RSSCES Countdown #10: Can technology keep television relevant in the digital era?
By Tim Conneally | Published December 23, 2008, 4:31 PM
Last year, one of the most stunning announcements to come out of CES was from, of all places, Comcast -- a CATV provider. One reason could be because technology is giving viewers clear alternatives to scheduled programming.
2008 was a monumental year for television. NBC declared this year's Olympics the most-viewed event in television history, with the 17-day coverage attracting 86% of US television viewing households, or 214 million viewers.
Events related to the presidential election also attracted a huge amount of viewers. According to Nielsen Media Research, the first presidential debate had 55 million viewers, the second had 66 million, and the single vice presidential debate had 73 million -- more than double the number of viewers of the 2004 vice presidential debate. Super Tuesday returns coverage had a viewership of over 71.5 million across 14 channels. Senator McCain's closing night concession speech drew 38.9 million viewers, actually exceeding Senator Obama's acceptance speech, which had 38.4 million.
Though these two events proved to be major victories for television as a whole, they revealed the existing hole in English-language programming and advertising money when they ceased. Prime time television no longer has the appeal to what Television Week called "a distracted public," with overall viewership dropping in double digits this fall, and 3% for the whole year. Nielsen figures for November 2008 sweeps showed that all networks, with the exception of the CW and MyNetworkTV, had a marked decline in their target demographics (typically 18-34, both sexes).
Where are all the TV viewers going, then?
The conservative answer is "nowhere." People are still likely to tune in to watch sporting events and weekly episodic premiers, but the "digestables," such as sports scores, weather updates, local and daily news, and low-investment video content are being consumed on computers or mobile phones. Television is decreasingly being relied upon as a vehicle for up-to-the-minute information.
Also, DVR usage has been steadily increasing, so major television events can be ported into whatever time schedule fits the viewer's needs. DVR penetration rates are near 30% this year as cable providers gradually integrate time-shifting capabilities into all of their set top boxes, and Advertising Age expects it to exceed 50% within the next two years.
With the Olympics earlier this year, NBC launched a new viewer metric called Total Audience Measurement Index (TAMi). This new metric reported that 93% of content was being watched on NBCU stations (both live and time-shifted), and 7% was being watched on the Web or on mobile phones. While small in respect to the total, that percentage accounts for 75.5 million downloads and streams, a phenomenal increase from the prior Olympiad. In fact, the 2004 Athens summer games and 2006 Torino winter games together only garnered 10.8 million non-television views.
The principal interest for broadcasters is advertising, of course. Since these alternate methods of consumption provide more targetable user data, and traditional TV viewers are being forced into reconsidering their television setups thanks to the digital broadcast switch, we are expecting to see a lot of new "alternative TVs" and set top boxes at CES this year.
Already, Intel, Gigabyte, and Yahoo have an HD Internet TV unit to show off, Verismo Networks has the VuNow PoD Internet TV unit, and PC manufacturers are also trying the market for home theater PCs.
FOLLOW THE COUNTDOWN:
- #13: Can automotive electronics maintain forward momentum? by Angela Gunn
- #12: Has streaming media already rendered discs obsolete? by Tim Conneally
- #11: Are the desktop PC's days waning? by Scott Fulton
A fascinating, if not utterly silly discussion.
So a very few atypical tweens have abandoned TV to live infront of the computer and view TV programs as they update their FaceBook page. OK
Unfortunately, they don't constitute the most significant demographic with expendable income, and as they think everything should be free and provided yesterday, they are not the largest targeted demographic group.
On the other hand, we evidently have PLENTY of people who still haven't a functional clue about simply the need, let alone the ability, to simply hook up a complicated(sic) digital tuner! - which would tend to indicate that they also probably don't live for FaceBook... ;-)
And for the vast MAJORITY of the folks who are not absorbed 24/7 with FaceBook nor the other asinine social sites...TV is, and will remain the primary source of visual entertainment - be it via network programming, satellite or cable, or simply for the viewing of tapes and DVDs.
But I get a kick out of folks who, on the one hand, can't even gather critical mass for BR, while on the other hand others continually debate the impossibility of the network being able to supply streaming content, while still others are ready to predict the demise of TV in the near term.
But its always fun to watch who shows up and projects whatever thir usage is onto all others and predicts that they embody the paradigm that all of society will adopt!
But I guess it makes for another silly topic of mindless debate where all the topic rightfully offers is yet one more niche option in a very diverse worldwide marketplace that will continue to slowly evolve.
Yeah, I predict TV will cease to be a viable medium on June 23,2009 at 230PM EST. Or maybe July 2 at precisely 4:15 PST. Its hard to tell exactly as my crystal ball is a bit frosted up this morning...
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|How hard is it for DVR's to give a small signal to the ratings guru's letting them know the show is being DVR'ed rather then being watched live. Then again it does making ratings meaningless because we jump through all the commercials, which is the purpose of ratings.
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|I have not bothered with a "standard TV" for ages.
In the UK, you can use services like http://tvcatchup.com/ to watch the most popular (non-subscription) channels, or via the broadcasters websites http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbcone/watchlive/ or http://www.itv.com/ or whatever.
The BBC also provide a "catch up" service that can be used to stream (Flash) or download - http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/labs - including Macs and Linux (using AIR).
That's on top of "community" torrent sites such as http://www.uknova.com/
I did use a Windows Media Centre machine to record live Freeview (digital terrestrial), but there is little point now, the online services being so good.
I've got an Eee PC that can playback six hours of TV without a charge (handy for a long train trip or air flight), and when I get somewhere I can just plug it into any LCD or Plasma screen via the VGA connector for big-screen playback.
TV will survive, but probably only for live sport and rolling news. Plus, in the medium term, as a "first showing" for programmes that most people will actually watch non-linear.
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|As long as people can flop down, press 1 or 2 buttons and have entertainment in their faces, TV or something very like it will always be around. The PC-TV convergence will only continue as everyone expects. One of the first major changes will be tremendous growth in "plaform-agnostic subscriptions." We're already seeing it with things like XM radio - you can listen on the actual satellite receiver or stream through a web browser. XM doesn't care how you listen, their getting your subscription and selling their ads either way. As the capabilities of portable devices increase, all networks will adopt this model, and since a PC makes a perfectly fine DVR, time-s***ed viewing may quickly become the norm. Its probable that only news and special events will be viewed "live" due to their immediacy. The family TV hour may soon be whatever hour is good for the family (assuming that prime time is even safe for kids any more, I haven't watched the Big Four in over a decade).
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|I'm not real sure what the point is with this. "internet tv"??? HTPC's? they are all spin-offs of the very thing they are supposed to replace...the computer. Just give me a computer and internet access and I'll take care of the rest. This article makes no mention of how much bandwidth these "HD internet TV" devices will require or the fact that if such a thing could be had then it becomes instantly meaningless when any other computer has the same access. The problem is not (and never has been) the hardware...it's about having access. Which is the very thing the AA's are trying to keep people from having. This all seems more like a ploy to seperate people from their money. TV will always be relevant. The biggest change is going to be in distribution and access.
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|Nielsen on the other hand. They need to
1. improve their tracking demographic with DVR time s***ing allowances, and Track whats recorded as a accurate rating.
Or 2: revamp their entire list of members to accurate measure real demographics, not the lowest dren of human nature.
IMHO a new system that tracks Digital downloads, DVR recording (from Timeshifting) and DVD sales of series, should be contributing factors in continuing a series, not the flawed Nielsen rating system that only seems to fall in line with the lowest 5% of the viewing public.
TAMi looks interesting.. I would love to see it have a chance to effect ratings for networks, and Maybe we will start seeing good programing return to television again, instead of having to continually turn to DVD collections to find quality programing to watch through the week.
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|I think one could effectively debate that TV has not been strictly "relevant" for MANY years!
But is it dead? Hardly!
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