The Future of TV Will Not Be Televised.

Posted by Robert Rose on Nov 21, 2009

On Monday, January 4th 1954 the New York Times ran a story entitled "Television In Review: NBC Color."  It was a review of one of the very first color television live broadcasts – that of the Tournament of Roses Parade held on New Year's Day.

One of the most fun and fascinating things about that article is that how the reviewer laments the limitations of the new technology.  In one passage, he says "another difficulty is…the size of the picture… roughly 12 1/2 inches.  Since it is necessary to sit much farther away than from a black and white set, one wonders how big a color tube will need to be to be practical…"

Wouldn't that reviewer be amazed by the 150 inch flat screen plasma that sit in homes today.

It's sometimes hard to remember that there, indeed, was a day when there was a difference between "color television" and "television".  Today, it's just Television.

Three seemingly unrelated things happened this week that I think move us into a similar phase with content related to television and the Internet.

Let's look at each quickly:

Oprah announced the retirement of her show 

Yes, Oprah is leaving the building.   No more giant hair, tales of Stedman and "you get a car, and you get a car".  But, more important, is the reason she's leaving.  She is all set to launch her own cable network.  The new cable channel, called OWN: the Oprah Winfrey Network – is a partnership with Discovery – and will launch in January of 2011.  

Oprah recognizes an extraordinary trend here.   Audiences for traditional television programming are fracturing into smaller and smaller segments .  The Pew Research Center recently conducted a study that showed, because of the recession, 24% of respondents have indicated that they have reduced or cancelled cable or satellite TV Subscription.   Meanwhile, 31% (an increase) view the need for high speed internet as a "necessity".  Contrast (or compare if you will) those numbers with one by the Consumer Electronics Association that said that 50% of adults who regularly go online said they were likely to buy a television with embedded Internet connectivity capabilities.  And finally, according to Nielsen Research, the average television consumption of Americans reached an all-time high in Q2 2009 – to 141 hours per month.

But while we're watching more – there are few of us focused on the same thing.  Back in the 1980's a top rated television show like Dallas (exclusively the domain of broadcast tv) would command anywhere between a 40%-50% share of the TV audience.   Today, the very top television shows like American Idol, or NCIS will manage only a 25% share.

Oprah recognizes this trend and is poised to take advantage of it.  She has the opportunity now to build an entire content network around her brand.  And she can pull the specific segments of her loyal audience much more efficiently now through multiple distribution channels.  That brings us to the second news item this week.

NBC and Comcast Deal – Almost There…

It's still expected any day, but the news this week was how things are still in deliberation.   In case you haven't heard, NBC is inches away from being sold to Comcast; that includes the cable networks of USA, Bravo, SyFy, MSNBC and CNBC – and of course the NBC Broadcast network.  Interestingly, the broadcast network is seen as the least valuable part of the deal.  That's right, the network that brought you color television, is the dog of the Internet era.

So, if Comcast has control over all the content coming out of NBC/Universal – and of course of all the content they currently own – they suddenly are one of the biggest voices in terms of how video content will be distributed.  And, they of course own access to more than 20 million homes through cable television and more than 50 million homes through their Internet services.  And, that leads us to our third news item of the week. 

YouTube Blocks API Access For All But A Few

This got very little main stream coverage – but is actually very interesting.   Very quietly, YouTube has changed its Terms Of Service for it's API access.  What does this mean?  Well, it means that if you were one of the few that were enjoying YouTube videos on your television set using your Popcorn Hour Box, or other type of set-top device – you're about to be S.O.L.   Google (aka YouTube) is restricting access to "a few strategic partners".   Now would be a good time to reread that statistic above from the Consumer Electronics Association.   We'll assume that by "Strategic" Google means Sony, Samsung, Panasonic et. al.

Sounds to me like Google is getting ready to monetize YouTube in a big way – and make access exclusively available through the Television and other device manufacturers.

What does this mean for Adaptive Marketers

Well, this is an extraordinary time – and not dissimilar to when we were first introduced to Cable TV, or Color TV, or the Internet in general.  At a macro view, the merging of all this distribution brings up some questions?

• If my 15 second pre-roll ad on YouTube is seen on a Television – is that TV Advertising – Or Online Advertising?   How do I set my budget?
• If my banner ad that displays on a TV Guide through DirecTV is accessed from a Laptop – is that online marketing? What should I put on the click-through landing page – a video that should be watched from the TV – or a landing page with a conversion form?  Or, do I need some kind of technology that can detect the device and present the most optimum form of content.

Or – more importantly – does any of that matter?  

Bruce Springsteen famously sung of "57 Channels and nothing on".  In the new era – it stops being about channels at all.  In the time shifted, disaggregated, online content era – it's about aligning yourself with a community – a brand – and then driving your marketing through engaging that community.

That's what Oprah's new network really has the opportunity to become.  In other words, ask yourself what's in the brand of the content aggregator?    Remember, people used to be loyal to networks.  My parents were NBC Fanatics.  They'd watch NBC all night – no matter what was on.  But those were the days before time shifting, before disaggregation and before online content.  What is the NBC Brand?   What kind of content do I expect from the NBC Brand?    It's hard to figure out right? 

 But – on the Oprah Winfrey Network – I know EXACTLY what I'm going to get – just by its name alone.  And I also know a community of people I'm likely to find there.  That's the new television – that's the new content paradigm.   

This presents a huge opportunity for us as marketers and advertisers.  Sure, it's more work – but it's more targeted, it's more relevant, it's more measurable – and it's buying quality over quantity.

And it also provides us an important lesson as we begin to formulate our own Content and Marketing Strategies.   Today, as we build Web sites, Social Media, Print and (yes) Television strategies, our goal is not to match the content to the tactic.  It's about discovering how our audience wants to engage with our brand, and then producing the content through those engagement channels.

This is important because as marketers we need to quickly get beyond the mindset that Online is Direct Response Marketing and Television is Brand Marketing.  Both practices certainly have their place – and ultimately the question will not be how we measure the difference.  Our challenge will be to simply deliver relevant content, measure it and improve our engagement.   To our consumers, they shouldn't have to worry (mostly because they  won't care) on what device it should be consumed, or by which distribution mechanism it arrives.