Ted wrote a post today based on the Silcon Alley Insider story about the TV Week interview with Jeff Zucker, entitled I Heard the Same Kind of Banter 10 Years Ago from Newspaper Titans…
“When you can’t grow, you focus on expenses and the cycle of cuts; layoffs; cheapening of the product; and all sort of self-fulfilling rationale begins. I once thought of NBC television under Brandon Tartikoff as a creative powerhouse. Now it is all about suits and numbers and cheap content to fill in the time slots. Color me nervous for network TV,” Ted Leonsis on his blog, Ted’s Take.
I don’t put Zucker in the same league as Tartikoff creatively, but this environment is very different than the one Brandon T. faced, and I’m not sure even he could’ve done much. The truth is, Ted is right to be worried, but network TV needs to be worried no matter what. And perhaps even more worried than the newspapers – at least in terms of primetime programming. Though it’s not really true right now outside of the NFL, in 20 years sports is bound to be the most lucrative programming because it might be practically the only thing people watch live.
The problem is with the younger generation, say Ted’s kids, the expectations around content are:
- It should be available whenever I want it
- It should be available in whatever venue I want to view it in
- It should be free
That last one is already mostly true for the newspaper business, but at least they can make a case for big advertising in their revenue stream. The kids don’t seem to want advertising in their television content.
I think to some degree networks like HBO are going to have to go to the likes of Apple and Intel and say, “The young affluent watch Entourage: Sponsor our show please!” and then make it “free”. As for broadcast networks, the end for primetime as we knew it has already happened. We’re just now on the long, slow ride towards the bottom.
There will be a few exception shows, but mostly I think The Office (few viewers, right demographics) is already the wave of the future and Zucker is just managing it as efficiently as he can. I hope however, Ted will be inspired to write a “10 steps to save broadcast primetime” post as he did with the newspaper industry (sadly when Ted moved his blog to a new domain, some of the posts got horribly formatted in the transition, but that one in particular is worth wading through anyway).
I highly recommend Ted’s blog – it’s often about what’s going on his world, but it’s also often just what he thinks about what’s going on. Plus, he posts stuff like links to a younger Bill O’Reilly going kind of crazy.
May 12th, 2008 at 5:38 pm
I have two friend with DVRs who both claim that they will start watching an event 30 minutes to an hour after it started and then just fast forward through the commercials.
May 12th, 2008 at 5:58 pm
James, I occasionally do that with sports as well. Still, I think that live events are less likely to be recorded than others.
May 12th, 2008 at 7:29 pm
Bill is right, if you want viewers to watch live, the program has to either live or have incentives to watch live.
A few ideas
1. live cast-audience interaction
2. codes that are good for free dls of songs featured in the show. codes could be given out during commercials and be could for a limited time after the show.
3. discounts on advertised products that work in the same way as the songs
May 12th, 2008 at 8:13 pm
can “sponsor” an ad
Edit: can “sponsor” a show
May 12th, 2008 at 8:28 pm
There are many shows well suited to copious product placement (Entourage is certainly one of them, and I'm sure they're making something on it). I agree that the music industry is the better comparison in some ways. But I think Ted used newspapers (and I stuck with it) because the hubris of record company executives didn't initially involve a lot of talk about managing margins to the point where the overall products sometimes gets a lot worse.
The recording industry was more: “Internet bad, let's take these people to court!”
The video industry overall is going to have to do two things:
1. Give people more/better/easier control over content they have purchased
2. make the content a lot cheaper
My TV portion of the my cable bill is roughly $100 bucks including HD, expanded content, etc. This will need to get down to around $29.95 and the industry will fight like hell to prevent #1 & #2 above until they 're absolutely sure there's no other way to make money. It's not easy because many existing revenue streams will go away completely (DVD for the most part, for example). I still think people will value the experience of the movie theater because people like “going out”, but DVD revenues are fueling a lot of the movies currently it seems.
It's also not just one industry involved. Cable/sat providers, cable networks, broadcast networks. Getting all of them to agree on something other than preserving revenue streams will be a difficult road!