.

While we are more than happy to see everyone and their grandpa get in on the IPTV bandwagon, it is a little disappointing that no one is competing on price or features. Folks, do we have to wait for Wal Mart to step in and offer TV downloads for $1.79?

Feel free to send us your guesses for who will start selling TV downloads next. 

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Videogames are the new Movies

05/11/2006 - 09:01 AM >> Convergence, The Digital Revolution, Tech Trends

Remember when people like George Lucas said they were looking forward to using digital tech to replace sets and actors? Those “movies” already exist, they’re called videogames:

Activision will be opening a dedicated studio facility on the DreamWorks Animation campus in Glendale, California, following on the heels of their strategic alliance. The move, which establishes an unprecedented level of collaboration between a Hollywood studio and a videogame company, will facilitate simultaneous co-development between DreamWorks’ 3D-animated features and Activision games based on those films.

“This announcement marks an unparalleled step in the convergence between Hollywood and videogames,” stated Robert Kotick, chairman and ceo, Activision Inc. “For the first time, we will be able to align our games’ production schedules with the movies’ from the pre-production phase onward. This will allow us to fully leverage the movie assets and storylines, in addition to collaborating closely with the talented production teams at DreamWorks to develop storylines that expand the movie experience in new and compelling ways.”

While Hollywood has a very spotty track record turning games into films, the gaming industry has done a good job of increasing the quality of their output to become more “cinematic.” As every E3 convention every year shows, movies and videogames have long been on a collision course, especially since large chunks of nearly every studio film has gone through digital manipulation of some kind.

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TiVo Now Officially Downloads Shows from the Internet

05/10/2006 - 12:48 PM >> Broadband, Convergence, Death of TV

+ = ?

Loyal BBB readers may remember a little gem we posted back in August ‘05 about Tivo starting to roll out TV-downloads-from-the-Internet. It seems that today Tivo has the first true fruits of this endeavor:

TiVo will unveil Tuesday a deal that will enable about 400,000 subscribers who have their machines connected via broadband Internet access to use their TVs to watch Web videos delivered by Internet video and ad sales service Brightcove. Specific programs to be offered — possibly as early as June — have not been named, but Brightcove clients include Discovery Communications, MTV Networks, Reuters, The New York Times, National Lampoon, SmartMoney and Farmers’ Almanac TV.

While the details haven’t quite been worked out yet, the writing is indeed on the wall. Since the deal between the two is non-exclusive, we can see a future in which TV watchers can start downloading video podcast-like content from the ‘net without any kind of middleman at all.

Tivo: give us a call when we can add RSS feeds and we’ll talk. Until then, we will have to settle for hope.

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Bubbilicious!

05/02/2006 - 10:38 AM >> Broadband, Death of TV, Future Formats

One day we’ll all look back on this bubble and laugh:

YouTube is rumored to have quietly raised another $25 million in venture capital after raising two rounds totaling $11.5 million from Sequoia Capital. The hit video-sharing site might need it: YouTube’s bandwidth fees are said to be approaching $1 million per month.

We don’t get it. YouTube is Napster for video. While they have slyly introduced some advertising onto the site, this hardly constitutes any long-term business model. Unless that business model is “we’re going to get bought by Fox.” Welcome to the bubble 2.0…

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