• by Manning Field , January 11, 2007

Participating in this discussion gives me a tremendous sense of responsibility. What I intend to bring to the table is a client's perspective of television through the eyes of the consumer.

How is that different from the other esteemed contributors? I don't pretend to own the consumer viewpoint, but I will approach this as a consumer--not as an advertising business participant. I didn't grow up in the advertising business, so I promise to have a sometimes-annoying naiveté about industry conventional wisdoms.

First of all, let's stipulate a few things about consumers:

1) They are unconcerned with the rights issues that exist today.

2) They generally don't want to steal content. They want to pay a fair price with either their hard-earned money or their time (all a part of the ad-supported value exchange that you'll hear me constantly reference).

3) "Ad avoidance" is a symptom, not a disease (I'll touch on this in later posts).

4) They are less motivated to adhere to the current model than any of us ever will be.

Secondly, after spending a large amount of time home with family over the last few weeks, I observed some interesting things about my daughter and how she engages with television.

Most people with little ones and digital cable/DVRs have discovered the treasure of "Dora"/"Diego"/"Wonderpets" available on-demand. My 2-and-a-half-year-old daughter is obsessed with "Diego" this week. As I was hearing my wife describe the virtues of on-demand to me, I thought for a bit and it hit me like a ton of bricks. My daughter will never be able to even comprehend the question "What's on TV tonight?" You know why? Because she will own the answer. By the time she's six or seven, everybody will have their home entertainment servers--and content, agnostic to who generated it, will be available to the family on all devices on their schedule. Probably the only exception to this will be sports.

So when people talk about the future of VOD, just think of what your kids do now. Transitory technologies like DVRs, and current VOD platforms, are just the first generation of enablers for the micro-scheduling of individual content menus. It's real, it's here, and now we need to understand how we can make a branded connection with the consumer in this more active state.

Lastly, I'd like to commend all of the television networks for their forays into the digital space. What NBC's doing with "SNL" is amazing. CBS has probably come the farthest, the fastest (just look at today's WSJ). ABC was the first key leader in the ad-supported space with its prime-time lineup, while Fox has done excellent things with"24" and "Prison Break" (Yet they need to fix their lack of support of Macintosh OS immediately).

I think everybody has learned that it's not cannibalization of audiences or revenue. But the leader in this space, in my opinion, is Comedy Central. In particular, "The Colbert Report" has embraced the natural intersection of television and the Internet in a way that is, for my money, the coolest thing out there in media today, regardless of channel.

For those who don't know, here is what TV host Stephen Colbert has done:

1) Understanding his audience and the You Tube creative community, Colbert filmed an action sequence behind a green screen, and then issued a challenge to his viewers to edit in a background. I don't know how many entries there were in this challenge, but it was huge. Colbert understood his audience and engaged with them on their terms. Go check it out in You Tube or ColbertNation.com.

2) Colbert has created an alternate set of "facts," repurposing the "Wiki" idea. Just Google it. It's both hysterical and extremely smart.

3) Some central European country was having an Internet vote to determine whom to name a bridge after. After Colbert asked his viewers to vote for him, he got the largest number--millions--of entries. He lost the rights to the bridge name on a technicality, but he was very effective at using his television show to drive online behavior.

There are many more examples of how this show engages with its users digitally while still making the broadcast the hub of everything Colbert. There is lots to learn for all of us here.

Happy New Year, everyone, and I can't wait to see the CES roundup over the next few days. Looks like I'm getting that server sooner...