Disintermediation and Convergence Update – Video
November 16th, 2006
The other day Tivo announced that it had created software to allow Internet Video on Television. The expected convergence of video, TV and the Internet is now in full force. As I wrote in an earlier post about Apple’s announcement of iTV, everything is converging onto the big flat screen in the living room. Channel surfing between ESPN, CNN, YouTube and iFilm while sitting on your living room couch will soon be an experience for many. So the reality of convergence, something spoken about as being in the future for the last ten years, is now upon us.
This development is just another example of disintermediation. The networks used to control what we saw on TV. They were joined by cable networks. Then we got the remote control in our hands and we controlled the viewing. Now, with Internet video coming to our living room we are in complete control of what we watch regardless of source. This also points to the continuing flow of economic power and control to the individual. We are not only choosing what we watch but also when and where we watch. We can use Tivo to watch our favorite shows whenever we want. We can download video to hand held devices to watch when and where we want. We can use Sling Box to watch programs even when we are half way around the world. We now live in a world of ultimate choice.
One remaining question is whether watching all those quirky videos from YouTube on big flat screen TVs will increase viewer ship or make us realize that they are best viewed on the small screens of our computers. But it is increasingly our choice to make.
November 16th, 2006 at 11:23 am
“One remaining question is whether watching all those quirky videos from YouTube on big flat screen TVs will increase viewer ship or make us realize that they are best viewed on the small screens of our computers.”
I think it isn’t so much a question of whether the videos are best viewed on the smaller format, as the progression of technology inevitably solves concerns of technical quality standards, but rather that the shift in programming duration is the big unresolved question. Smaller allocation of time is really part and parcel with the shift toward the small screen – the functional proof of a community of lives with diminishing time for media recreation.
Hollywood will continue to be the venue for the long format motion picture, the LP of the TV industry. But just like mixed playlists from single-serve download stores, there will be a time when the preferred entertainment medium becomes the most condensed ‘single’ style; Jon Stewart’s headlines, YouTube clips, and adult cartoon shorts. The one-hour and half-hour programs that networks have come to provide us with are largely constructs of advertising and programming schedules, and have nothing to do with artist/writer creativity, budget, or attention spans. All that will change. Most people tune out of SNL after the first music performance, of late night TV after the first interview, or into the game for the last half hour. Pretty soon, they won’t have to – the superfluous content will simply be eliminated, or at worse, parsed into a separate download.
November 16th, 2006 at 5:24 pm
Caleb-
Good point. However there are more people watching TV more hours per day than ever before. Now that close to 20% of the population has DVRs, there is a developing mid ground between your point of view and the old norm. That is, simply that a lot of TV is getting watched through say Tivo, but when people want to and without the commercials. I watch more shows now that I did a few years ago, because I can do so when I want to and can watch an hour program in 40 minutes.
David
November 16th, 2006 at 7:18 pm
I am more fascinated with the idea of what people will watch then I am with how they will watch it. Will something like the team of people in Jersey creating more years of Star Trek garner mass appeal? Will someone like ZeFrank replace John Stewart? Will we see strong micro-brands? Or will the sheer amount of choice be too much?
When the technology is there (IPtv and cheap digital editing equipment) how will real users (and not early adopter geeks like myself) interact with it.
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