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Posts tagged as “HBO”

Is the future of television another article about the future of television?

Is the future of television another article about the future of television?

Around TCA season, we always get inundated with articles related to “the future of television” or “the end of online streaming”.

It’s always funny to read these wannabe prescient articles about the rise and fall of television. Especially since they’re always reverberating the same thought over and over, year after year.

As usual, we had the one about how “live TV will be irrelevant in the future“. There’s also that other one about Netflix producing–wait for it–a bunch of original shows. Whodathunkit.
Let’s also not forget the obligatory “Netflix: Is this the end of online streaming as we know it?” versus “The future of television? HBO.”

And then there’s the palme de la creme de la cherry on the top.
That one article desperately wanting to coin (and crown) a “new art form” within a sub-subset of a television trend.

This year’s winner: “Netflix is accidentally inventing a new art form — not quite TV and not quite film“.

Oh, boy.

Let’s take a glance at the article’s h3 points…

1. Binge watching versus weekly watching: It changes everything

How is this news in 2015?
Nearly six years ago (!) I wrote about that exact same thing.
You know, when House of Cards was but a twinkle in Ted Sarandos’ eye.

My point is not to back-pat myself (that sounded dirty); it is to explain that, hell no, Netflix did not create an “art form” (ugh) that predates it.

Just because you make it “easier” to do something doesn’t mean you “accidentally invent” that something.

Ford did not invent transportation.
Apple did not invent mobile communications.
Netflix did not invent binge-watching (or, as we used to call it in the good old days, TV marathons).

Hold on. Something else is coming back to me…

I remember… I remember watching X-Files episodes back-to-back on VHS in the 90s.

Holy shit. I INVENTED BINGE-WATCHING!

2. Netflix thinks more in terms of seasons than of episodes

Yawn.

Should I really bother talking, yet again, about the concept of “bigger picture” in television?
ABC renewed Lost for three seasons in 2007.
We can all move on now.

3. But the 10-hour story is still a new craft — and an imperfect one

And film is in its infancy compared to literature.

Truth is “10-hour stories” are older than American Idol.

Ever heard of a show called Roots? Or HBO’s Band of Brothers? Or Sci-Fi’s Taken?
I hadn’t, and then I googled “mini-series”.

“Mini-series”, “limited series”, “event series”, “anthology seasons”. Call them what you want. It’s all semantics.
Roots and True Detective are, at the end of the day, close-ended 8-hour narratives.

But then, you tell me, this isn’t about anthology seasons. It’s about shorter seasons!
And, once again, I’ll point you to a distant post from the distant past.

The year was 2008.

“Here are nine ideas to save television“, I bravely claimed. And one was about shorter seasons:

Remember Dirty Sexy Money? Probably not, because it only had 13 episodes last season.
But that’s okay.
Less is definitely more when it comes to shows like Lost. A radically shorter season definitely helped the show to condense its mythology and get on with the answers instead of waiting around for 5 other episodes.
It might not be that good for the Big Five in terms of cash but in a qualitative way, it’s certainly a game-changer.

Now, combine shorter seasons with 55-minute long shows around the year available for free whenever wherever on VOD.
Boom.
Welcome to the new world, Networks.

Holy shit. I ALSO INVENTED NETFLIX!

Look. I understand the temptation to be right about “the future of television” or the desperation to be the first to “call” something. We’re all guilty of this. But if you really want to do that, at least have something new to say.
Why are you shocked HBO is going into sports (“Inside the NFL” anyone?) or that Netflix is doing–gasp!–original programming.

We all know Ted Sarandos’ provocative statement about how Netflix’s goal “is to become HBO faster than HBO can become us.”
That was three years ago.

And this brings us full-circle to the reason of this entire post–or rant.
Maybe I needed to air my frustration about TV circlejerking.
Maybe I needed to point out how ridiculously narrow these echo chambers have become.
Or, maybe, I needed to quote this actual statement about HBO Now and Netflix:

If, as The Awl’s John Hermann argues, “the next Internet is TV,” then subscription-based streaming services are the next Facebook.

I thought orange was the new black? Wait, what is this again?
Oh. Now I remember.
It’s not TV, it’s articles about TV.

Cord-cutting is not a myth

Cord-cutting is not a myth

I’ve been watching television shows on my computer for most of my life.

No, I’m not 10 years old.

I started in 2001. Before 1080p MKVs and crappy AVIs.
Buffy Season Six was my first.

When I moved to the US, I continued watching TV on my laptop, and then my desktop. And in 2012, I finally bought an actual TV. Not because it was a TV, but because it was a screen. And an awesome one at that.

Earlier this week, a room full of executives gave a conference about the TV industry. Forbes published an article on the subject, entitling “Why cord-cutting is a myth“.

A myth? Isn’t that going a bit too far?

Hearst Ventures’ George Kliavkoff didn’t think so:

Cord-cutting is a great “story”, but I think it’s over-reported.

Amy Banse, managing director of Comcast Ventures concurred:

The volume of press around cord cutting doesn’t quite match reality.

The thing is, numbers don’t lie.

For the first time ever, Comcast now has more high-speed Internet customers than cable TV (22.55 million vs. 22.3 million).
The number of US households has been growing around 1 million a year, yet TV cable has been stagnating for a long time while Internet has skyrocketed (in addition to being a utility).

Comcast_2nd_Quarter_Customer_Growth_2011-2015_High_Speed_Internet_Customers_in_thousands_Video_Customers_in_thousands_chartbuilder

So where is all this denial coming from?

Let’s go back to that Forbes article–

Joe Marchese, president of advanced advertising products for Fox Networks Group, pointed out that Internet access still requires cord—in the form of a cable or a phone line.

Okay. Literally requiring a cord to use the Internet means you can’t be a cord-cutter.
That is, literally, the most literal argument I’ve ever read. Also, completely nonsensical.
People aren’t “cord-cutting” a physical apparatus, they are cutting ties with a specific content delivery method. Simple as that.

Which brings us to the main eyebrow-raising maneuver to reassure shareholders that, don’t worry guys, cord-cutting is totally not a thing.

As Kliavkoff explained:

What’s more likely to gain sizable traction is cord “shaving”. […] A la carte purchasing of channels—and not taking most of them—is a far more interesting area.

With HBO’s a-la-carte inevitable success, such a statement is undoubtedly true–except for the fact that subscribing to HBO Now or Showtime Anytime and cancelling Time Warner have substantially the same outcome.
In other words, the difference between customers changing behaviors and customers never having that behavior to begin with is irrelevant.

Playing word games to argue literal cord-cutting is “over-estimated” is a waste of everyone’s time. Cord-cutting isn’t a “myth” simply because it doesn’t fit a company’s very narrow definition. Worse, you are being disingenuous towards all your current, past, and potential customers by ignoring the motivation behind their actions.

I’ve never had to “cut the cord” because I’ve never wanted to pay $100/month for a cable TV package.
I guess I’m not a cord-cutter. I’m a “cord never(er)” (or “never-cord”).

People are finding newer, better alternatives than the old cord-a-roo.
Whether that means they’re doing it from the get-go or are realizing it years later leads to the same result…

Candle-making can’t stay profitable for long now that people are getting light from a series of tubes.

The Netflix of it All (Week Roundup)

The Netflix of it All (Week Roundup)

Well here we go again…

If last Friday was all about HBO’s victory lap, on this week’s roundup we take a look at one of the biggest OTT (over-the-top) competitors: Netflix.

Netflix Is Betting Its Future on Exclusive Programming

The NY Times once again posted a great in-depth television piece, shining a light on Netflix. The article offers a behind-the-scenes look at the cryptic online network. Although there isn’t that much revealed people don’t already know, it still is an interesting side of the OTT network, full of confidence. The focus of the piece is on what Netflix has been trying to accomplish for a while now: lots of great original content.
It has been over four years since I announced Netflix’s original programming strategy was going to be a game-changer. Looks like I’m only getting proven more correct as days go by. The new era has been ushered. As Reed Hastings, CEO’s Netflix, explains:

We’ve had 80 years of linear TV, and it’s been amazing, and in its day the fax machine was amazing. The next 20 years will be this transformation from linear TV to Internet TV.

Better play catch-up now.

Is Netflix Friend or Foe to the TV Industry? It’s More Confusing Than Ever

Continuing on Netflix, VideoNuze offers two perspectives on the OTT’s wide content expansion, both as a friend to the television industry, and as a foe. Time will tell as to which of the two the network really is, but for now, the article offers some interesting points:

While licensing deals have been fattening studios’ and TV networks’ bottom lines, they’ve also been improving the quality of Netflix and other OTT providers’ content, in turn creating better subscriber experiences. With time being finite, eventually Netflix viewing had to come out of the hide of TV viewing.

There has been a staggering 19.2% drop from year-to-year in TV viewership from the 18-24 year-olds. It’s not surprising that a lot of those who are cutting the cable cord (or never had it in the first place) are also switching off whatever TV set they may have in favor of Internet-based content. This will be even more interesting when it comes to kids or youth-based networks. Will parents still have their TVs on, or will they pit other screens in front of their children?

And this brings us to our next article…

The World’s Love Affair with the TV May Be Coming to an End

Perhaps a big over-dramatic with its title, the Daily Dog doesn’t just use Nielsen’s own findings but rather discusses the results of “Digital Video and the Connected Consumer”, a report from Accenture. In it, Accenture notes that video consumption has skyrocketed while traditional TV viewership has plummeted.

Nearly all age brackets reported double-digit declines in TV viewing globally, with 14- to 17-year-olds abandoning the TV screen at the rate of 33 percent for movies and television shows and 26 percent for sporting events. This decline continues for 18- to 34-year-olds at 14 percent for movies and television shows and 12 percent for sporting events, and for 35- to 54-year-olds, at 11 and nine percent, respectively. It does, however, flatten among the 55 and older crowd, at six percent and one percent respectively.

Now here is the most interesting part of the report, as described by Accenture’s Gavin Mann:

TV shows and movies are now a viewing staple on mobile devices of all shapes and sizes, thanks to improved streaming and longer battery life. The second screen viewing experience is where the content creators, broadcasters and programmers will succeed or fail.

A pretty ballsy claim. I do have to agree with one thing: it is clear that it’s not just OTT, but also mobile screens that will shape the near-future of video content. Note that new entrants will still have to prove themselves over traditional medium. Content discovery in this brand new world is still more than a step away from becoming a solved issue.