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YouTube, Gaming and Social Networking Busting TV's Chops
splitenz writes "A TV executive told a major Australian broadband conference that television audiences are slipping away into social media, gaming and other online subscription spaces. YouTube and online gaming is taking the traditional TV audience online and TV is struggling to fight back."
With you in spirit, but your statements are tinged with hyperbole. The major networks air more than 2 good shows a week, and more and more "cable channels" like AMC, USA, TNT, etc have begun airing some quality original programming. However, for every show like 30 Rock or The Closer, we get ten Real Worlds, Survivors, or Dancing with the Stars.
Premium channels have been booming with original content in recent years. Maybe it's just because I did not have access to them much before BT trackers and release groups got into them, but I think there are more original shows on HBO, Showtime, etc than there used to be. Sure, you had things like 1st and Ten, Dream On, and the Red Shoe Diaries on HBO and Showtime 15-25 years ago, but now you have so much more. A lot of great shows in recent times have come form these networks (Deadwood, Weeds, Dexter, The Sopranos), along with a great deal more entertaining ones (The Tudors, Rome, Secret Diary of a Call Girl (not original, I know)).
As someone else has stated, the real problem is that TV providers have made it an increasingly hostile environment to watch their content.
- More commercial time per hour. The average 1-hour show is under 44 minutes now.
- Channel identifier logos on constantly. In the beginning these were semi-transparent line-art, now they are colorful and often animated.
- Squashed and sped-up credit sequences. Sure, few people want to see them, but sometimes we do, and without commercial/news at 10 hype
- Pop-up in-show ads "New Episode of Dancing With the Stars NEXT" at the bottom of the screen, blocking this show
- Time-shifting to screw up DVR users
- Loudness tricks to make commercials seem louder than the show. Gotta crank up the movie because it's so quiet, then WHAM! "BUY ZEST SOAP!"
- Constant schedule changes
I gave up cable TV about 8-9 years ago. I was heavy into anime at the time, had just moved, so I went with internet and substantial DVD purchases (back when DVDs were still $30 each, though you could get them for ~33-50% off online). I found out I just did not need to veg out in front of TV shows I didn;t care about every evening. I read more books, was online more, had other things to do.
It was liberating. ^_^
I've built up so much character I have an alter-ego
I see TVs used for these purposes:
1: Placate older viewers who have not hopped onto the Internet as a mainstream source of information.
2: Act as background noise so people waiting in some sort of waiting room have something to focus on.
3: A distraction in a hospital room.
4: People who want to be spoon fed the news. For example, in 5-10 minutes of reading Google News, I get all the stories that it would take a TV watcher 1-2 hours of sitting there getting spoon fed whatever biased info the station chooses to put on there. Of course, Websites can be biased, but it is easy to flip between several and at least figure out a nugget of truth out of the haystack of propaganda.
With this in mind, it is understandable that the top tier economic base of people have moved from TV to other forms of entertainment.
It shows in how much money is being spent on TV shows too. TV studios don't care to spend the top dollar on sci-fi shows and special effects. Why do that, when doing a "reality show" is far cheaper? Why pay for a sonic screwdriver wielder when a Snooki will score the advertising bucks?
This race to the bottom is not just killing TV, but radio too. Radio once was the place to find new bands. Now, that has been replaced by word of mouth, YouTube, and services like last.fm and Pandora, and what you hear on the radio is likely what people's fathers or grandfathers heard when they were drag-racing their Trans-Ams.
What needs to happen? A return to the roots. TV has a niche for education, especially kids too small to really put in front of a computer. This is what the inventor of the medium conceptualized TV as being for. TV also needs to start showing stuff that other mediums have trouble with, such as films from up and coming producers. Radio needs an enema too. They need to go back to having not just a 1-2 hour special on Friday nights with new stuff, but start showcasing new bands... just like they used to before the late 90s. Then they might be relevant in daily life again.