• by Wayne Friedman , Staff Writer, September 12, 2014

Looking for a new on-ramp to traditional  broadcast and cable networks?  Or would you rather take the side streets?

Jeff Bewkes, chairman/chief executive officer of Time Warner, believes cloud-based Internet-delivered services offering scores of networks are a good way to attract Millennials and other young media consumers to the traditional TV ecosystem.

At a Goldman Sachs Media conference, Bewkes said that young consumers are “not obviously going to subscribe to big packages and bundles of channels.” New efforts will give “an on-ramp to starting in the experience of subscribing and getting something that fits them.”

Services like those proposed by Sony Entertainment (which recently signed on Viacom’s networks), Dish Network (with some Disney-ABC cable channels in tow), and now Verizon will angle for these new consumers.

A recent Viacom study may provide some insight on this. It found that one big downside to the new digital media universe is getting access to specific TV episodes -- more than three-quarters of Viacom’s young consumers cited problems here. Around the same percentage also had issues in just finding those series.

Good news: Young consumers are still watching traditional TV shows, and supposedly just under 50% prefer to watch these programs via live airings -- either through traditional means or otherwise.

Getting young consumers to use new TV distributors will take a lot of work-- flexibility, a better overall experience, and something they can afford.

Capitalism will be at work. If consumers are tired from struggling in their attempts to find a better way to get to the content they like, some new company could find an opportunity.

Too much costly downside on the traditional TV highway -- traffic and the like -- isn’t what young consumers are thinking about. That on-ramp doesn’t look too inviting.