• by David Goetzl  @dgoetzl, March 19, 2012

Longtime marketing industry analyst Brian Wieser says entrenched entities throughout the TV ecosystem “have nothing to worry about” regarding new gambles to create Web-based programming options, such as the Barry Diller-fronted Aereo and an Intel would-be over-the-top service. A principal reason: consumers want content flowing easy.

The Pivotal Research Group analyst writes in a report that more affordable services are “preferable,” but only on paper to a degree because “the vast majority of consumers don’t want to think about how they access video: they just want it to work.”

If new ventures want to widely supplant incumbent services -- i.e., turning on the TV via a remote control -- it will be “necessary to offer up a service involving as little change as possible from the existing model,” Wieser writes.

With all the on-demand options consumers have on new platforms, putting them in control, Wieser says “they don’t seem to want to exercise it very much. The primary reason? TV is mostly an ambient experience.”

He notes that the would-be disruptive opportunities, such as the DVR or Web streaming, have increased “marginally” when compared with traditional TV viewing.

“While laptops and iPads are certainly pervasive in a large minority of homes, the nature of the devices (let alone their limited batteries) mean that consumption of video on these platforms is generally limited to ‘active’ viewing,” Wieser writes. “Very few consumers will ever consume all of their TV in this active manner, and any new service will be hard-pressed to replace old ones in the near-term for much of the population.”

He suggests that Aereo and Intel’s prospects are likely to go beyond “niche audiences.”