The End of Broadcast TV as We Know It?

mattnyc99 writes "The DVR revolution is nothing that new—and neither is the Neilsen ratings company's adaptation to it. But Glenn Derene at Popular Mechanics argues that users have officially pushed us into a new era of television, wherein viewers now shape the way that networks make money, which means we'll start to see users control the way the networks choose programming. From the article: 'The systemic use of ad ratings as one of the standard metrics for assessing viewership is a sea change, and it's perhaps the sign that as an industry, broadcasters and advertisers are sailing into uncharted waters.'"

Comments

Product-Audience-Boredom

[RalphSouth]

The first chooser of what we see is the Product. Shows are effectively chosen by the sponsors of a product and their choice of an audience that can be influenced to buy their product. Think about the number of "undifferentiated products" that are advertised on TV and you get some clue as to why the shows are all pretty dumb. We get to see a majority of shows that are there to attract folk who will be influenced to buy a product based on its jingle or the handsomeness of its spokesman. One of my pet peeves is the industry position that audience selection is a great democratic process where we choose what we want to watch. They don't acknowledge that the choices are made by audiences of products that can only be sold through mass advertising.

The good news for the dvr crowd is that there are a lot of programs across 24 hours 7 days a week and the 100s of channels. You can actually find enough shows to give yourself some entertaining tv a few nights a week.

What would really boost viewing quality would be the ability to cut out the hemorrhoid cream salesmen making the initial choice of which shows get produced. (Is it any wonder that these shows are often a pain in the ...) I am one of those crazy people who would pay good money to see more Firefly or for that matter just about anything that Joss Whedon wanted to offer on a subscription basis. I know that there are all kinds of series that attract fiercely loyal audiences that feel the same.

I think that the subscription series is the next step.

Re:Ads during programmes

[NoMaster]

... suddenly some magical gradients took over the lower part of the screen and advertisements started appearing

At least in Australia, that's not advertising (according to the non-binding voluntary non-guidelines of FACTS). As far as they're concerned, it's not counted as advertising unless it covers 100% of the screen.

I'm dreading the day they start running 719x575 "banners" over programmes...

Re:Part of the new wave

[westlake]

I don't have a TV. I buy DVDs and watch shows online.

But less than half - perhaps much less than half - of American households have broadband service.

Subtract from that the number - the rather large number, I suspect - who don't have or don't want the "media center PC."

Those who don't want to watch TV on the small-screen PC monitor. Those who don't want to be drawn into the complexities of wired or wireless "slingboxes."

it won't change anything

[SlappyBastard]

How many years has the music industry had to get its act together under pressure from tech? The movie business hasn't done much better, they just have a better product that's also harder to DL. Major industries in America have an impressive inertia. Even as markets are lost and advertising goes completely haywire, watch the TV industry desperately cling to outmoded models. Worse, as young viewers become untraceable thanks to DVR and BT, the industry will just blame the trend on an aging population that prefers to watch CBS.