Slashdot Mirror
The Future of Television? Binge-Watching is Only the Beginning (wsj.com)
With providers like Netflix, Hulu and Amazon, and more creative risks, network leaders are placing bets on how audience experience will evolve [Editor's note: the link may be paywalled]. From a report: "What might we see coming down the road?" says Beau Willimon, creator of The First, Hulu's sci-fi drama starring Sean Penn and Natascha McElhone. "Perhaps like [the characters] in my new show, we're all wearing augmented reality glasses, and we're experiencing television shows in a more intimate way -- a way that feels much more experiential than simply watching it on a rectangle."
[...] Television, as most people have known it for most of their lives, is no more. "At some point you'll get to a place where thinking about television from a linear standpoint will be like dial-up internet," says Hulu CEO Randy Freer. "It's a great time for content; not a great time for cable networks. I think what will happen is: Cable networks that have been able to create brands for themselves will have an opportunity to expand and figure out how they present to consumers."
Cable networks with a clear identity have a critical advantage in a subscription-based world, while networks with less-defined name recognition -- those that have been just another channel in the cable lineup -- will likely find it hard to entice the growing ranks of broadband-only consumers to buy an a la carte monthly subscription service. HBO is moving into the new era. "In the domestic market of the United States, where there is a surfeit of content more than ever, I personally think that brands matter more than ever," says HBO chairman and CEO Richard Plepler.
[...] Television, as most people have known it for most of their lives, is no more. "At some point you'll get to a place where thinking about television from a linear standpoint will be like dial-up internet," says Hulu CEO Randy Freer. "It's a great time for content; not a great time for cable networks. I think what will happen is: Cable networks that have been able to create brands for themselves will have an opportunity to expand and figure out how they present to consumers."
Cable networks with a clear identity have a critical advantage in a subscription-based world, while networks with less-defined name recognition -- those that have been just another channel in the cable lineup -- will likely find it hard to entice the growing ranks of broadband-only consumers to buy an a la carte monthly subscription service. HBO is moving into the new era. "In the domestic market of the United States, where there is a surfeit of content more than ever, I personally think that brands matter more than ever," says HBO chairman and CEO Richard Plepler.
If you watch kids watch TV today, they watch TV in a completely non-linear way. They fast forward through stuff, rewind scenes and rewatch them, and essentially re-edit the show to what fits whatever's in their heads.
The older kids have literally run out of TV; they've watched all the shows on Netflix.
Once that happens to a large segment of the population the problem will be coming up with enough content to fill their day. How do you engage them? TV as we know it today isn't the answer.
What's the point of having a Netflix subscription if you've watched everything? What's the point of HBO if there's nothing there? What's the point of network TV when you can just wait and watch all the shows you want in a day?
A friend of mine is actually experimenting with microfiction, in an engagement experiment. It's been pretty fun so far, but does that work at scale?
These are all pretty interesting problems.
Remember back when books were linear, but the the technical revolution of Choose Your Own Adventure overturned hundreds of years of the art form by giving the reader just what they had always wished for: editorial control over the art they consume.
Bread and circuses. Keep the population well fed and entertained, and you shall rule the world.
It is the logical combination of traditional story-telling and video games. The "viewer" gets to see the programme through the eyes of whichever participant they choose. That might be a bystander, or they might be a character, That would give scope for a viewer to alter the storyline, so there may have to be ways to either set it back on track or to simply allow the viewer to make their own show. I can see both possibilities, eventually.
When all the actors are avatars which are downloaded and run rather than simply being a series of images shown in quick succession, along with the scenery and the story, then TV watching will become a much more immersive experience.
politicians are like babies' nappies: they should both be changed regularly and for the same reasons
At that point we may as well get Sword Art Online.
-=This sig has nothing to do with my comment. Move along now=-
Much like Randy up there.
People who hear "television" and think "tv shows".
The equivalent of people hearing "newspapers" and thinking "funnies".
At some point you'll get to a place where thinking about television from a linear standpoint will be like dial-up internet," says Hulu CEO Randy Freer.
Television is NOT sitcoms and movies.
News will always be linear.
Sports will always be linear.
Current and live events, be they annual things like music festivals, elections or talk shows or even things like "reality" shows - those will always be linear.
Because time is.
Watching how a five- or ten-year-old (or a clueless CEO) uses an information medium may be interesting from an anthropological point - but it does not determine the medium.
It's like saying that since everyone can now listen to podcasts and music on their portable mp3 CD players with full two minutes of anti-shock readahead - no one will listen to the radio anymore, grandpa.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
Friends: 236 episodes, which at a generous 50 minutes/episode comes out to about 492 content hours. That's 20 days of 24-hour-a-day watching. 4 hours a day = 123 days of watching.
That's assuming that it's all worth watching.
When you're a kid that's unsupervised or watching in the background, that's 4 hours a day for almost half of the school year. That's not much.