Commentary
Fear the Disconnected Dead
- by Joe Mandese @mp_joemandese, September 1, 2015
At a time when it seems as if TV
is, in fact, everywhere, I’d like to make an assertion that there’s only one place that really matters: in front of people who are watching it. Now that may seem like an obvious point, but
in a business that increasingly seems to be about the “platform,” it’s actually the people who are accessing it who count.
It’s something I’ve always believed, even when platforms were few and far between. Take TV’s earliest fragmentation: cable TV. When I covered the emergence of “multichannel television” in the early 1980s, study after study pointed out the differences between “broadcast” and “cable,” but when you actually asked consumers what they thought they were watching, they simply called it “television.” Or, more likely, they said the names of their favorite TV shows.
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Yes, there are distinctions that make every new distribution medium somewhat unique, but they are mainly industrial issues like licensing, business models and scale.
It's not that business models don’t matter. They matter a great deal when it comes to viewers actually getting access to programming; there's also the issue of whether business models can support the creation and distribution of shows. But we’re also discovering that when business models get in the way of access, consumers still find a way to watch what they want.
Recently, I asked a college-age acquaintance of mine if she'd caught the premiere of AMC’s “Fear the Walking Dead.” She’s a big fan of the original AMC series, “Walking Dead,” and was getting ready to leave for a semester abroad in Europe.
“No,” she replied, adding, “but don’t worry, I’ll catch it later.”
It was the catching it later part that is important to this column, because she -- and many other young viewers -- know that business models are not necessarily an impediment to their on-demand viewing needs. Whether it is a pirate site or BitTorrent or some other peer-to-peer means, they know how to get what they need, when they need it.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m not condoning those practices. Nor am I an expert on licensing law. But I do know that when a behavior becomes so widespread that it’s no longer practically enforceable, that’s when revolutions happen. And I think many people in the industry are ignoring a revolution that is happening, mainly because it's occurring in a part of the world they do not see for themselves. Industry efforts to curtail black and/or grey markets for accessing television content should continue, even if they are likely to fail. Better would be to foster industry initiatives that facilitate what consumers want, in a way that's economically viable for the people who make and distribute it.
Want a good example? Think music and iTunes. At a time when the music industry was growing apoplectic over piracy, Steve Jobs had the foresight to understand that the issue wasn’t really piracy, but giving people access to what they wanted in a way that was simple -- and a reasonable value exchange. And yes, iTunes does distribute TV content, too. My college student friend could even download episodes of “Fear the Walking Dead” there. But the problem is that the TV industry has made it too complicated for such behavior to be second nature. Instead, potential viewers use social media to find the best available file to download.
I’m not sure what the solution is. I remember when Discovery Channel founder John Hendricks launched Your Choice TV in the early 1990s, because he understood this latent consumer desire to access TV content on demand. The barrier was getting all the rights-holders to play along, he said. He was right about that.
The real problem facing the TV industry, particularly the over-the-top segment, is that it simply isn’t a very good user experience. And people are finding their own ways around it.
It’s not just a problem plaguing consumers. It’s what is keeping the ad industry from supporting sponsorship models that would otherwise help underwrite the free, ubiquitous access of programming via connected TV consumers.
Significantly less than half (43%) of the Association of National Advertisers’ members surveyed recently by the ANA and Brightline said they were “very” familiar with the connected TV and OTT marketplace. And only one in five (22%) said they had used it as part of their TV advertising.
“Lack of familiarity” was cited as the No. 1 barrier, according to marketers responding to the survey.
I would say it is really more about complexity, the same issue that is driving some consumers to bypass the legitimate connected TV marketplace entirely. Make it easier, and consumers and advertisers will connect.
Joe Mandese is the Editor in Chief of MediaPost. You can reach Joe at joe@mediapost.com.
Well said Joe. And not only "in front of people who are watching it", but in front of and counting people who are watching.
You are right Joe. The problem is not technical. It is people saying "Hey by the time this becomes a problem I will be retired so I am going to maximize profit now and later is someone elses problem"
Linear, PVR, On-Demand = Playout Central
I really don’t care what the a manufacturers tell me I need, this is what I want. Given that existing assets are in the cloud and my live feed goes to the cloud I want to give my viewers access from the cloud.
Linear TV relieves the viewer of the onus of deciding what to watch when. It is currently possible to have a “channel” per user based upon their known preferences. This will cost a premium as unicast will be required. But just like on Youtube if others subscribe to your channel everybody will pay less (because at some point multicast will save bandwidth) and you can charge for the curation. From the backend providing a unicast stream or multicast is the same, as it is simple file access in to the storage from the cloud. Anybody can curate a linear channel once the payment per usage is set up at the cloud level. The content owner doesn’t care who watches as long as they get payed. The role of the intermediary willing to take a risk that an audience will be achieved who then makes a profit when the audience is reached can be taken on by any party. Curation and promotion are the “value added”. So how does the curation and promotion get paid for?
Does the content owner pay the “promoter” when users access via that channel? As a content owner does this bring me anything as opposed to the user paying the promoter and the promoter paying the owner?
U->O->P
U->P->O
How about:
U->O for the content
and
U->P for the service
This would be based on uniquely watermarked content being delivered to each user and player connection to the internet for verification. Do the owner or user loose anything in this scenario? How does the billing take place? The internet provider could be contracted by the owner to track and bill for usage. As usage charges are fixed and transparent the user would know if they are being overcharged.
My daughter came to me the other day and said “Hey Dad, I want to watch Inglorious Bastards”
I found the best source for her viewing application and downloaded it. The next day I put it on her USB.
My problem was that it was complicated enough that she had to ask me to help. The rights owners problem was that they did not get a fair share of the cost, because for me to insure their share would have made it even more complicated.
The root of the problem lies in the past. Historically getting copyrighted material to the largest audience required “hands on” at the regional level. This resulted in distribution rights being granted for so-called territories. These territories still exist and are defended with vehemence! What is a consumer to do when the local rights holder does not provide convenient access? The internet, combined with low cost storage and multifunctional presentation devices, makes it possible to consume any media anywhere, but actually doing this is inconvenient and unintuitive. Imagine driving from New York to Philadelphia or Paris to Stuttgart and when you get there your telephone no longer works. You then spend hours going through arcane menus and registration procedures and then still have to pay through the nose. I would find a hotspot, pull out my laptop and use VOIP.
The technology, including embedded purchaser ID, is available to provide ubiquitous content availability while at the same time insuring that the creator gets her due. Implementing this technology, will however, remove a whole lot of middle-men out of the equation. Legislating technology in order to protect vested interests is counterproductive or luddite. Providing relief from poverty caused by disruptive technology is, on the other hand, part of good governance. Knowing the difference between relief to the poor and handouts to the rich is made extremely difficult by disinformation and industry lobbying. Creatives need to be paid, however, historical entitlement for a service that is no longer required has no value.
This is Spot On.
There is a "revolution" underway. Piracy is the Elephant in the room and the legacy TV companies will need to downsize cost structures to compete in an ever Audience Fragmantation landscape where the User controls what they watch and when.
Linear TV can be "re-invented" but the innovation will not come from the legacy TV companies.