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May 28, 2007
Question of the Day: Has the advent of the Broadband Internet changed the way you watch TV? If so, how? If not, Why?
A year ago I asked the question: When will American Idol move from FOX to the Internet?
Back then I wrote:
"The success of AOL Music’s internet broadcast of Live8 last July (July 2, 2005) was a transformational event, and marked the advent of the “Disrupted Broadcasting” space, a space ten years in the making. While some media companies are still formulating their Internet broadcasting/distribution strategies, companies like: AOL, BBC, CBS (Viacom) Disney/ABC, NBC Universal and others have come forward and have distributed their own business and their own industry from the top down.
While we will continue to see Television series and Independent Films premiere on the Internet and then make their way back to broadcast TV and to Cable, what I’m waiting to see is for the owners of a major brand like American Idol to have the courage to take their show, move it away from Fox and put it exclusively on the Internet and oh by-the-day keep all of the advertising revenue for themselves. Something that would be parallel to the move Howard Stern did by moving from Commercial FM Radio to Satellite radio. A move by American Idol to an Internet that knows no boundaries and an Internet that offers the producers of the show the innate ability to take advantage of one-to-one marketing on a massive scale. Broadband viewers of American Idol could place their votes in real-time and engage in all sorts of rich-media supported communication sessions. In time, the producers of American Idol on the Net would be able to offer their viewers a higher fidelity audio experience than they are experiencing today on broadcast TV.
Of course in real life the folks at FOX most likely have tied down the rights to American Idol all for themselves. But, if the owners of American Idol could make the move from FOX to the Net, and if they did make the move, it would create a tidal wave of epic proportions for other shows to follow. American Idol is a strong enough brand to withstand the backlash it would incur by making such a move. Lesser brands most likely couldn’t pull this off and survive. But then again, maybe they could…
Another trend to look for is for cancelled TV series to consider going directly to the Internet in addition to and/or instead of going into syndication.
And the opportunity exists for an enterprising team to get together and develop their own American Idol clone and market it exclusively on the Internet. Now that is a start-up I would be interested in learning more about."
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So, it has been another year and another amazing rating season for American Idol. The 2006/07 Television season has been a transformational one in the United States and for the first time ever, people who did not own a television in the United States but who had broadband internet access were able to watch many of the prime-time TV shows for free, simply by knowing where to visit on: ABC.com, NBC.com, Myspace (for Fox) and CBS.com.
So maybe I'm not holding my breath for FOX to take American Idol off their broadcast network and make it available only on broadband. But we are now a year closer and I'm willing to bet this is going to happen. Maybe not in the United States. But it will happen and set a precedence and that act will eventually influence television executives from around the world to take notice.
But what do YOU think about this?
Has the advent of the broadband Internet changed the way you approach TV? If so, how? If not, Why?
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Tags: Internet TV, American Idol, fox, Jeff Pulver
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Posted by jeff on May 28, 2007 07:33 AM | Permalink
Additional resources: Watch PrimeTime TV Shows | Watch the Jeff Pulver Show | Jeff's Qik Videos
Comments
I think its stupid no one should buy boxes or cable just listen to the radio
Posted by: Sw at May 14, 2008 02:06 PM
It's definitely dramatically changed the way I watch television programming. I mostly just download shows I want to watch so I can watch them at my convenience as well as store entire seasons of shows on my harddrive. Since getting a broadband connection the only television I watch is sports games.
Posted by: Bosco Brand at May 31, 2007 08:09 AM
having worked in the TV-Video world all my life, it certainly has changed things.
Your comment on cancelled shows being shown on the internet is prescient, as gardenfork.tv - which we pitched to several cable channels - is an example of a failed TV show pitch that has done really well on the internet.
All the cable channels liked our concept, but because a celebrity wasn't attached, they passed on the show. I started producing it for the web, and now, in a D-list sort of way, I have become a minor internet celebrity.
So not only has broadband changed the way I *watch* TV, it has changed the way I produce TV.
Posted by: eric : gardenfork.tv at May 29, 2007 11:15 AM
I don't watch broadcast at all. I watch emule... I have an Mvix and Xbox media center with 250 Gigs space. All the latests movies, series, DVDs, music are stored in it for on demand entertaiment. No commercials, watch whenever I want whatever I want. Same for my wife and kids.
Posted by: Ziv Isaiah at May 29, 2007 09:06 AM
One of the sacrifices I knew I would have to make when I moved to France in 1999 was entertainment television (always figured I would be able to continue watching sports...even if those sports and sports personalities weren't those I grew up knowing/loving/hating). Though I was never a much of a channel surfer, there were a few shows that I actively enjoyed, and having to give them up was quite difficult at the start.
Then Napster happened...peer-to-peer file-sharing was a reality, albeit music files of not-great-size. Then KaZaA happened...greater capacity file-sharing, with some video bleeding over into the music and small executables. Then KaZaA kept happening....avi files of the more popular American TV programs started appearing. Then Bittorrent, and...
Today, through the magic of the broadband Internet I often am able to download and watch my favorite American TV programs on the same day they are shown in the US...at my leisure and pace, and without commercials. It isn't "TV on the Net" per se, and yet...without the 'Net I wouldn't be watching much TV, thassfershur.
Posted by: K² at May 29, 2007 05:57 AM
Joost has made a huge difference in how I watch TV. I've decided to stop paying for cable because of it.
Posted by: Matt at May 28, 2007 11:19 PM
I haven't had TV in my apartment for about a year. I watch some shows online and I watch and listen to a lot of podcasts.
Posted by: Dave LaMorte at May 28, 2007 08:30 PM
for the past 3 years, with broadband, Tivo (It's called max in Israel) and the newly media PC i'm building now - the TV is, by definition, a peripheral of my digital home network.
Posted by: Gadi Shimshon at May 28, 2007 04:18 PM
for the past 3 years, with broadband, Tivo (It's called max in Israel) and the newly media PC i'm building now - the TV is, by definition, a peripheral of my digital home network.
Posted by: Gadi Shimshon at May 28, 2007 04:17 PM
Yes it has changed the way that I watch TV. First, I do not own a TV set, so I also do not watch it other than in hotel rooms or friends houses, and even then it gets ignored most of the time.
Now, with Zattoo I have watched TV shows a few times, and surprisingly enough, it is just as boring as watching in the the box. What has changed is that now I have access to it, if by chance, the rare good thing that I want to not miss is on. However after about one week of overdosing on Zattoo, I have had enough.
Posted by: Dannie Jost at May 28, 2007 01:08 PM
I'd like to say that it has, but I can't. Despite being in a technologically advanced country,I have a lousy broadband connection, and a PIII 600 laptop. Does not work....
I do find self-broadcasting to be interesting but for the moment, until ALL technology is fast enough, just waiting for a YouTube vid to load and then watching it a second time so I can see it with 75% less chop is still not gonna replace a TV movie or a theatre movie.
Mind you, given the way things inprove I can't promise I'll still say the same next year...
Posted by: ted at May 28, 2007 12:16 PM
A friend said the reason why there are so few games for the Mac is people are too busy doing stuff- audio, video, pictures, etc. I think this spills over into entertainment as well. If you have broadband and know where to find preferred content, there's no reason to watch regular TV- our downstairs set is a screen for the Wii- the upstairs wide-screen is for movies.
I use broadband for audio, watching internet TV, and have lost interest in most regular TV except for the few shows I enjoy- Jon Stewart, House, and the guilty pleasure of things like Project Runway and Top Chef, or almost anything on BBC America.
The sameness of most TV is what drives me mad- how many epsisodes of law & order do we need? (Or maybe watching people do stupid things and get caught just doesn't appeal to me anymore.)
Posted by: whitney hoffman at May 28, 2007 12:09 PM
I don't think there's any need for FOX to move American Idol exclusively to the web -- why cut out a massive segment of the viewing audience when many Idol viewers don't even have computers? -- but I do believe we'll see the internet increasingly treated like home video or DVD: a slightly-delayed release mechanism for all content (film, radio, TV) that is made available shortly after its "official" release at a specific time / place... I was never a big TV watcher either. If anything, I spend more time reading blogs than watching TV.
Posted by: Justin Kownacki at May 28, 2007 11:55 AM
I don't even own a TV any more - haven't since late 2004. All of the entertainment in the house comes either via Netflix or the FIOS line. Lots of good shows - Start Cooking, Ze Frank (before he got self-cancelled), Galacticast, etc.
Posted by: Christopher S. Penn at May 28, 2007 11:54 AM
Sites like Ustream.tv are definitely reinventing TV as we know it. I now watch Ustream.tv shows/podcasts more than I watch regular TV!
Posted by: James Stevens at May 28, 2007 11:50 AM
MOST DEFINITELY. I would have to say that I never watched a lot of television because there was so much crap on but I did watch a lot of the acceptable maintream shows. Plus I was a big MTV fan. But since broadband and the creation of podcast and vidcast, I find that when people ask me what shows I watch I have to start explaining what the internet has to offer. Not only that but I have found that watching the news on television seems so trivial because there's more insight on the internet. Now, I am intelligent enough to not take things on face value and just trust anything on the internet. But what's fascinating is that the information I get from the internet about today's issues is so much more informative it makes searching for the truth (meaning having more insight on all sides of an issue) much more satisfying than the crumbs that mainstream give you reflecting their point of view or personal opinion. And broadband just makes it a much smoother transition compared to the dial-up days.
Posted by: TheFemGeek at May 28, 2007 11:04 AM
Well, like Hans basically.. I am mostly watching Podcast episodes and also mostly while being on the train with my laptop.
Beside that I think I prefer the more creative way of using my spare time as in Podcasting, Blogging, Videoblogging and doing stuff in Second Life.
But in general I never was a big TV watcher anyway.
Posted by: Christian Scholz at May 28, 2007 10:20 AM
I'm not watching TV on the net, but the net keeps me off regular TV as well. ;-)
Posted by: Hans Persson at May 28, 2007 09:34 AM