Kent Newsome on technology, music and life

10/23/2006


The Demise of Television

A beautiful irony is when some self-impressed cat like Steve Gillmor talks about the "stupid blogosphere" in a blog post.

Another beautiful irony is when I am forced to agree with someone whose entire internet persona I find utterly irritating.  But, sadly, Steve is right about TV.  He's just wrong about the reason.

It is dead.  When shows like Deadwood can't make it and Deal or No Deal can, TV is dead.  When I have to find out about a show as perfect as Firefly after it has been off the air for almost 4 years, TV is dead.

When I can watch the entire season of Firefly in a week via Netflix, TV is dead.

When there are no network shows that I would allow my kids to watch, TV is dead.

But it's not about the internet.  No one other than a honking nerd wants to watch TV in a little window on a computer, when a big screen HDTV plasma is sitting 20 feet away.

Podcasts are too hard to make and no one listens to them.  I do a podcast, but it is becoming more chore than pleasure.  If someone can put their favorite songs on an iPod and listen to them on the train, why in the world would they download and listen to the nasal rants of some geek talking about technology that no one cares about?

It would be more productive to have open Skype calls once a week than to do podcast after podcast and toss them into the ether.  But most podcasters are doing it for themselves, not for the audience, so that doesn't happen.

It's not about Digg or MySpace either.  Grownups don't use those sites.  And most of the 20-somethings I know who do still watch plenty of TV content.  Sometimes they TIVO it; sometimes they wait a season and watch the episodes on DVD.  But in no way, shape or form has some butt-ugly MySpace page or the geek-o-river of news at Digg replaced TV.  The fact that some people think they have tells you how completely out of touch with the real world some bloggers are.

It's not the content of TV that is dead.  It's TV as a medium for that sort of content that's dead.  The networks should just release their shows straight to DVD.  It would save them money and us time.

Crappy shows that cater to some imaginary brainless demographic and a better, ad-free alternative in the form of DVDs and TIVO killed TV as anything other than a screen on which to view carefully selected content.

Ed Sullivan and the important half of the Beatles are gone.  I don't see anyone rushing in to make TV relevant again.

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6 Comment(s):

"The networks should just release their shows straight to DVD. It would save them money and us time."

How would it save them money? The money's spent producing the show. Broadcasting it brings (at least some) revenues. Could HBO have afforded to produce Deadwood if it had to depend only on DVD revenues? I don't think it's as simple as you make it sound.

By Anonymous Nick Carr, at 10/24/2006 8:40 AM  
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My thinking was as follows:

In the case of the traditional network shows, they could sell and place ads on the DVD, just like they do on the over the air shows. Granted, people could FF through the ads, but people can do that now via recorders.

The smart move would be to put a couple of non-FF ads at the beginning of the DVD- sort of like what Fred Wilson was suggesting for Youtube.

HBO could sell the DVDs directly to the consumer and bypass the carriers. Or perhaps use Netflix and Blockbuster as the new carriers.

The content you see on your screen would be the same. The only difference would be the manner in which that content gets to your screen.

It would be via DVD (or some future substitute) as opposed to over the air.

The risk the networks would have is that the content producers might then decide to go one step further and sell their content directly to the consumers, and by-pass the networks. Much like musicians are beginning to do.

I don't think the networks will release their shows straight to DVD any time soon, but if you look at the consumer trends (recording, time shifting, Netflix, on-demand, video downloading, etc.), it seems to me we're inching in that direction.

By Blogger Kent, at 10/24/2006 9:13 AM  
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Great post.

I've been thinking about this a lot lately.

You're right when you say:

"It's not the content of TV that is dead. It's TV as a medium for that sort of content that's dead."

That's true for early-adopters of my generation and will increasingly become true.

The question I'd like you to ring in on is: how should networks best utilize the scarce resource that they still control --- the broadcast spectrum, and thereofre the attention of the older generation (like my mom) who will always rely on network TV for her Television-type content.

I don't think it's game shows, that's a misallocation of the resource and my mom will adjust. Not towards TV-content's new medium but to other "known" (read: comfortable/familiar) content sources (movies, books, ...)

By Anonymous Fraser, at 10/24/2006 1:46 PM  
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Aside from the usual name calling, Kent, your posts often make a lot of sense right up until the crap about the A-List. Here's a suggestion: seperate the rude comments and cabal insinuations from your intelligent perspective and you'll continue to get link love or attention from those who matter to you -- Doc and Nick especially. I don't mind the personal attacks so much because they tend to dilute the authority of the attacker or preach to the choir of the already decided. But something keeps goading you on, and it's not worthy of the quality of your views. With respect,

Steve Gillmor

By Anonymous Anonymous, at 10/24/2006 3:41 PM  
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Steve,

I appreciate your comments. A couple of things.

I try to distinguish between a person's internet persona and the
person himself or herself.

The immediacy of the blogosphere, however, allows that line to blur if you aren't careful. My argument and irritation is with some of your positions and approaches- not with you as a person. Looking back, I have not done a particularly good job making that distinction where you are concerned.

I apologize for not respecting that distinction. And I agree (and have written here before) that attacking a person, as opposed to a position, is dilutive of authority.

Having said that (and without any implied hedge of my apology), if you toss out fireballs, you can't complain when one or two get tossed your way. FWIW, I would put myself in that category too.

The honest fact is that I do find a lot of what you say irritating- particularly the times when you dismiss those who disagree with you as trolls, etc. I like it when you attack a position head-on and logically- like you did at that Berkeley Salon deal. Hating on those who don't agree with you is also dilutive of authority.

In sum, while I disagree with you on a lot of things, my disagreement is with your position, and not with you as a person.

Thanks again for the comment.

Peace,
Kent

By Blogger Kent, at 10/24/2006 7:19 PM  
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It's not TV that is dead- it's the content distribution method that's dead.
Your TV is just a big display- what you watch on it- well, it could be your Playstation 3, it could be youtube, hopefully soon- you will have a choice of everything- at different resolutions (note the mac ads at www.apple.com/getamac/ads come in sm, med, large and HD)
The question is how we will pay for content- and most of it will be through portals like the iTunes store or Google video/you tube.
You will pay directly for the show- and depending on how many/or how much advertising you are willing to watch- and interact with (2-way)is how much will be taken off your "content bill"
Everything will come over IP- no more transmitters, no more watch when we tell you to- except live events like pro-sports.
Even movies will be released this way.
I've written quite a bit about the "future of TV" here: http://www.thenextwave.biz/tnw/?cat=3
but- I assure you- the screen will only get bigger, and higher resolution over time- it's the content that will be racing to keep up.

By Anonymous David Esrati, at 10/25/2006 8:36 AM  
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