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How Television Is Fighting Off the Internet
HughPickens.com writes: Michael Wolff writes in the NY Times that online-media revolutionaries once figured they could eat TV's lunch by stealing TV's business model with free content supported by advertising. But online media is now drowning in free, and internet traffic has glutted the ad market, forcing down rates. Digital publishers, from The Guardian to BuzzFeed, can stay ahead only by chasing more traffic — not loyal readers, but millions of passing eyeballs, so fleeting that advertisers naturally pay less and less for them. Meanwhile, the television industry has been steadily weaning itself off advertising — like an addict in recovery, starting a new life built on fees from cable providers and all those monthly credit-card debits from consumers. Today, half of broadcast and cable's income is non-advertising based. And since adult household members pay the cable bills, TV content has to be grown-up content: "The Sopranos," "Mad Men," "Breaking Bad," "The Wire," "The Good Wife."
So how did this tired, postwar technology seize back the crown? Television, not digital media, is mastering the model of the future: Make 'em pay. And the corollary: Make a product that they'll pay for. BuzzFeed has only its traffic to sell — and can only sell it once. Television shows can be sold again and again, with streaming now a third leg to broadcast and cable, offering a vast new market for licensing and syndication. Television is colonizing the Internet and people still spend more time watching television than they do on the Internet and more time on the Internet watching television. "The fundamental recipe for media success, in other words, is the same as it used to be," concludes Wolff, "a premium product that people pay attention to and pay money for. Credit cards, not eyeballs."
So how did this tired, postwar technology seize back the crown? Television, not digital media, is mastering the model of the future: Make 'em pay. And the corollary: Make a product that they'll pay for. BuzzFeed has only its traffic to sell — and can only sell it once. Television shows can be sold again and again, with streaming now a third leg to broadcast and cable, offering a vast new market for licensing and syndication. Television is colonizing the Internet and people still spend more time watching television than they do on the Internet and more time on the Internet watching television. "The fundamental recipe for media success, in other words, is the same as it used to be," concludes Wolff, "a premium product that people pay attention to and pay money for. Credit cards, not eyeballs."
into television. I cut the cord years ago because I couldn't stand all the commercials. Now my hulu+ is getting loaded with commercials- it's almost as bad as watching broadcast TV.
I think I'll go back to getting discs from Netflix..
I'm not paying. No cable TV for me. You turn the volume up on commercials and make them 5 minutes long for every 5/10 minutes of TV. My new TV has automatic volume control which kicks ass! I'll switch to HD antennae if I have to.
No thanks I'll wait for the seasons to come out on Netflix just like I do now. If that changes I'll just quit watching altogether. You lose. Ha ha..
Yesterday, I found myself saying, "if you know someone who still has cable..."
Online media has, like a meth junkie at a desert party, overdosed itself. The average slate or buzzfeed is a rats nest of unrelated yet increasingly predatory advertising that saps bandwidth and kills the user experience waiting for everyhting from monolithic flash ads to autoplay html5 elements to load. even your local newspaper is taking advantage of this to hose you for cash payments you wont make to read their clickbait articles that are written at the 4th grade level.
And what is this television thats slowly weaning itself off advertising? Watching Van Helsing in my hotel room I was treated to a 3 hour movie padded with advertising for everything from pain pills to fried chicken and cars. some ads even came back-to-back for the same damn product. television is rehabing from ads like a crack addict rehabs at the family reunion with a rail of white lightning in the bathroom. And dont think this excuses you, blu-ray and DVD titles are just as much television as the average CW network after school highly sensored puritanical life lesson sitcom. I have 12 to 20 minutes of un-skippable content in each of these disks where 10 years ago i was promised this wasnt ever going to happen. Im forced to watch advertisements and previews for products i dont give a shit about, just so i can get to the movie that includes (surprise) more product placement. Does anyone remember Oreo-bot from the transformers?
The only change in televisions model has been taking credit cards for things other than the ronco electric food dehydrator or the jack lalane power juicer. the guide feature in most provider services at the 1080p level still includes a myriad of floating chyron ads for weight loss and dick pills. buying anything pay-per-view will immediately forward your personal information to nearly two dozen affiliate advertisers and merchants. its a horrendous pain in the ass. And if you dont like it? two words: Its Comcastic.
cable and television service providers not only insult your intelligence and dignity but take it as a personal act of blasphemy if you try to cancel. simply calling up, youll be asked a phonebook of personal and insulting questions about your service and your personal likes and dislikes. its not the callcenters fault, some seersucker clad golfbag toting used car salesman marketing drone decided it was going to be a great idea to force the callcenter to carpet bomb customers in whats known as 'customer retention.' tactics.
the only thing this article isnt mentioning is that adblock is still a very real and useful thing, and that everything on television inevitably shows up on torrent.
Good people go to bed earlier.
Like you were supposed to when you started charging for cable. Who knows, you could make more money by offering a better product.
I don't think that they could make more money by dropping ads because many many people just aren't bothered by ads, and that drives me almost as crazy as having to sit through ads. And everything in the U.S. has more ads now. As an example, I've been watching football (the real football, not American hand-egg) for about five years, in particular English football. For about three seasons, I paid a subscription fee of $150/year so that I could watch every Premier League game online commercial-free for up to one week after the game aired. This also included many FA Cup matches and some matches from other leagues and even sports like rugby. I would have gladly paid double for this kind of service. So when the EPL was rebid and NBC won the American rights, I was devastated because I knew what was coming, and I wasn't wrong. Now I can watch all matches online (for free if I have NBCSN on cable), but online there is a banner that sits above the viewing area for the game that is constant. And whether or not I watch online, there are ads every 4-5 minutes in the form of a video that plays in the upper left where the score is, and then the static logo of that advertiser displays until the next ad runs. And of course there are always things like "The Ben and Jerry's Stoppage Time." In addition, NBC only has the rights to the Premier League, so I can't watch any other competition on that channel. International football is now spread across at least five networks (NBC, Fox, ESPN, GolTV, BeIn), three of which are not included in basic cable, and all of them maximize ads (but not up to the standards of MLS on Fox, who actually shrinks the game area by about 40% every few minutes to show an ad along the entire right-side and lower-section of the screen - so I just never watch an MLS game on that network). I truly don't get why people pay for this crap. (I don't pay for cable.) I actually have a couple of modified pieces of black felt that I use to cover the top score/ad area and the bottom ticker, both of which are equally annoying. I would gladly pay around $100/month or probably even more if I could watch most matches around the world commercial free online, but I don't see that happening, ever. It seems like we're going towards more ads in the U.S., not fewer.
I don't want to achieve immortality through my work. I want to achieve it by not dying. - Woody Allen