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."

Comments

Youtube spam.

[faway]

I've noticed these days that YouTube is full of spam.

if I search for any movie I will see 20 links to what are supposedly pirate websites, although I suspect half of them are set up by the media companies as honeypots to identify people who want to pirate stuff.

if I search for a review of any product, from computer to a car, probably 10 video show up that are not reviews at all but are instead a few words of product information in slideshow format with really annoying music.

what is annoying is that the geniuses at Google could easily get rid of that spam but they do not. maybe they are not geniuses after all, but merely have huge egos.

I'll tell you how- they're turning the internet

[mark_reh]

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..

Re:I'll tell you how- they're turning the internet

[fropenn]

Hulu + isn't free, and neither is cable or satellite television. I don't mind paying for content I want, but I don't want to pay and be forced to sit through tons of commercials. Providers, make your pick. If I'm paying, layoff the adverts. If it's free, then feel free to load it up with advertising, but I'm much more likely to turn it off or install an ad-blocker.

Re:I'll tell you how- they're turning the internet

[Winckle]

He doesn't, he just said he pays for netflix and hulu+.

Re:I'll tell you how- they're turning the internet

[ArchieBunker]

Yes. Sounds like a bargain to me.

Re:I'll tell you how- they're turning the internet

[RicktheBrick]

How about the young people in this country? They are struggling now. With every recession they are being laid off and than they have to start all over again. That means they get the lowest pay, least amount of vacation and other benefits. But hell lets throw another bill at them. Democracy will not suffer when we demand that people pay to be informed. When I was a child I could look at the nightly news at 6. Rabbit ears would get me at least 4 channels. Now I would have to spend at least a thousand dollars to have a tower build for an antenna to receive those channels. The nearest broadcasting station is around 70 miles away. I believe that digital tv is uhf and that does not travel as far. I guess the young can rely on billboards to even know who running for president let alone what their policies are.

Re:I'll tell you how- they're turning the internet

[Opportunist]

And that's by no means any better than "normal" commercials.

Let's look at it and see if it looks, walks, swims and flies like a duck...

Does it interrupt the program I'm watching? Yes.
Is it something that does not interest me? Yes.
Is it repeated so often that you can speak along? Hell yes.

The fact that it's for a movie instead of some female hygiene product doesn't matter.

Re:I'll tell you how- they're turning the internet

[Kjella]

Well you know they're not going to give up the ad revenue for free and how many people already complain it's too expensive? I don't exactly feel the market vibe would be positive. That said, online services aren't stuck with one service tier. They could offer some form of "first class" service, bump the price out of the "premium" class and offer simultaneous or near-cinema exclusives - preferably less insane than Prima Cinema ($35000 + $500/rental), like upper middle class not 1%ers. Of course cinemas would be blatantly opposed to the idea, they refuse to show anything also being aired.

Re:I'll tell you how- they're turning the internet

[amxcoder]

The problem with this, is the shows themselves are now shorter to accommodate all the ads that get put in. In the shows I watch, the watchable content for a 30min program is about 21-22 mins tops. This statistic by itself hasn't changed much in 20 years or so, but it is getting close to lower point of program running length for that kind of time slot. So when you watch a show on Netflix or Hulu, the content is only as long as it was made if it did have ads. Meaning, you are loosing the ads by watching on Netflix, but you're getting less and less content in each episode, meaning the episodes are shorter and shorter when you strip out the commercials.

Another big problem is now more shows (especially reality shows, but even news and infotainment type shows) seem to want to show you 15-30s of what is coming up after each commercial, and then when they return from commercial they want to repeat the last 30-60s of what you already saw as if you had no attention span. This becomes very apparent when you have a DVR and skip the commercials, you end up seeing the same segment around the commercial 2-3 times total. Not only is this annoying, but it drastically cuts into the actual running length of the show. So while technically, the show might be 22mins of content, if you removed the repeated content out of the show (that is due to the commercial breaks), then you really only end up with 15-18 mins of actual content for a 30min show/slot.

Re:I'll tell you how- they're turning the internet

[sudon't]

Why so much? Netflix manages it for $8 per month. Nevertheless, people are willing to pay a fair price for a good product. I wouldn't watch Hulu for free, when it was free, because of the commercials. More recently, my roommate decided to pay for Hulu Premium, (or whatever they call it), but after trying it a couple of times, neither of us would watch it, and he eventually cancelled.
Here's the deal: Commercials are suppose to equal free TV. But these people want to have their cake, and eat it, too. Unfortunately for them, people now have other choices.

Re:I'll tell you how- they're turning the internet

[tepples]

Good luck getting things like the film Song of the South, the film Pinocchio and the Emperor of the Night, and the TV series Spartakus and the Sun Beneath the Sea on any service. None of these has ever been released even on DVD or BD in North America.

Examples?

[lengel]

Uhh... of course I am not going to read the original artice, this is Slashdot after all. But the summary mentions 5 shows, 3 of which are on channels with commercials. How does this support the original tenet? I would think you are far better naming only commercial free quality shows. I agree on the point about streaming later becoming a money maker though and that driving a way of thinking in the age of new media.

Fuck Pay TV

[Anonymous Coward]

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..

I don't think it's working.

[xxxJonBoyxxx]

Yesterday, I found myself saying, "if you know someone who still has cable..."

no ones really winning.

[nimbius]

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.

Re:no ones really winning.

[surd1618]

seersucker clad golfbag toting used car salesman marketing drone

I'm stealing this.
This was before my time, but I'm pretty sure that television nose-dived when pay-per-view came along. The television market was devised as radio + pictures, a one-way ticket as far as content. Computer networks were devised as tiers of peers, and once it's on my box, it's not yours. Pay-per-view functions, but it's fundamentally illogical. The content providers have to go through DRM acrobatics to sustain it at all. Premium channels overall make little sense. But online content is starving. Why can't we just pay artists, journalists, and FOSS programmers decent amounts of money? It's because of the seersucker clad golfbag toting used car salesman marketing drones, because some people are aggressive about making lots of money despite lacking skills that are actually useful, and I let them walk on me sometimes.

Re:no ones really winning.

[kheldan]

RE: 'Consumer retention' tactics

In my book it's simple: You say "I don't have to explain myself to you, I simply do not want your service anymore, and if you refuse to cancel it I will refuse to continue paying you. I will return your equipment to your nearest office tomorrow, and get a receipt showing I returned it, and furthermore I will rip the wire out of the wall. Now please do your job and stop annoying me".

Or just get rid of it

[future assassin]

Ever since cutting the cord two years ago its amazing how much extra time I have per day and now more alive you feel not watching tv. Now I haven't gotten rid of it all yet, still have Netflix and we watch a few Star Trek episodes at night but the medium no longer controls out lives. Now internet had eaten up quite a bit of my life but that is one more thing I'm slowly removing also.

Re:Or just get rid of it

[mlts]

I find that if I watch stuff, it winds up being YouTube videos, and unless I use an add-on, even there, ads are creeping up, becoming more common, and the "skip at five seconds" button has started disappearing.

It would be nice if YT offered a no ads subscription service... heard talk about it, but nothing seems to have manifested.

Re:Or just get rid of it

[thinkwaitfast]

Same here. Kinda. I've never owned a tv and rarely watched it at other people's houses. I am out of the loop on many cultural themes of the day for things like Mad Men or Lost. This goes way back to popular television when I was a kid like The Newhart Show and only remain marginal contact with society from reading headlines from which you can follow who did what to whom and what character came back to life in a dream sequence.

You know what? Who cares? Will I look back at the end of my life and think it was wasted because I missed five years (2hrs/day * 60 years) of not being entertained? It took me far less time to learn to program or even get a college degree. If you add up all the hours of study and every class I've ever taken it's likely less than most people will spend over their life doing nothing while at the same time complaining about how the don't have enough time.

The meat of the issue

[blueshift_1]

It's always comes down to the same thing. If you want people to get your product, make a damn good product. Some things will naturally be a fad, but will fade away. Lasting revenue is based on making something people actually want/need. For so long, many networks have been shoveling our crap content - now that there are ways to view exactly what you want, they have the incentive to make something you really want.

Want to win the war on internet Tv?

[stoned_ritual]

Scientists discover this one weird trick that will make any internet streaming service want to switch over to TV broadcasting!

How Is Television Fighting Off the Internet?

[Jaegs]

Lawyers. Lots and lots of lawyers.

You know, it's funny...

[Unknown74]

...many years ago, we were told, "in the future, you will pay for TV". And we said "WHAT!? We get it for free, off our antenna now!" And they said, "but since you will pay for TV, there won't be any need for advertising." Many years later, I am paying for TV, PLUS, getting ads that run across the screen all the time. It it any wonder I am feeling ripped off? Oh yes... I think these were the same people who said, "we will put catalytic converters on cars. it will cost more, but they will convert the noxious fumes into harmless water and carbon dioxide." So years later, we are, indeed paying more, PLUS being clobbered by the "carbon crisis"

Re:You know, it's funny...

[mlts]

Yep, paying for TV, and finding ads to the show are almost a 1:1 ratio.

Only way to win is not to play.

Re:You know, it's funny...

[drinkypoo]

Oh yes... I think these were the same people who said, "we will put catalytic converters on cars. it will cost more, but they will convert the noxious fumes into harmless water and carbon dioxide."

Yes. They add a couple of hundred dollars to the price of the average car and they make the world a better place; unburned hydrocarbons are the most foul emission which automobiles make. You might also be interested in knowing that we averted the ozone depletion crisis by banning CFCs. Meanwhile, the O2 sensor that came along with those catalysts actually lets you make more power while burning less fuel.

Re:TV seized back the crown? Not likely.

[RKThoadan]

He's not really using his terms very well. He seems to be defining Netflix and Hulu as primarily television companies as opposed to internet companies. He says so at this point:

Netflix bills itself as a disrupter of television - except that it is television, paying Hollywood and the TV industry almost $2 billion a year in licensing and programming fees.

You can certainly make an argument for that. They are certainly a blend of the two. His argument is really much more about subscription services versus ad-supported services.

Dream on

[Karmashock]

The subscriber base is ratcheting down.

The only thing keeping the cable model going at this point is sports.

That's it. And the instant the sports leagues think they can make as much money on line... cable is done.

Would you pay a 100 dollars a year for access to every NFL game streamed to your machine of choice? A lot of people would.

Total up the sports leagues people care about... football, basketball, soccer if you swing that way... Its a finite number of leagues that people care about and you could charge 10 bucks a month for access, discounting for a yearly subscription, and maybe throw in minor leagues of the same sport. So the NFL package gets you all the college games etc.

Its entirely viable. And if that means no blackouts and the ability to watch the games on your smartphone or tablet... Sure, there is sling boxes and some cable services let you stream anything to your devices. But the underlying problem with cable is that it isn't fully a la carte. And until it is... there's going to be a problem.

The vast majority of what people pay for with their cable package is something they have zero interest in watching. None.

We're spending a lot of money on other things besides our cable now as well. We've got all these new streaming services. And on top of that the cable bills have gone up.

Something has to give there. The reality is that people tend to prefer netflix for general entertainment programming... the only edge cable has is the dubious value of cable news stations and sports.

Re:Cutting ads? Really?

[Cro Magnon]

Talking about ads - the other day I was watching some news show live. They switched to a commercial break, so I hit pause and did something else for 10 minutes. I got back and FFd past 5 minutes, they talked for maybe 3 minutes, and started another commercial break! Reducing ads my asss!

Re:Get rid of the fucking adverts completely

[edawstwin]

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.

Re: Get rid of the fucking adverts completely

[rkcth]

Why would you be willing to pay that much to watch a bunch of sweaty men running around hitting a rubber sphere with their feet? How can that be so entertaining you'd pay $100/month? I understand how sports can be fun for the players, I just don't get people paying money to watch others play them.

"Television"

[TsuruchiBrian]

The thing people are avoiding isn't "television" (video dramas, comedies, etc). The thing people are starting to avoid is "television" (getting those shows via cable companies). I don't think any predicted the death of video as a form of entertainment.

The ideal situation is for all the content creators, to still make their content, but sell it to the public over the internet, bypassing the cable companies. It is the cable companies that need to die (or just be relegated to being ISPs). They just aren't up to the task of delivering media in the 21st century. They have stopped being a distribution channel and more of a gatekeeper for old people who can't use the internet.

HBO, anyone?

[lophophore]

HBO is the best value on my cable bill, right after the 100mbit internet.

Really!? you might ask. $15/month for that? Well, yes. I like the programming (this is the network that brought us "The Sopranos", "The Wire", "Game of Thrones", "True Detective", and I could go on and on ("Last Week Tonight", anyone?). All this with no commercials, because I paid for superior programming without commercials.

I get the HBO GO service for that same money, and I can time shift what I want to watch with a ChromeCast, and I can watch just about all of HBO's original programming with the HBO GO service -- not just the current stuff. Sure, I'd like it better if it was $10/month.

With HBO NOW, HBO has figured out how to cut the need to actually buy cable TV out of the picture. You can just subscribe and buy their content over the internet directly.

What I'm waiting for is true a-la-carte television, with real options. Pay $15 a month for HBO, or $3/episode for "Game of Thrones", or don't pay, but answer surveys or watch advertising to watch for free. People who don't want ads could pay, people who have the time but not the money could fill out survey or watch ads to watch for free.

Re:Get rid of the fucking adverts completely

[Golddess]

Out of your two examples, Hulu is the only service that still shows commercials to their paying subscribers. Netflix doesn't (yet).

What other streaming services are there that will still show ads to paying subscribers? Because the only other ones that I am aware of (Crunchyroll, Funimation's streaming service, and as far as I am aware, Amazon) all stream ad-free to their paying subscribers.

Re: Get rid of the fucking adverts completely

[FranTaylor]

Even donning your favorite player's jersey is no different than cosplaying at an anime or comic convention

really? So if I put on my Tom Brady shirt and spend the afternoon scrubbing the bathtub, this is the same as going to a convention?

Re:Get rid of the fucking adverts completely

[whitroth]

That's absurd, that people "aren't bothered by ads". They take bathroom breaks, they get food or drinks, but... the top poster of this thread is absolutely correct. As someone older than you, let me tell you that in the sixties and seventies, the FCC-mandated limit was, I believe, 6 minutes an hour, and that *included* station breaks.

Then came cable, and the biggest thing they promised you - ALL of them - was "no more commercials, ever".

When we started taping in the nineties, it was about 18 min of commercials per hour on cable. The last time we regularly taped, maybe 10 years or so ago, it was ->22 minutes of commercials- per hour.

So tv is weaning itself from commercials? They'd *have* to, because a "one hour show" that was 50% commercials will have the number of viewers approaching zero as a limit.

                    mark

Re:The programs listed are mostly old

[sycodon]

I just spent a week recovering from surgery. I had a big screen TV and a high end Time Warner Cable package available.

Absolute Fucking Crap

500 channels my ass...250 regular and 250 dups with High Def

One movie channel ran the same 4 fucking movies all weekend....except after midnight and before ten, which were all fucking sham-wow commercials.

Books. No commercials and better resolution.

Re:Get rid of the fucking adverts completely

[Curunir_wolf]

Like you were supposed to when you started charging for cable. Who knows, you could make more money by offering a better product.

Yea, I miss the good old days. MTV actually played music (and no advertising). USA actually had programming all night (and it was weird stuff). TBS had black-and-white movies.

Now, get off my lawn

Re: Get rid of the fucking adverts completely

[Noah Haders]

Agreed, $100/mo would be really steep. GP said he pays $150/yr.

I'll throw in another fact. American sports like (hand egg) football, baseball, and basketball are all structured in a way that supports TV advertising. There are TV time outs and delays between innings or football plays. so even if you watch sports with no ads, you're going to be twiddling your thumbs a lot because there is always downtime to accomodate ads.

Re:Get rid of the fucking adverts completely

[CreatureComfort]

Not only THIS, but even on Netflix, binge watching a series, the constant dramatic-crisis-leading-to-a-black-cut-and-back-to-the-scene-not-quite-as-it-was every 4-5 minutes showing where the commercial was "supposed" to be is highly annoying. It interrupts the story and wastes valuable story telling time. Agents of Shield and Once Upon A Time are recent series I have noted with this issue.

Something else I've noticed is that many of the recent shows, when streamed on Netflix, seem oddly filmed with all of the action and interest happening in the top 50% of the frame and the bottom 50% almost irrelevant. It wasn't until about a month ago, when I watched regular TV at a friends house, that I realized the networks are showing Ads on the bottom half to third of the screen DURING the freaking show! UGH! Never going back to broadcast TV.

Re: Get rid of the fucking adverts completely

[edawstwin]

I don't see anybody offering to spend $100 per month to watch the Kardashians, or Survivor, or Real Housewives of ($cityname) for a commercial free feed.

Millions of people pay more than $100 per month to watch all of that crap with commercials .

Sports fan(atic)s are willing to go to absurd lengths for their personal fix.

Fan(atic)s are willing to go to absurd lengths for their personal fix.

That is one of the biggest drivers of ballooning cable TV costs

Bundling is the cause of cable TV prices increasing. End bundling and pay what you want.

... and sporting ticket costs, and the reason for public funding of private sports arenas

I'm all for ending subsidies to billionaires for arenas, and I will continue to vote against any politician who votes for them.

Re: Get rid of the fucking adverts completely

[Noah Haders]

they call them "TV time outs"

American football (NFL): The National Football League requires twenty commercial breaks per game, with ten in each half. (Exceptions to this are overtime periods, which have none.) These breaks run either a minute, or two minutes in length. Of the ten commercial breaks per half, two are mandatory: at the end of each quarter, and at the two-minute warning for the end of the half. The remaining eight breaks are optional.[1] The timeouts can be applied after field goal tries, conversion attempts for both one and two points following touchdowns, changes in possession either by punts or turnovers, and kickoffs (except for the ones that start each half, or are within the last five minutes). The breaks are also called during stoppages due to injury, instant replay challenges, when either of the participating teams uses one of its set of timeouts, and if the network needs to catch up on its commercial advertisement schedule. The arrangement for college football contests is the same, except for the absence of the two-minute warning.

NBA: "Mandatory timeouts" are called at the first dead ball after 6:00 and 3:00 in each quarter and after 9:00 in the second and fourth quarters. First mandatory timeout is charged to the home team and second TV timeout is charged to the away team (or whichever team has not been charged previously in that quarter), assuming no other full 1:40 timeouts have been called, which replace the mandatory TV timeouts. In addition, a timeout after 3:00 in the second and fourth quarters is called but not charged to either team, if neither team has called one prior to that point. If they do, then the "official's timeout" (as it is called) is given at the first minute mark in which it is not taken early by either team.[5]

Re:Happy Monday from The Golden Girls

[goose-incarnated]

Thank you for being a friend Traveled down the road and back again Your heart is true, you're a pal and a cosmonaut.

And if you threw a party Invited everyone you knew You would see the biggest gift would be from me And the card attached would say, thank you for being a friend.

This troll is finally not totally off-topic :-)