Synthesis Studios

So, now that all the good stuff isn’t on TV, what can networks do to keep us on the TV instead of roaming about? To answer that, let’s rephrase it slightly. Let’s ask, “What’s special about TV?”

There’s at least two ways to answer that question: technology and community. Unless you’re watching video on demand, you’re effectively participating in a multicast stream — all US television viewers (over the air, on the cable, or blasted down from a satellite) have so much video being blasted into our homes that promise.tv is impossible here. That’s a lot of pre-allocated bandwidth. Community-wise, watching live television is almost akin to being part of the “now” culture — given the time it takes for a video to appear on iTunes, it’s impossible to join in on the water cooler talk the next day.

One thing may be high definition. Technologically, sucking down a HDTV stream over your residential broadband hurts. Mark Cuban can go exalting HDTV’s praises for all of us, but suffice it to say, we’re waiting for Metcalfe’s law to catch up. But, can cable companies afford to bet that people are willing to pay to watch a really really good quality stream? Probably not as a lot of people are still probably searching for something decent to watch. And, in fact, the biggest draw for HD is probably the Super Bowl.

Instead of focusing on how to cater to people watching video off the TV Guide grid, how about enhancing the live television experience? How about serving a community? Interactive television is a notion that pops up in certain circles over and through the years, but it inevitably turns out to be a conversation of BJAS or “buy Jennifer Aniston’s sweater”. How boring! Most of us are not watching television to shop (unless we’re watching the Home Shopping Network). G4 has an interesting take on ITV with its Star Trek 2.0 where the program allows viewers to chat in real-time and on screen while the episode is running (which is even reminiscent of what MTV has been doing on TRL for years now). American Idol, leads the notion of voting while watching television where they’re capable of drawing in nearly thirty five million viewership votes. And, people gather in bars to watch sports all the time!

Why doesn’t the rest of television learn these lessons? In a way it has with certain reality television shows like Survivor and its traditionally live final episode — but can writers expand that to dramas and comedies? The television itself is a medium in flux, and authors for this medium need to take this change into account.

PS. In fact, everything here also shows up in strange places. Nielsen ratings weight TiVo playback differently from live TV viewership (probably on the assumption that most TiVo users skip commercials), and I honestly don’t know if the ratings take into account iTunes viewership. In fact, it has perhaps gotten so bad, that Nora O’Brien, SciFi’s VP in charge of Stargate SG-1 urged the audience at Comic Con 2006 to watch SG-1 live if they wanted it to get renewed. Alas, it has not, even though it’s one of the most widely watched science fiction series on television today. Just not watched at broadcast. It’s too bad that SciFi viewership and DVR ownership overlap so much.

This entry was posted on Friday, September 8th, 2006 at 1:58 pm and is filed under Synthesis. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.