The (Potentially) Bright Future Of TV On The Internet
Posted by meredith on 01-13-2009
Back in early December, I speculated that younger viewers' shift from watching TV traditionally to tuning in online was more of a committment than a preference — guessing that some college students and twentysomethings were doing away with the cost of cable TV. Now, with the economy having gone from bad to worse, it seems that this is even more of a possibility. Sparked by a Deloitte study on media consumption released last week, a recent Reuters article asked the question, "Do tough times draw TV viewers to the web?" More interesting than any affirmative answer, was an analogy to the Napster effect on the record industry. From the Reuters article:
Gartner analyst Mike McGuire says young people with newer PCs are increasingly taking over the functions of programing their own media, given the amount of TV, movie and music content they can stream or download.
TV over the Internet is sneaking up on us, slowly, unlike the music revolution set in motion by online file sharing service Napster a decade ago and laid low the music industry. Internet bandwidth limitations probably limit how many can be channel surfing online at any one time.
But with the quality and variety of shows already available on sites like Hulu and its newly viable contender TV.com, it's hard to think of this change as "sneaking up" or happening "slowly." What does seem to be taking longer, however, is the networks' ability to capitalize on the phenomenon and recognize that it may, in fact, be a good thing.
For premium channels like HBO and Showtime (a big hit with our Ypulse Youth Marketing Mashup East youth panel back in November), the web is a great opportunity to hook fans who otherwise would be deterred by the premium costs. While both of these networks have experimented with on-line TV, I see the most potential in the strategic approach that HBO took with "Flight of The Conchords," where the cult comedy premiered on FunnyOrDie.com as well as HBO's own site and racked up an additional 250,000 views. But the synergy between the viewing platform and programming is only one out of many potentially positive changes coming to broadcasting.
Categorized under: TV
January 13th, 2009 at 4:05 pm
Perhaps the successful strategic approach HBO took with "Flight of the Concords" will result in another successful opportunity – Concords on RockBand 2!
Fingers crossed.