• by Robert Keating , October 1, 2008

Just a matter of time.

Last February, comedian Sarah Silverman appeared on her then-boyfriend Jimmy Kimmel's ABC late-night program, surprising him with an outrageously funny short film: "I'm F---ing Matt Damon." Sung to a tune on Silverman's guitar, even Damon - the good-natured Good Will Hunting star and People magazine's "Sexiest Man Alive" in 2007 - danced and sang the chorus ("on the bed, on the floor, on a towel by the door, in the tub, in the car, up against the mini-bar"). It was an instant hit.

Weeks later, confessing to being humiliated, angry and bent on revenge, Kimmel responded with a short music video of his own: "I'm F---ing Ben Affleck" - complete with a We Are The World-style ensemble featuring more than 20 musicians, actors and comedians, including Robin Williams, Cameron Diaz, Don Cheadle, Joan Jett, Huey Lewis, Macy Gray, Perry Farrell and Josh Groban. Cameos included Brad Pitt and Harrison Ford. Costarring in the skit, of course, was Ben Affleck.

Tens of millions of viewers have watched this romantic and comic feud - but they didn't see it on late-night ABC television. They saw it on YouTube, The Huffington Post, Metacafe or maybe even ABC's Web site itself. And they didn't watch it when it aired. They played it later on DVRS and computers and a variety of portable devices. The more than 10 million Internet hits in one month alone far surpassed the 3.6 million viewers who actually watched the first broadcast on TV.

In many ways, the nonbroadcast distribution of these two five-minute segments is the future of television - or at least, one of the futures of television: freestanding, not time-sensitive, short enough to engage and enjoy comfortably. And surprisingly, even though the segments weren't watched on the network, ABC was anything but upset.

"One of the best ways to build an audience in the new on-demand world is with viral marketing," says Rick Mandler, vice president at Disney/ABC Television, Digital Media Group. "You no longer have a hit on at 8 o'clock that drives your schedule for the rest of the night, because a big chunk of your viewers aren't watching it at 8 o'clock. They're watching it when they want to watch it, either on a DVR or on VOD or online. So, how do you transition them to the next show? That's a big issue. I think that's the biggest issue that the future of TV faces: promotion and audience flow."

But it's far from the only issue.

The future of television is a lot of things: It is made up of more diverse and categorized content, it relies on a variety of sophisticated and wide-ranging delivery systems (from 58-inch plasma TVS, to computers, to handheld devices), there are shorter entertainment segments for targeted audiences, and the presentation of advertising and marketing to the consumer has now become one of the most challenging chess matches imaginable. But one thing the future of TV isn't: It isn't without TV. Yet.

"People have been writing about the death of television for years," says Brad Adgate, senior vice president and director of research at Horizon Media. "But as of now, it's still front and center. People are watching more TV than ever before; there are more choices out there. When you think of multiplatform deals, television is still the driver. The brands are driven by television, whether it's cable or broadcast."

"Watching TV on the Internet is not going to replace that lean-back experience of hunkering down in front of your big-screen TV," says Shari Anne Brill, vice president and director of programming with Carat USA. "Nothing is replacing anything at this point. Multitasking is on the rise. There's simultaneous usage, so it's no longer one medium versus another."

Still, the new world of television has problems to be solved: fast-forwarding through commercials, widely segmented viewership, the draw of other venues, complicated network loyalties, unsettled revenue streams and the absence of any structured guidelines for viewers.

Two major initiatives are taking television into the next era: online and the mix of cable and satellite through set-top boxes. Each serves a different need for the viewer - either computer-centric or TV-centric. But each also offers the same flexibility and brings consumer-driven engagements and decisions that are both exciting and confounding to the television industry and marketers alike.

A lot of ink has been spilled over which of these growth spurts is going to win. There have been ruminations over what's better for television, what's better for the advertiser and what's better for the viewer experience. What choice should be made between online and set-top boxes?

"It kinda doesn't matter to us," Mandler says. "We need to do both. Because for some consumers, a PC-centric advanced television service makes sense for their lifestyles, and the way they interact, and the way they use and consume media. And for other consumers, a TV-centric service based on a set-top box makes more sense. And as a company, we need to be able to provide for both of those consumers' media needs."


While the networks and content providers are battling the wants of the fickle consumer, the viewers are struggling to navigate the overwhelming tide of programming coming at them through a variety of delivery vehicles.

"There's an explosion of content being produced," says Tara Maitra, vice president and general manager of content services at TiVo. "That's because a lot of the barriers for producing and distributing content are gone, mainly because of outlets like YouTube and other platforms on the Web and mobile and video-on-demand.

"I don't want to say that anyone can be a producer, but we are finding that the line between Hollywood and Main Street is starting to blur. Maybe it isn't going to be the business of television as we know it anymore. It really does have to evolve, because in a world where the consumer is in control, to keep them you're going to have to start speaking to that consumer very differently than you are today."

The smart consumer now has a variety of viewing options, newer and newer technology, and the unfettered ability to search and choose. That has content providers recasting the way they do business in each of the delivery categories.

"The future of broadcast is going to be increasingly focused on live events, reality shows, awards shows, newsmagazines and really big competitions - fare that's topical and timely," says Kevin Beggs, president of programming and production at Hollywood powerhouse Lionsgate. "It's going to rely on things that unfold right then and there and can't be TiVoed or fed through some other source. If the Lakers won the championship, it's just not quite as satisfying to see it two days later."

Beggs sees television content increasingly divided into camps, each organized around technology and consumer interests. Scripted programs, more expensive than news and live events, will fall to cable networks, he says. There, they will be viewed by smaller audiences, but the providers will be well-fueled by subscriber fees and traditional advertising revenue.

"Cable continues to be a huge growth business, and original programming is flourishing," says Beggs, who has enjoyed great success with programs such as Mad Men and Weeds. "Almost every cable network is finding a way to get more and more original programming. And most of them are reaping rewards in huge percentages of viewership, percentages in ad revenue, retransmission fees, and subscriber fees that are generally growing and not trending down.

"So it's more of a niche business," he says. "Three million viewers as opposed to 19 million on broadcast. Because they have the dual revenue stream of subscriber fees through the MSOs and advertising, they're actually able to weather the storm in a way that broadcasters can't in this environment. Broadcasters just can't live with the cost of scripted programming."

Beyond cable and broadcast, what will the future viewer experience be? In a word: Internet.

"The PC is a great device for discovering content," says Mandler. "The Internet has just this vast, vast treasure trove of content out there. Much of it is direct and some of it isn't, but you can still find it. You can search for it and find it. So it's a great discovery device. But it's not a great playback device, because it's a small screen and you're sitting too close to it."

Still, major players like NBC have invested a lot in the notion that online TV will take off. In August, NBC Universal Digital Studio introduced "Gemini Division," its first original Web series. The sci-fi series, made up of 50 four- to five-minute webisodes, caters specifically to the sensibilities of the Internet viewer by including a number of interactive aspects and by being responsive to their input in the series' unfolding plotline. Both CBS and ABC have ventured into original online programming as well, with "Wallstrip" and "Squeegees," respectively, but neither has put as much marketing heft behind their programs as NBC has with "Gemini Division."

Aggregators like Hulu have already carved out a place in the delivery stream, with growing numbers of Internet consumers turning to them for organized, high-quality entertainment. The inventory of television content for such providers continues to expand along with their success.

"The great experience of Lost encouraged Touchstone to make highly entertaining webisodes, which were value-added," says Beggs. "They weren't just the missing scenes - they actually created their own genre within the larger construct of the Lost brand."

The third and growing option for viewers is to enjoy the search capabilities of your PC while being able to play it back on that 58-inch plasma TV. A PC linked in with a wireless mouse and keyboard provides the best of both systems in the perfect hybrid world.

And it's not an option that has gone unnoticed. More and more traditional programming from the major networks and others is being offered as Internet TV. This includes some of the networks' most important shows, and frequently their entire primetime lineups, all on an ad-supported basis.

"Over the long-long-long-term, generationally long, it's very likely that the genre - which I'll call short-form, truly short-form of five minutes - may be the way in which people consume a lot of entertainment media, putting movies aside," says Beggs. "It's just going to be more niche and more attenuated to these little pockets, and how we address it is going to be a test of all content providers going forward."

Content aside, much of the television industry's focus is centered on how to best deliver the product.

"I see media moving outside the home," says Adgate. "One of the growth areas is going to be out-of-home media - alternative out-of-home media. More time-shifting, more place-shifting, things like cell phones and global position satellites. They'll become more and more multifunctional, and as connections get faster, they'll have more and more applications and become more personal as they travel with you."

"Consumers can download content from the Internet, use their mobile devices or even their PDAs," says TiVo's Maitra. "They know they have the ability to have content when they want it and where they want it - or at least, that's what they've been told. I don't know that that promise has fully been delivered on yet.

"There are still rules and restrictions with studios, and certain platforms that are not flexible. But over the next five years, I think anyone who wants to succeed in that space will find a way to be truly flexible. I don't want to say platform-agnostic, but take down some of the barriers to allow consumers to have that promise that they've been told exists."

Over the past two years, TiVo has developed partnerships with Amazon's Unbox, CineMax, YouTube and other content providers, integrating broadcast, parts of the Internet, television-on-demand and other options. In addition to developing search capabilities, transcoding and delivery of RSS feeds, TiVo and others have adopted YouTube's feature of recommending programming based on viewers' prior choices.

"The cable world and satellite grew from 20 channels to 100 channels to 500 channels; you can now be in 80 million homes and still not have the viewership," says Maitra. "We're truly at a point where there's so much content and you still find consumers saying, 'I can't find anything to watch.' And the fact is, they can't find it, even though it might be there. So what we need to do as programmers and content owners and distributors over the next five years is to really deliver on this promise that we've talked about: choice and control and convenience. A promise that I think we've only started to deliver on."

"In the future, it's going to be more and more Web-based," says Adgate. "It's going to be better graphics. You'll be able to not only get streaming video but broadcast video, also. There will be more consumer-generated content, more reviews, viral marketing, word-of-mouth marketing. Consumers are going to increasingly have a greater say, and I think marketers and content providers are going to cultivate them to get ideas and reviews on their product."

Consumer-generated content has led the way with videos, Web forums, blogs, mashups and wikis, says Adgate, who adds that YouTube, MySpace, Facebook, Photobucket and other user-generated content sites will earn a projected $4.3 billion in ad revenues in 2011, up from $1 billion in 2007.

The networks and cable channels have responded with slick sites for their premium products, some by teaming with aggregators like Hulu, the NBC-Fox joint venture, or Veoh, which calls itself a "hyperaggregator," to deliver their programming in a quality format with a splash of advertising tastefully thrown in.

Advertisers have followed suit, shifting more and more of their budgets from traditional media to the Internet, according to eMarketer, with the fastest growth projected to occur in interactive rich media, including video.

"There seems to be this dread that consumers do everything in their power to avoid advertising," says Carat's Brill. "I so disagree with that. The reason that there is a lot of DVR fast-forwarding is that there are just too many ads. It's really a clutter issue."

Brill and the rest of the television-marketing community are working full time to solve the puzzle of capturing the elusive viewer. She calls herself and her colleagues "televisionaries" and talks of strategies that are "quantum leaps forward."

"In exchange for free or discounted television, a consumer could choose ad categories they want to have. That would be a quantum leap forward," she says. "I'm thinking there may be a lot more addressable advertising - targeted, addressable advertising."

Hypertargeting will make advertising "more customized and personal, with less waste involved," says Adgate.

Maitra notes that the optimum consumer-advertising relationship is found in bridal magazines: "If you ripped all the ads out, no one would want to buy it. In these specialized areas, there's a real opportunity to focus not just on advertising - to focus on the right advertising. Consumers are going to be less likely to fast-forward through something they care about."

"On Internet TV, folks like us are taking full episodes of our most important shows and making them available online on an ad-supported basis," says ABC's Mandler. "And those ads can be highly interactive and targeted and allow for an advertiser to deliver even a transaction at the point of a brand message."

Similar efforts are going on with traditional TV, where advanced set-top boxes allow for interactive advertising and targeted advertising - theoretically even processing a transaction, like Internet TV, at the point of a brand message. While one is driven by a PC, the other is driven by a set-top box.

"I really think there will be more addressable advertising," says Brill. "Today, so much advertising is done for the masses, whether you are really in the target or not."

With new technology come programming challenges. How can digital media platforms best be exploited?

"There are issues of privacy, but I think marketers are salivating," says Adgate.

"When you think about revenue streams, that's easy," says ABC's Mandler. "It's either advertising or premium, subscriptions or pay-for-play. But on the advertising side, you can go really deep. First, you just take a 30-second spot and play it as an online video, and we're good. Right. Now, can we target it? Can we play a 30-second spot for Purina? I want to send the spot to the guy who owns a dog. And I want to send the spot for cat food to the guy who owns the cat. And for the people who don't have pets, I want to send a spot that says, 'Wouldn't you like to have a little more love in your life? Go get a pet.'

"So you want targeted and addressable advertising. And then you want to go one step further. You want somebody to get the spot who owns the dog and say, 'Hey, click here to get a coupon for a buck off the next time you purchase our dog food.' So not only is it targeted and addressable, but it also allows for interactivity. It's essentially transaction-oriented."

Again and again, "televisionaries" refer back to the YouTube experience:

"Thirty months ago, about the time of the last Olympics, no one had heard of YouTube," says Adgate. "Someone asked me right after the Olympics what the next big thing is, and if I had said that, I would have been brilliant.

"Any time you try to predict what might happen five or 10 years down the road, you are constricted by current technology," says Steve Sternberg, executive vice president of Magna Global. "New technology, as well as consumer attitudes and trends, are perpetually around the corner. When they appear, they fundamentally change current thinking, making predictions of yesterday obsolete."

Two years ago, Mandler was on his way to a "Future of Television" conference and took a moment to say goodbye to his son Henry, then 8 years old. "I'm going away for a few days," Mandler said, "to the 'Future of TV' conference." Henry got all excited and said, "The future of TV! That's going to be incredible." So Mandler asked, "What do you think it will be?" And Henry replied, "Oh, I think in the future, your Wii and your PlayStation and your computer and your TV will all be one screen," and then he continued on with a more detailed explanation.

"I was like, 'Huhhh?'" Mandler recalls. "I was blown away that my little guy was totally on top of the future of TV. And so I said, 'So what else do you think is going to happen in the future?' And he says, 'Flying cars. It's just a matter of time.'"

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