Commentary
Online Video: Nuff Said
- by Joe Mandese @mp_joemandese, April 5, 2013
Programming chair and emcee Steve Smith kicked off the Video Insider Summit at the Mohonk Mountain House in upstate New York by dispensing of his standard preamble: You know the numbers and
metrics about the (fill in the blank) medium’s growth.
“I’m not going to cite them,” he advised, explaining, “We all know how quickly
online video is growing.”
Instead, Smith set the stage for online video by talking about another one, it’s projenator televison.
“It was the signature medium of the last century,” he noted, adding that it still pervades and determines the culture of all the video media that follow. “It’s natural as
we tak about online video that we still talk about GRPs, :15s and :30s.”
Then Steve geeked out, giving some personal relevance and perspective to the shift to
online video.
“Personally, for each one of us, it’s the history we all bring to it,” Steve said of televisions reference basis. “For instance, I
am a TV babby. I mean a real TV addict,” he said flashing the cover of the 1972 “Fall Preview” issue of TV Guide.
“It was like a big
event,” he said of the annual edition, adding, “For me and my household that was a big thing. I pored over this thing. I memorized the TV grid. In my house they didn’t need the TV
grid. We stopped subscribing to TV Guide, because everyone in my family knew they could just ask me what was on. I was not an idiot savant -- there was talk of that -- I was teh kid you talked to to
find out what was playing against ‘Love American Style’.”
Joe Mandese is the Editor in Chief of MediaPost. You can reach Joe at joe@mediapost.com.
