Broadcast Paradox

DVR, Once TV’s Mortal Foe, Helps Ratings

"According to Nielsen, 46 percent of viewers 18 to 49 years old for all four (ABC, CBS, FOX and NBC) networks taken together are watching the commercials during (DVR) playback, up slightly from last year." According to this New York Times article, "... those passive viewers are watching in numbers big enough to turn... some middling successes (“How I Met Your Mother” on CBS) into healthier profit centers, and some seemingly endangered shows (“Heroes” on NBC) into possible survivors."

© 2009 The New York Times Company

Is YouTube The New NBC ?

For 16 years, from late 1937 to early 1954 NBC had a symphony orchestra. Now YouTube has one as well.

I guess what is old is new again...

(And someone else draws the same comparison over Illeana Douglas' show on YouTube...)

Kliavkoff Out But Not Down

George Kliavkoff may be leaving his post as NBCU's Chief Digital Officer, but he is certainly not down on the potential for a customized digital experience to be a magnet for ad dollars when the economy rebounds. Kliavkoff spoke at the monthly NY:MIEG breakfast this morning.

Pandora Meets Genius

In the past week I was talking to someone about what would happen if you came home and found that your DVR was filled with shows similar in genre to what you had already recorded. Sort of Amazon meets Genius meets Pandora. In the October issue of Broadcast Engineering, Craig Birkmaier discusses locally caching content. It would be interesting if your DVR could hunt out content not only on cable (like TiVo) but on the web as well. But the article concludes by raising the issue about what happens to this model if content owners can buy preferential placement (think Ad Words). What would happen if you came home and your DVR was filled with episodes of The O'Reilly Factor and Make Money On eBay ?

Endangered Species ?

Showrunners know who watches their show, brand managers know who buys their product. So why in this day of product integration do you need ad agencies as the go between? Some thoughts from Brian Reich, (coauthor of Media Rules).
[iTunes link to clip here, then select podcast with release date of 9/8/08.]

(Thanks to Bill Sobel for this.)

Fanfare™ and TakeTV™

Had lunch today with my favorite industry shmoozer and one of the things we discussed was TakeTV™ (a small media player you connect to your TV) and the possibility of additional product announcements at CES. Read the original Press Release here.

And the Fanfare™ website (where you download the contentent) is here.

Broadcast 2.0 Redux

A bit old, but still food for thought on eirikso.com

Contents ©2008 TechManager Helper. Reproduction permitted with attribution.

P2P with Skinkers and LiveStation

I just don't get why Peer-to-Peer is a great way of distributing TV-like content. It's just like having your windows open with no screens during the summer. Sure you get that cool breeze of fast downloaded video, but you let all those bloodsucking mosquitoes in. Akamai and Limelight get paid for hosting files. Is what you download worth providing other people with free hosting, your internet 'pipe' and the wear and tear on your computer?

Web-to-TV Update

The Wall Street Journal does a nice update of my blog entry "What's All This About Ippy TV?"

Behind The Curve

I used to be ahead of the curve.(My shop probably had the first non Post House AVID in NYC in December 1989.)

You know you're behind the curve when the stuff you're researching becomes the gist of an article in Time Magazine: "Hacking Toward Happinees." It's no fun being over 50 in a time where technology comes at you faster and faster.

TV vs Video

Here's a comment that sums it all up:

Jake Wolf said (as a comment to a Blog Entry that Jeff Jarvis posted):

"TV is made by deep pocketed networks who pay for FCC licenses and come into homes via radio waves or wires. Video is what individuals have control over and they can get it from any source they want."

Jeff Jarvis started by saying:

"She [Amanda Congdon] said she didn’t want her stuff called TV; she said it’s something new, it’s a video blog. I argued, in turn, that the definition of TV is up for grabs and that she should grab it..."

I don't think Amanda should grab anything. We (individuals) must now do everthing we can to own Video, before the Googles of the world buy up all the YouTubes of the world and commericalize it, just like they did to the Internet. Of cousre, we the people may already have lost the battle, as this OpEd piece in the San Jose Mercury News tells us.

Broadband Media: From Network to Networked

Here's a blog post I missed the first time through. Peter Cervieri posted this video of Herb Granath in a firside chat with Shelly Plamer. Scroll down past the Flash player and read the text summary, if you'd prefer. (I hate talking heads myself. I can read faster than I can watch.)