• by Don Seaman , Featured Contributor, January 7, 2011

With the interests of all you futurists in mind, I thought we'd take a minute to satisfy two cravings at once - combining an end of the year recap with a look forward.  So to avoid having to wait patiently for an extra 30 seconds to get to the inevitable Future of Media, here is...

The Year That Was, In Preview

Wow!  What a crazy year this has been!  2011 will surely be remembered as "The Year That Changed Everything" -- again.  From how we watch television, what we're watching, how we measure viewership, how we spend our media time, it's all new.  Let's just say that after 2011, we'll certainly need a breather to catch ourselves up.  But I just wanted to take a couple of minutes to go over a few of my favorite things that happened in media over the past year.

1.    Nielsen goes public, America cleans up own ratings mess.  Citing the success of the NFL's Green Bay Packers franchise, Nielsen gives itself up to its own constituents.  "Now, everybody counts!" became the catchphrase of 2011, while their Peoplemeter app became the #1 seller on iTunes for the year as well. 

"I never cared much for television," says Mildred Pierce of Sioux City, Iowa, from a Nielsen household.  "But when Nielsen came calling, I figured, 'Hey, who couldn't use another five bucks a month?' So I joined.  They want me to tell them what I watch, so I try to remember to make something up so I don't lose my Pachinko money.  So tell me -- what's an 'NCIS'?"  When informed that she was now not only a Nielsen family, but also a stockholder, Mrs. Pierce replied, "Well, I guess I should start looking at that triple-play package and those 3DTVs they have down at the Walmart."

Early results of the takeover are promising, as Nielsen's projected sample of 116 million homes has skyrocketed, now at 116 million intab, reportable homes.  "We like the direction this takes us in, but we're kind of skeeved by the transparency," notes one Nielsen representative.

Fox's "American Idol" remained the season's top show, with a 61.4 household rating for its new Saturday results show.

2.   Mobile video overtakes movie theater attendance.  In a stunning blow to the future of cinema, more people watched full-length movies on their smartphones than attended first-run movies in 2011.  Thanks to advances in mobile screen technology, the tipping point finally was reached this year as people found that they preferred the crystal-clear images and portability of the 3.5 inch screens to the darkened, seat-filled experience of a 30'x70' theater.

"I just like the overall movie experience better this way," explained one enthusiastic Cinemobile user.  "There's nothing like seeing the majesty of a big Hollywood epic like 'Titanic' as it was meant to be - it fits right in the palm of my hand!"

TV rushes to capitalize on the trend, with cable's ComcastNBC leading the way.  "We've been minicasting for several years now, so it just seemed like it was the right time/right place for us," according to a CCNBC staffer.  "Besides, most of our stars are 'smaller-than-life' these days, anyway, so it just made more sense for us to make the move official now."

3.   "Celebrity Pottery Wheel" ignites 3D TV viewership.  Audiences are glued to their 3D TVs as eventual champion Matt LeBlanc scores a near-perfect 9.8 for his interpretation of a 12-century Ming burial urn.  Early favorite Mitt Romney makes a surprise return after Episode 4's kiln explosion, in which the former presidential candidate and Massachusetts governor suffered second-degree burns to nearly 30% of his hair. 

"Getting Drunk with a Star"fails to deliver on its initial promise after Demi Lovato and Miley Cyrus are arrested along with their Wingtestants for breaking into the Hasselhoff estate, mistaking an "A-List Recovery Event" for a star-filled event rather than the intervention it turned out to be.  Faces at GDwaS got even redder when they found out that Lovato and Cyrus are both underage, although their overexposure levels may be cited as a mitigating circumstance.  3D audiences aggressively tune out and the show never recovers after the Nick Nolte tribute episode.

4.   Autotwitter changes the way we tweet.  Back in March, when a freak blizzard trapped a driver along route 78 in western New York state, just-launched Autotwitter averted a tragedy.  In the olden days of Twitter, the poor chilly driver would've had to type, by hand "So cold.  Trapped in car on 17.  Send hel" likely freezing to death before he hit the 140 character limit. But like a social media St. Bernard, Autotwitter kicked into action, Tweeting "So cold.  Trapped in car on 17 at GPS 42.1306000000, -76.9354000000.  Running low on snacks.  Help! " Rescue vehicles were on-scene in moments, and Autotwitter had its coming-out party.

Multiple apps and websites suddenly caught the "auto" wave.  "Waiter in my Pocket" became a Yahoo Top Pick of 2011 with its June launch.  Using a combination of biometric feedback, online banking, and a partnership with Yelp, Waiter in my Pocket instantly senses hunger, retrieves your order history to see what you might want, places the order with your favorite local Chinese restaurant, autopays, then shorts the delivery person on the tip because of your status updates on Facebook and prior tweets that peg you as a bit of a prick. 

Shazam also released its "You Know What Song I Have In My Head" app, and in a partnership with iTunes, automatically plays the song that's stuck in the user's head at that moment, right after the latest version of iTunes is downloaded.

5.   The Les Moonves "Undercover Boss" episode.  Unfortunately, despite some painstaking prep work and intricate costuming, Les can't help but identify himself to each and every staffer he interacts with.  But in a major twist, the producers anticipate this and have set up an "Undercover Nielsen Viewer" as each of his coworkers.  Les is floored by the reveal at the end when each of them tell him how much of an impression that his time with them has made on them and they "might have to check out CBS someday" as a result, "as long as it isn't that Shatner sitcom."

Moonves ends the show by cryptically announcing that "should extraterrestrial life be discovered in 2012, for example,  we're also their #1 home for earth comedy."  He then challenges Nielsen to install "LifeformMeters" and pushes them to address their longtime target demographic of Aliens 25-54.

6.   Xbox Kinect and Nintendo Wii nationalize, shake up balance of power in the West.  The inevitability of a virtual world encroaching upon the solid world finally came to be in the summer of 2011.  As sales of the Xbox Kinect controller-free gaming system soared, Wii had only one option left to remain competitive in the "body controlled" game industry: citizenship.  Those who purchased a special "Constitution Edition" game platform would automatically renounce their current national identity, and after a quick sign-up on their website, be sworn in as "Wii-izens" of the new nation of Nintendopolis.  The first 50 who signed up would form a rudimentary legislature until they determined through an online survey what form of government they should adopt.

Xbox was not far behind, able to mobilize thousands of new residents nearly from Day 1.  Tensions were high between the two sides as each struggled to build their own infrastructure through both storytelling mode and arcade mode.  Xboxia found itself at a competitive and military advantage over its "fossil-controller"-dependent rival, quickly capitalizing on their ability to focus their resources upon developing bigger and more destructive games. 

Ultimately, President Obama asked his Secretary of the Web, Mark Zuckerberg, to intervene.  After tense avatar-based negotiations, the Facebook founder was able to broker an uneasy peace as the two sides teetered on the very edge of gamesmanship.

7.   Oprah's OWN Network cancels itself after two non-Oprah episodes air back-to-back.  Hopes were high for the Harpo-brand network, until it was announced that Oprah would not be on-camera 24/7.  "Oprah (bless her heart) went as long as she could, but after 96 hours straight, she started to get a little loopy," shared OBFF Gayle King.

Cable's share of viewing instantly plunged into pre-1990s levels as viewer disillusionment ran rampant.  Cablevision went into Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in February, and finally announced in May that it would no longer be able to continue as a cable company, devoting itself full-time to running their New York Knicks NBA franchise into the ground.  Time Warner sold off all of its cable assets and began printing a weekly news magazine. 

The broadcast networks responded by doubling-up on cheap reality shows and old repeats of "Law and Order." NBC keeps the ComcastNBC name for its brand equity and legacy, then migrates its entire USA lineup to its sudden NBC flagship network.  Its Tuesday night lineup of "Biggest Loser" followed by "Burn Notice" delivers a 37.9 household rating (33.8 Aliens 18-49), slightly improving its season average.

8.   Video on demand gets sentient.  Once viewers got a taste of VOD, first through the videotape, then the DVD, the DVR, then ultimately streaming video, they became a ravenous horde.  Delays of mere seconds ate away at their patience levels as audiences were eager to explore the new trillion-channel TV universe.  First-run movies, once the sole domain of public movie theaters, were now available nearly everywhere -- your 3DTV, your smartphone, your coffee maker, on your  grocery store checkout screen, on some custom contact lenses.  This ubiquity of content required a great technological leap to escalate the consumers' options.  Enter Prewind.

"Video without shackles is how we look at it," says Prewind's CMO.  "Content is being narrowcasted, but in order to truly make it 'video for me,' we had to give people the ultimate in personalization. " 

Inspired by the now archaic technology last seen in 2010's "Tron: Legacy," Prewind's technology allows each viewer to not only change an actor's appearance in the movie, but recast the part to someone else entirely.  While some early experiments weren't without their stumbling blocks (focus groups found that Eric Stolz was just "too tall" for the part of Marty McFly in "Back to the Future," and the less said about Christopher Walken's actual turn as Han Solo, the better), many viewers found the new absolute control they have over their content choices as "liberating."  "Now this is Video on Demand!" remarked one 23-year-old man, who later said that he was going to go make Carlos Beltran swing at that called third strike to end the 2006 NLCS series.

9.   Jay Leno launches bid for the Presidency.  "No one knows America better than me," announces the former NBC funnyman.  "Jeff Zucker was right - only he wasn't thinking big enough.  So typical of him!"  Zucker responded in a tersely worded email that he had never heard of anyone named Jay Leno.

Leno plans to make consistency a hallmark of his campaign, which will use the same speech for every appearance, since "America craves comfort, and nothing is as comfortable as the tried-and-true, familiar shtick -- I mean, Blueprint for our Future." 

Leno 2012 campaign manager Kevin Eubanks then announced that Leno would only be seeking one term, then will turn the country over to his Vice-Host, Jimmy Fallon.  Fallon later commented "No f#%*ing way, dude!  I've got a career to think about!"

Upon hearing the news that he'd have to give up his "Tonight Show" hosting job in accordance to the "equal time" rules, Leno replied, "Eh, that's OK.  I'm bored of it now.  It's just too much stress."  When reached for comment, Conan O'Brien had already Autotweeted, "I'm in helllllllllllll!"