I recently moved to using internet television. I lost several channels because the FCC wouldn’t let some of the digital stations power up to pre-Feb. 17th levels. Rather than pay $400 for an antenna or pay for cable, I started using Boxee instead.

“the numbers show that even the youth still watch most of their TV on TV.” If those are the numbers from the report above and you believe the three screen scenario they are based on is going to continue to be relevant sure, I don’t.

Still believe NBC have the right idea and is a forerunner in the race to the bottom between the networks, I believe there was an article in Variety recently covering Dean Devlin of Leverage where he got to explain how much more creatively fulfilling it is to work for cable than in broadcast, another nail in the broadcast networks coffin

Also remember that major spenders on ads are banks and car companies. They don’t have cash to burn that way. Likewise people are bracing for Bud to cut back it’s revenue spending since InBev isn’t so loose with a dollar like the folks in St. Louis. It’s just going to get bleaker as far as revenue sources for major ad buy. How much time can Cash 4 Gold buy?

And it turns out that Oxygen is running a marathon of America’s Next Top Model this afternoon.

On a $/bandwidth basis, it’s certainly cheaper than it was 20, and ten years ago, and it might be cheaper than it was five years ago on that basis, but I am not paying any less for my high speed Internet connection now than I was 5 years ago (I’m not paying much more, either).

In the aggregate I think Hulu is the real deal, but on a per episode basis for television shows, it’s not a big deal for most of the shows available via Hulu. Though I agree that the under 35 crowd is much more amenable to watching TV via the Internet, the numbers show that even the youth still watch most of their TV on TV.

Right now, I think your take on the advertising industry being willing to pick up the costs is…out there. I mean if you think about it, these are the same people who clamor for additional ratings insights, but when they’re told what that data will cost? They decide they’re not that interested. So, I take with a grain of salt that the advertisers will be willing to pick up the burden of something that would be a many billions of dollars proposition.

The cable companies seem in the best position to do this. the pipe between me and Comcast is very, very fat. The pipes from Comcast to the rest of the Internet are not as fat. Speaking of pipes, the notion that Comcast will give me that at a significantly reduced cost to what I’m already paying is, for now, but a pipe dream.

Mikey, see above why the ad people are going to tell the broadcast execs “the internet is the future, you in or out ?”

The last sentence in the original article is so very true.
“The major English broadcast networks aren’t going away (like some newspapers are), but their business models will have to change more in the next 5 years than they have in the last 25.”

The notion that the Internet is going to be the distribution for all video might not be pure urban legend, but in the current architecture it is. In a few weeks we’ll be reading about the glorious numbers CBS.com is getting for NCAA viewers online. What we likely won’t read is how much more expensive it is to serve these viewers, and how relatively inefficient it is. The TV distribution model has no added incremental cost for additional viewers. If 12 million watch instead of 9 million, it didn’t get any more expensive to reach the additional 3 million. BUT, if 4 million try to watch a game online at the same time instead of 2 million, there is definitely a cost associated with that, and while on a per viewer basis it gets down to practically nothing, it’s not practically nothing in the aggregate.

The first two weeks to show evidence of overall cable erosion were week 10 (HH fell -1.2% from year before) and week 11 (HH fell 0.7% from previous year).

Meanwhile, over in broadcastland (the 7 Englishers, 4 Spanishers, PBS & independent stations), the overall broadcast numbers have shown year-over-year household increases in two weeks: week 9 (HH up 1.9% year-over-year) and week 13 (HH gained 4.4% over last year).

These are very early tea leaves of a trend towards cable cancellations / falling audiences caused by subscribers pinched by economic circumstances. We should see very low cable growth (week 20 saw a 0.2% year-over-year growth in households) and I expect to see ‘free’ broadcast recover some of its numbers back, even with the DTV shutdown of analog signals that began in February.

Right now the networks effectively incentivize people to view their content online by offering it with reduced commercial load. This can continue as long as the networks believe that online viewing is either “additive” (unprovable) or trivial, which it is now but may not always be.

As soon as online viewing is seen as cannibalizing TV viewing, they will change the formatting so that online viewing is no more or less attractive than TV viewing. If anything, you’ll see FF functions disabled online to make it less attractive than TV.

They do? Man, I’ve never felt that way. Newspaper advertising is the easiest for me to tune out, and I’ve been a loyal subscriber since I was a kid.

“Newspapers continue to deliver the largest reach in a local market compared to all other media.”

I find that incredibly hard to believe. Any network affiliate should reach far more people than even the most popular local paper. If you have a source for that claim I’d love to see it because that is an eye-opening comment.

The fact still remains (fragmented audience or not), people watch TV for entertainment and the majority of viewers will say that they DO NOT watch TV for the commercials. The only exception to this rule is the Super Bowl. When commercials come on, that is when people use their DVR’s and TVO’s to FAST FORWARD to the next part of their entertaining program. TV commercials are intrusive and a waste of time for many people who want to watch the programs but do not want a 20 minute program to suck up an hour of their time.

Broadcast continues to talk about audience growing but it is a shame that the truth is not told. It simply does not matter UNLESS people are actually spending time watching commercials. If more people are watching TV it is probably because with DVR and TVO, busy people just like me actually have time to watch a program because of eliminating the commercials and being able to pause it and rewind, etc.

Most people who subscribe to a daily newspaper will tell you that they take it not only for the quality news (local and national) but that they also subscribe to it for the daily advertising information. Craig’s list and Monster are only a competitor with newspaper’s classified advertising revenue (employment, automotive, real estate). Many classified advertisers ALSO advertise in the main part of a newspaper to reach a large number of potential buyers, who may or may not be ready to buy right now but will likely be in the near future. Newspapers continue to deliver the largest reach in a local market compared to all other media.

Although many newspapers (not all!) are losing circulation and are struggling due to the enormous effect the economy has had on revenue, they still reach more people (with un-intrusive ads) who pay money to see those ads every day.

1. Makes sense though the content providers would have to figure out what ’same commercial load’ should be, less might be more here as in remote free.

2. I think the content providers really would work hard to avoid this option, the future of content programming surely lies in making your content available for as many people as possible whenever they have the time to watch, removing your content from Hulu or similar portals will be like removing it from iTunes, not achieving much for the bottom line.

Thinking about iTunes I do have a feeling there is a role here for paid downloadable/streamable content as well, probably not a big one but not to be ignored.
Because Yes Mr/Ms average are lazy but the niche people advertisers are willing to pay a premium to reach are not, they are the ones that follow their favorite shows with religious devotion, talk about them with friends, chat about them on the internet and are willing to pay extra to see them on their phones on the train.

Friday night to Sunday night is a deadzone far as programmers are concerned. And why is BBCAmerica running American shows and American movies? Did anyone here expect to see reruns of Dancing with the Stars from the Anglophile Channel?

The Weather Channel has the most to lose in the digital age since most of the major local channels run a sub-station giving the same info along with the new Doppler image. What’s the point of the channel now? TVLand can also be replaced by a subchannel. In our area there’s RTN giving us all the old Universal shows.

I do think digital is the big threat down the road, but not merely downloading or Hulu, but people cracking their DVDs and creating their own version of a TV channel – sort of like Live365. You have a few folks who have a fun sense of taste and they’ll become more addicting than what’s offered on your cable box.

Far as the budgets of shows go – Monk is being canceled because of that issue. The show is scoring high in the ratings yet NBC-Universal has their 100 episodes so off it goes. NBC Today Show now has one man camera crews getting their minor stories instead of hiring sound and a PA. Look at how all three news networks have become Talk Radio channels instead of real journalism in order to bring down costs. It is sad that we’re in a golden age of TV shows, but you can smell the most unentertaining people are getting back in power. Who’s ready for a fifth hour of the Today Show?

Will technology become the main driver in the future? I can’t say that it will or won’t but I would say that if a mass audience starts watching TV on a big screen via their internet connection you’ll see one of two things happen:

1) the networks will make their programming available online with the same commercial load that airs on TV. No more seeing the show online with fewer commercials

2) the networks will simply stop putting their shows online at all, making piracy the only online option

Now, there will always be an audience for pirated content, but I don’t think it will be anywhere near 25% because when it comes to TV, bottom line, people are lazy.

But there are two discussions taking place here one is how is tv going to be distributed ? The other is how are we going to pay for the tv we want to watch ?

The first one I’d claim have already been answered by technology, all tv whatever the original source is going to arrive to our big screen tv through our internet connection.
The other question remains open for discussion but IMO the downward spiral for broadcast advertising supported tv seems clearly visible, the current model is broken, whatever CBS thinks.

This is really the key to this story. You buried the lede a little here, Bill.

Broadcasters hold the ultimate trump card in the game: retrans consent. To me it’s inevitable that the four major networks will waive their right to free carraige on MSOs. It’s only a question of how aggressive the broadcasters will be in their pricing.

The big four are still the most popular offerings on every cable system by a huge margin. Eventually MSOs will have to choose to either pay them or compete with satellite services without their most popular programming. What do you think they’ll choose?

The Big Three broadcasters (or three of the Big Four) – CBS, NBC, ABC – remind me a lot of the Big Three automakers – GM, Chrysler, Ford. For years upon years, they’ve assumed that their products are the best, and as such deserve cost premiums on advertising. Meanwhile, little cable stations are offering us some fun new options – with less expensive productions. That’s like GM cranking out Hummers and Cadillacs, while Hyundai and Kia are making functional little cars that people can actually afford to buy .

Ford would be tne “NBC” of the group – leveraging their strong overseas markets the way NBCU leverages its cable profits. As for Fox, they never bought into the 10p.m. hour, so they are not quite comparable in terms of programming costs. I’d see Fox as the safest network in the current climate, for the Idol factor and no 10 p.m. hour too. The CW and MyNetwork? Too small to matter if they fail, maybe?

The obvious counter of – You’re dreaming, many people will keep watching broadcast, whether it is of habit or second rate internet connections.
I’d say that I’m willing to bet that in 10 years time, in the important US markets 25%+ of all tv shown on the big screen is going to come through the internet connection, much more in the all important 18-49 demo. The advertising revenue will follow the demo however much the media industry cries.

Sorry no numbers to back this up, just my finger in the wind.