The website of Amanda Kellar's TV show Mondo Thingo has a
video on future of tv made sometime last year I think. The video brings up the usual information - greater choice for consumers with tv being able to be accessed via your computer with an internal television tuner versus social environment e.g. will people sit around a computer screen together? With the advent of technologies such as Apple TV, perhaps there is a possibility that family viewing can still occur - but perhaps the fight for the remote will increase - with all this individualisation, will we end up like what has happened with iPods, sitting on the train, watching content without interacting with people at the time, and reliving it later through conversation...Don't know if this makes sense...I'm working on it.
Saturday, 2 June 2007
Friday, 1 June 2007
* Newsflash *
Thanks very much James Packer. I had just finished writing my entry on media ownership and now you go ahead and sell the majority of your share in Channel 9. Anyhoo - interesting all the same - roll the dice.
P.S. Yes I know, home on a Friday night. Sigh, I just can't be bothered today - spent time mucking around with facebook for some entertainment.
P.S. Yes I know, home on a Friday night. Sigh, I just can't be bothered today - spent time mucking around with facebook for some entertainment.
Presentation Notes
I have just been having a think about the presentation on Wednesday. It is a challenge to say the least to condense a semester's work into under 4 minutes. Practicing last week definitely helped - even before we did our presentation for the class we were practicing and trying to cut our material down. Even so, we still went over 5 minutes overtime, and that was not even with too much of an introduction or a conclusion. We discussed this yesterday and over the weekend are re-writing our speeches then meeting on Monday to practice and make sure that we have a presentation that although concise, covers all the main areas we wish to address.
We met with Geoff yesterday afternoon to discuss the feedback from the peer assessed presentation practice. Looking at this, our strength was in our content, we went pretty well in the clarity of the presentation, and the brief, but need to work on sustaining interest. From sitting through the other presentations, I think this is the area that is possibly lowest for most of us 'draggy...I lost concentration and interest' - ouch. :) It is difficult to work out how to sustain the interest of people in research that they might not even be that interested in, especially when they are listening to a number of projects - how to make yours stand out? Kind of wondering how many people will be sticking around realistically until our project at 3 something. From other peoples' projects this is what I think could help (ah, I can use dot points again):
Back to the feedback. In the comments section, there seemed to be a bit of confusion as to what out overall research question was - even though we had it on our title slide (one even said media law reform which was only one section of our overall question) - think Geoff is right that a bit of reinforcement is the key to this one. Talking about this with the group yesterday we thought of perhaps inserting the title slide between each of our individual presentations.
The extract from The Craft of Research in the dossier provides some interesting material which relates to both the presentation and the final research project - one point of taking turns (p29) drafting and revising, getting different members of the group to look at each of our sections to make sure that we are not contradicting one another and there is an overarching goal within each sections is important. The checklist is also relevant for both tasks, who we are presenting to and who is reading the report is slightly different and their expectations differ as well. The former (referring to the course guide here) is wanting us to show why we have chosen the topic and why it warranted research, how we collected our data and the interpretations and conclusions we have gained from this. The latter, in our presentation requires us to clarify the key problems and subsequent research questions - which ones helped us to answer the substantive research questions, and to show that we have done a range of research and that it is of a high quality.
Sources:
Booth, W., Colomb, G. & Williams, J. The Craft of Research (2nd ed). University of Chicago Press: Chicago, 2003.
We met with Geoff yesterday afternoon to discuss the feedback from the peer assessed presentation practice. Looking at this, our strength was in our content, we went pretty well in the clarity of the presentation, and the brief, but need to work on sustaining interest. From sitting through the other presentations, I think this is the area that is possibly lowest for most of us 'draggy...I lost concentration and interest' - ouch. :) It is difficult to work out how to sustain the interest of people in research that they might not even be that interested in, especially when they are listening to a number of projects - how to make yours stand out? Kind of wondering how many people will be sticking around realistically until our project at 3 something. From other peoples' projects this is what I think could help (ah, I can use dot points again):
- having a variety of media or examples, but knowing with these where they are appropriate to insert
- not having too much information up if using slides as they are distracting and
- Speaking clearly - making sure that any media examples are easy to hear
- not to simply read points directly off slides
- Simplifying points so that they are easy to digest for listeners
Back to the feedback. In the comments section, there seemed to be a bit of confusion as to what out overall research question was - even though we had it on our title slide (one even said media law reform which was only one section of our overall question) - think Geoff is right that a bit of reinforcement is the key to this one. Talking about this with the group yesterday we thought of perhaps inserting the title slide between each of our individual presentations.
The extract from The Craft of Research in the dossier provides some interesting material which relates to both the presentation and the final research project - one point of taking turns (p29) drafting and revising, getting different members of the group to look at each of our sections to make sure that we are not contradicting one another and there is an overarching goal within each sections is important. The checklist is also relevant for both tasks, who we are presenting to and who is reading the report is slightly different and their expectations differ as well. The former (referring to the course guide here) is wanting us to show why we have chosen the topic and why it warranted research, how we collected our data and the interpretations and conclusions we have gained from this. The latter, in our presentation requires us to clarify the key problems and subsequent research questions - which ones helped us to answer the substantive research questions, and to show that we have done a range of research and that it is of a high quality.
Sources:
Booth, W., Colomb, G. & Williams, J. The Craft of Research (2nd ed). University of Chicago Press: Chicago, 2003.
Thursday, 31 May 2007
Progress=wiki
Well, after much discussion - a website and a few animated gifs later plus the help of Lewis...we have decided to do our project as a wiki - basically, we came to this conclusion as a way of solving the problem of one person being responsible for uploading and editing the information. This way we can all add our own material and edit as we wish. It will still involve the website as from last year we learnt the limitations of the wiki (video/audio) for the interview sections of our project, but it is definitely the best way to go for our group.
Rough draft of topics to discuss
YouTube vs Television
One of the main concerns of televisions future is the rise of interactive and online entertainment, and how it is believed to be driving audiences away from the television box towards the computer. One of these major online alternatives is YouTube.
The rise in YouTube reflects a somewhat dismal part of a near to long distance future of free to air commercial television. The reality is people do not want ads and would prefer a more flexible time schedule of viewing their favourite shows.
In defense of not seeing YouTube as a threat, an important factor to consider here is yes, people, especially the younger generation, are tuning into YouTube and viewing television programming, but not necessarily INSTEAD of watching the television. If people preview for example a US series such as Lost or Desperate Housewives on YouTube, a huge majority will watch it again once its broadcast in Australia so they can discuss the shows with friends. There are less problems when its Australian content, as it is broadcast first, so if people view it on YouTube afterwards they aren’t necessarily LOSING an audience, but can be used as a device to draw attention to the show.
At the moment, we are in a time of great uncertainty over the future relationship between YouTube and television networks. Australian television network Ten has claimed YouTube should be welcomed “as allies rather than being treated as the enemy in the emerging online video battle” (article 12) Channel Ten has taken initiative with the online arena in encouraging viewers to interact with the network both through broadcast AND online, for example Big Brother and The Biggest Loser. Channel Ten’s standpoint is the internet can be used as a source to garner attention of their television shows and draw viewers to watching the broadcast, (as well as earning advertising revenue from the internet).
A successful mission Channel Ten has taken in using YouTube as a viable resource for viewing their shows is uploading comedy hit “Thank God You’re Here” with sponsorship announcements at the start and finish of uploaded clips. The sponsorship is short enough to endure without skipping over and isn’t worth someone uploading the clips without them, with enough skits provided by channel Ten for it to not be necessary for any more clips without sponsorship to be provided.
In terms of the short term future of Australian television networks losing audience due to YouTube or the internet in general, digital general manager of Ten Damian Smith states, “I don’t think it’s going to change in Australia tomorrow. There are a whole lot of reasons that things move a little bit slower here, most notably broadband speeds and penetration”.
However, what IS the appeal of YouTube is its flexibility in viewing times. Unless television networks allow episodes to be available outside of one broadcast time, and preferably without cost, will viewers actually partake in seeking television shows through the station.
This is where the rise of pay television stands as a threat to free-to-air television.
Foxtel Digital has tried to slightly accommodate for more viewing times, through making duplicates of numerous channels to air programmes two hours later as well, however its still nowhere near as time flexible as youtube.
But Foxtel IQ DOES offer an updated weekly selection of shows to choose from at leisure. Although cable is not quite the conquering threat that it hopes to be, there are still 25% of Australians that have subscription television and is a constantly climbing figure.
However, the reality is not everyone can afford this kind of television viewing, and the massive appeal of YouTube and free-to-air television is of course the fact that its free.
What does stand as television’s strong point is the quality of the presentation, which is where it prevails over YouTube.
Hopefully in the next few years shall see the rise of digital television, supposedly the “biggest thing to happen to television since colour was introduced” Currently 33% of Australians have free-to-air digital television, and it is hoped that over the next couple of years it shall reach at least 60%. It is intended that Analogue transmission shall be shut down and replaced with digital transmission in 2010-2012, despite initial plans of 2008. We are a far cry from a television demise over at least the next five years. With a constant rise in purchases of better quality and bigger televisions, and of digital set top boxes people clearly aren’t giving up on broadcast television just yet.
When television was first introduced, it was thought to be the end of cinema, yet here it is still going strong 70 years later. Now that there’s a rise in Internet use, its not that it is the end of television, or that viewers are watching less television, they're just multi-tasking. It simply means there’s yet another entertainment medium for consumers, and television should strategize ways to take advantage of the internet to attract audiences and to simply co-exist with it. The Australian Television Network should take some of the success of the interactive environment the internet provides, and apply it to television to reap the benefits rather than see the internet as an adversary.
Hopefully it shall be a better experience for audiences, as Australian television will have to lift their game in order to keep us drawn to their programs, hopefully equating to better quality content, in a better quality format with digital. What Television stations need to ensure is where there’s good content, there shall be an audience.
One of the main concerns of televisions future is the rise of interactive and online entertainment, and how it is believed to be driving audiences away from the television box towards the computer. One of these major online alternatives is YouTube.
The rise in YouTube reflects a somewhat dismal part of a near to long distance future of free to air commercial television. The reality is people do not want ads and would prefer a more flexible time schedule of viewing their favourite shows.
In defense of not seeing YouTube as a threat, an important factor to consider here is yes, people, especially the younger generation, are tuning into YouTube and viewing television programming, but not necessarily INSTEAD of watching the television. If people preview for example a US series such as Lost or Desperate Housewives on YouTube, a huge majority will watch it again once its broadcast in Australia so they can discuss the shows with friends. There are less problems when its Australian content, as it is broadcast first, so if people view it on YouTube afterwards they aren’t necessarily LOSING an audience, but can be used as a device to draw attention to the show.
At the moment, we are in a time of great uncertainty over the future relationship between YouTube and television networks. Australian television network Ten has claimed YouTube should be welcomed “as allies rather than being treated as the enemy in the emerging online video battle” (article 12) Channel Ten has taken initiative with the online arena in encouraging viewers to interact with the network both through broadcast AND online, for example Big Brother and The Biggest Loser. Channel Ten’s standpoint is the internet can be used as a source to garner attention of their television shows and draw viewers to watching the broadcast, (as well as earning advertising revenue from the internet).
A successful mission Channel Ten has taken in using YouTube as a viable resource for viewing their shows is uploading comedy hit “Thank God You’re Here” with sponsorship announcements at the start and finish of uploaded clips. The sponsorship is short enough to endure without skipping over and isn’t worth someone uploading the clips without them, with enough skits provided by channel Ten for it to not be necessary for any more clips without sponsorship to be provided.
In terms of the short term future of Australian television networks losing audience due to YouTube or the internet in general, digital general manager of Ten Damian Smith states, “I don’t think it’s going to change in Australia tomorrow. There are a whole lot of reasons that things move a little bit slower here, most notably broadband speeds and penetration”.
However, what IS the appeal of YouTube is its flexibility in viewing times. Unless television networks allow episodes to be available outside of one broadcast time, and preferably without cost, will viewers actually partake in seeking television shows through the station.
This is where the rise of pay television stands as a threat to free-to-air television.
Foxtel Digital has tried to slightly accommodate for more viewing times, through making duplicates of numerous channels to air programmes two hours later as well, however its still nowhere near as time flexible as youtube.
But Foxtel IQ DOES offer an updated weekly selection of shows to choose from at leisure. Although cable is not quite the conquering threat that it hopes to be, there are still 25% of Australians that have subscription television and is a constantly climbing figure.
However, the reality is not everyone can afford this kind of television viewing, and the massive appeal of YouTube and free-to-air television is of course the fact that its free.
What does stand as television’s strong point is the quality of the presentation, which is where it prevails over YouTube.
Hopefully in the next few years shall see the rise of digital television, supposedly the “biggest thing to happen to television since colour was introduced” Currently 33% of Australians have free-to-air digital television, and it is hoped that over the next couple of years it shall reach at least 60%. It is intended that Analogue transmission shall be shut down and replaced with digital transmission in 2010-2012, despite initial plans of 2008. We are a far cry from a television demise over at least the next five years. With a constant rise in purchases of better quality and bigger televisions, and of digital set top boxes people clearly aren’t giving up on broadcast television just yet.
When television was first introduced, it was thought to be the end of cinema, yet here it is still going strong 70 years later. Now that there’s a rise in Internet use, its not that it is the end of television, or that viewers are watching less television, they're just multi-tasking. It simply means there’s yet another entertainment medium for consumers, and television should strategize ways to take advantage of the internet to attract audiences and to simply co-exist with it. The Australian Television Network should take some of the success of the interactive environment the internet provides, and apply it to television to reap the benefits rather than see the internet as an adversary.
Hopefully it shall be a better experience for audiences, as Australian television will have to lift their game in order to keep us drawn to their programs, hopefully equating to better quality content, in a better quality format with digital. What Television stations need to ensure is where there’s good content, there shall be an audience.
Wednesday, 30 May 2007
just in, tivo is coming
Seven boosts digital platform with Tivo agreement
The Seven Network is to get a substantial boost to its digital terrestrial broadcasting platform, after signing an exclusive agreement with Tivo Inc, to launch the Tivo digital video recorder to Australia’s 7 million TV households in 2008.
Seven will be the first free to air broadcaster in the market to deploy such a service.
Announcing the new partnership this morning Seven said it will develop the digital terrestrial platform on which the Tivo DVR and service will operate. Tivo will offer its full suite of services including features like SeasonPass recordings and WishList searches, allow users to access broadband content through their TV sets and provide Seven with its interactive advertising capability.
Seven said it will open the platform to other broadcasters and broadband content providers, with a number of “major media organizations having ‘expressed interest”. Tivo CEO and President, Tom Rogers said: “The Australian television market is on the cusp of a significant migration to digital television that will greatly expand the choices available on free-to-air television”.
“We are excited to play a key role in driving this transition by partnering with the top television network in the country to establish Seven's leadership of this transformation,’ he said.
“This relationship demonstrates our ability to deploy the TiVo service on the digital terrestrial, or DVB-T standard, which has now been globally adopted and will represent more than 100 million homes by 2009. It demonstrates the opportunities TiVo has to work with leading broadcasters who have substantial marketing clout to drive TiVo DVR penetration by adopting our hardware and software approaches to this globally important standard," Rogers added.
Seven Media CEO David Leckie said the new partnership will “vastly extend” Australians’ overall TV viewing experience.
"Through TiVo, Seven will leverage our broadcast television and publishing businesses, deliver new advertising and marketing solutions, and expand our presence in new communications platforms, as we work in partnership with (Internet subsidiaries) Yahoo!7 and Engin. As a broadcaster, we are uniquely positioned to promote DVRs while simultaneously defining the future of television advertising," Leckie said.
Seven’s VOIP partnership, Engin, will play a pivotal role in distribution and support of TiVo in Australia and Seven and Engin are finalizing distribution arrangements with other partners . Further announcements of these arrangements are expected in the coming weeks.
Pay TV provider Foxtel is the only broadcaster in the country currently providing a Tivo style of service.
Its IQ-branded personal video recorder is in around 10% or 130,000 of Foxtel homes while pay TV compatriot Austar will launch its version of the Fxotel IQ later this year.
Industry group Digital Broadcasting Australia estimated this month that around 2.5 million TV households in Australia are digital TV capable through the purchase of digital set top boxes or integrated flat screen TV’s. Penetration of off-the-shelf DVR’s is believed to be far lower.
The Seven Network is to get a substantial boost to its digital terrestrial broadcasting platform, after signing an exclusive agreement with Tivo Inc, to launch the Tivo digital video recorder to Australia’s 7 million TV households in 2008.
Seven will be the first free to air broadcaster in the market to deploy such a service.
Announcing the new partnership this morning Seven said it will develop the digital terrestrial platform on which the Tivo DVR and service will operate. Tivo will offer its full suite of services including features like SeasonPass recordings and WishList searches, allow users to access broadband content through their TV sets and provide Seven with its interactive advertising capability.
Seven said it will open the platform to other broadcasters and broadband content providers, with a number of “major media organizations having ‘expressed interest”. Tivo CEO and President, Tom Rogers said: “The Australian television market is on the cusp of a significant migration to digital television that will greatly expand the choices available on free-to-air television”.
“We are excited to play a key role in driving this transition by partnering with the top television network in the country to establish Seven's leadership of this transformation,’ he said.
“This relationship demonstrates our ability to deploy the TiVo service on the digital terrestrial, or DVB-T standard, which has now been globally adopted and will represent more than 100 million homes by 2009. It demonstrates the opportunities TiVo has to work with leading broadcasters who have substantial marketing clout to drive TiVo DVR penetration by adopting our hardware and software approaches to this globally important standard," Rogers added.
Seven Media CEO David Leckie said the new partnership will “vastly extend” Australians’ overall TV viewing experience.
"Through TiVo, Seven will leverage our broadcast television and publishing businesses, deliver new advertising and marketing solutions, and expand our presence in new communications platforms, as we work in partnership with (Internet subsidiaries) Yahoo!7 and Engin. As a broadcaster, we are uniquely positioned to promote DVRs while simultaneously defining the future of television advertising," Leckie said.
Seven’s VOIP partnership, Engin, will play a pivotal role in distribution and support of TiVo in Australia and Seven and Engin are finalizing distribution arrangements with other partners . Further announcements of these arrangements are expected in the coming weeks.
Pay TV provider Foxtel is the only broadcaster in the country currently providing a Tivo style of service.
Its IQ-branded personal video recorder is in around 10% or 130,000 of Foxtel homes while pay TV compatriot Austar will launch its version of the Fxotel IQ later this year.
Industry group Digital Broadcasting Australia estimated this month that around 2.5 million TV households in Australia are digital TV capable through the purchase of digital set top boxes or integrated flat screen TV’s. Penetration of off-the-shelf DVR’s is believed to be far lower.
Thursday, 24 May 2007
Podcasts
The Future Of Internet Television Is Free
May 14th, 2007
The future of Internet television belongs to free video podcasts and ad-supported video downloads, according to a new report by Forrester Research. Forrester estimates that paid video downloads will peak in 2007, generating $279 million in revenue, up from $98 million last year. Beyond 2007, advertising models will drive the online video market.
Despite the interest in selling video downloads from companies like Apple, Amazon, Microsoft, and Wal-Mart, only nine percent of online adults have ever paid to download a movie or TV show. Forrester’s analysis suggests that, while there’s a niche of media junkies willing to spend heavily on such content, they do not represent the vanguard of a rush by mainstream consumers. Without mainstream viewers joining the party, the video download market will not grow fast enough to support the ambitions of all the companies involved.
“The paid video download market in its current evolutionary state will soon become extinct, despite the fast growth and the millions being spent today,” said Forrester’s James McQuivey. “Television and cable networks will shift the bulk of paid downloading to ad-supported streams where they have control of ads and effective audience measurement. The movie studios, whose content only makes up a fraction of today’s paid downloads, will put their weight behind subscription models that imitate premium cable channel services.”
Other highlights of Forrester’s report:
- Internet video will replace closed set-top box ecosystems. Apple will have to rethink Apple TV, moving to an ad-supported, broadband service provider model that puts YouTube videos as well as ABC.com TV shows directly on the TV. At the same time, Internet-friendly set-top boxes from Cisco and Motorola will give Comcast and Time Warner a way to offer competing Internet-based, ad-supported content.
- Television networks will allow ad-supported downloads of prime-time TV shows. New technology such as the recently announced Adobe Media Player will allow consumers to download video for playback without losing the ads that were sold with the video. Expect ABC to go first in 2008, with other networks quickly following.
- Streaming of ad-supported TV shows will eclipse DVR use by the end of 2008. Advertisers will cheer because this shift thwarts ad-skipping; consumers will applaud this breakthrough because it’s cheaper than a DVR and is more flexible.
“To attract mainstream viewers, media strategy executives must develop new business models and delivery mechanisms to make video downloading ad-supported and geek-free,” says McQuivey.
From here.
interesting
According to the NPD Group, among US households with members who regularly use the Internet, 8% (six million households) downloaded at least one digital video file from a P2P service for free in the third quarter of 2006, compared with 2% of households that downloaded a paid video file.
Free, and often illegal, video downloads are outpacing paid video downloads by four to one.
Nearly 60% of the video files downloaded from P2P sites were adult film content, while 20% were TV show content and 5% were mainstream movie content.
from here.
AJT interview
Allan James Thomas, senior lecturer at RMIT University is currently on research leave, but was good enough to sit down with us for an interview about the future of free-to-air TV in Australia. Here is the transcript of the interview.
1. It was claimed that “18th October 2004 is the day TV died”. Could you explain what is meant by this and whether you agree?
… that was made by Mark Pesce in I think 2004, and what Pesce actually talking about is peer to peer networking the kind of Napster idea but with TV rather than music. The problem that arises there being why are people gonna watch TV when they can download what they want when they want, so from that he’s extrapolating saying that TV as we know it is in real trouble.
2. Is the popularity with downloading shows online set to increase as more households increase their broadband speeds and the technology improves?
There’s no question about it. In Australia we’re in quite a backwards situation what we call broadband here is very slow compared to a lot of the rest of the world so in a sense we’re behind the game. And yet Australia is I think I read somewhere the second worst in terms of pure numbers and the worst in per head of population in terms of downloading material off TV so we do it all the time. The reasons that people do it are really straightforward, it’s you get to watch what you want, when you want rather than stuck with the schedule of the TV station and given the increasing pace of the lifestyles the demands of work you know that kind of stuff being able to watch what you want at your own pleasure, is very appealing. And in many cases you get to watch it without the ads, which is also one of the reasons that Pesce talks about the death of TV because if people are no longer watching the ads, whether its, like they’re watching a download for example, advertisers get less value for money so they’re going to pay less for their ads for profitability of the TV stations starts to fall. I’ve seen some extrapolations which suggest that the break even point where they start losing money could happen within 4 or 5 years. That could be a wort case scenario, but it’s definitely something that they’re worried about!
3. What do you think television stations and advertisers will do to try and combat viewers avoiding watching commercials through downloading digital recording or other means in order to earn revenue? What tactics will they adopt?
Well Pesce talks about one option which is focusing broadcast TV on live events, you know, things that you wanna watch when they’re happening like sport for example is the perfect example. They’re also doing things like experimenting with adding more interactivity to shows. Whether it’s something as simple as sms voting that kind of stuff. A lot of what’s happening with reality TV can be seen in some sense as responding to this kind of stuff. Something like big brother, there’s not much point watching it you know three weeks later or a month later or some other time so that in itself is partly a response. It’s also been suggested that there can be a shift towards incorporating advertising into the shows rather than as separate ads so the idea of product placement I suppose and sponsorship deals that kind of stuff. Also the idea of using the watermark at the bottom of the screen as an ad in itself coz you just can’t get rid of it without getting rid of the show. So those are some of the kinds of solutions. You’ll also notice that a lot of TV shows now are starting to be available across different media forms, so for example they’re experimenting with things like having, for example the show 24 having episodes available for the mobile phone which are quite separate, different content to the actual TV show. Actually giving you back stories for example about certain characters. So TV is becoming not just TV but spreading across various spaces.
4. You’ve claimed that the future of television “is already here, we just haven’t noticed it yet.” What is the future and why haven’t we noticed?
I made that claim a couple of years ago, and I think people have noticed now. There was a really noticeable shift in the kind of reach last year about these kind of issues and I reckon that was the point where people started to notice that there really are changes happening. Kind of equivalent to the point at which the music industry started to realise that peer to peer downloading was a challenge to their business model. So what you saw last year was much much much more coverage on that issue relating to TV, but also the addition of things like thinking about mobile phones as a TV medium. And the impact of the Internet and Internet based TV providers. So the people have started to notice now. I mean you could talk to most people on the streets and they’ll have some idea of these kinds of issues even if they haven’t thought about them in those contexts. So yeah, I think it’s past that tipping point now people are really aware of it.
5. What is the difference between analogue television and digital television?
Okay, when you’re talking about analogue and digital TV, in both cases we’re talking about a broadcast idea of television. It’s really as simple as, well if you’re talking about the idea of digital TV, you’re not talking about the means of capturing the image so the cameras for example, they’ve been digital for years. Then your editing and postproduction stuff has been digital for a long time. We’re really talking about the actual signal that’s broadcast itself. So it’s just a case of shifting from an analogue signal to a digital signal so ones and zeros, the language of computers, that kind of stuff. Now that seems like a small shift in some ways, but it has massive implications across lots of different areas. From spectrum allocation to cross media kind of multimedia or even things like mash ups for example, coz once something’s in a digital format, you can manipulate it using the computer. Using technology that are on just about every home computer these days.
6. How successfully will viewers accept digital TV in the future like when it’s fully implemented in 2012? I understand that the digital take-up rate in Australia has been slow, is this set to change in coming years when viewers are given more benefit for their money?
Well there are a couple of issues with that. 2012 as I understand it is the point at which the Government wants to switch off the analogue signal all together so the take up then should be pretty strong coz there won’t be any other options. That raises problems itself. One of the reasons the take up has been so slow is that when it was, digital broadcast TV was introduced in I think 2001 that the TV sets that you needed to receive it were really expensive, and they didn’t offer you all that much that was different from what you were getting already. If you got a, in 2001 if you bought a high definition TV set it could cost you, you know 7 or 8 thousand dollars, and all you were getting was a better picture. That’s a function of the limitations that the government legislation’s put on what you can do with digital TV rather than the technology itself. But it just wasn’t offering the consumer anything particularly different. Not enough to make them want to make that change. Not 7 or 10 thousand dollars worth of change. Now the rate of pick-up has accelerated it’s now, it’s I don’t know the figures, but it’s, the take up is a lot higher, and is picking up pace. The technology has come down in price massively, the shift from ____________ TV’s, to plasma screens and LCD’s has helped that because they enable you to get the higher picture quality without paying this massive amount for a TV set. They’re still expensive, you know, a thousand dollars in the least for an LCD screen of a decent size, but they’re getting to within the realms of possibility. And they’re in all the stores now. And people know more about it, they’re a bit more aware of it. It’s still not great, but yeah, come 2012 ____ originally this year, 2007, was meant to be the cut off date in the original legislation, and it clearly didn’t work, so they shifted it to 2012. Whether they shift it again is anybody’s guess.
7. When digital TV is in full force in the future, do you think viewers will embrace the new interactivity options that they’re given?
Well it depends on how much those interactive options actually provide them. At the moment there’s very little that’s actually coming as a function of digital broadcast TV itself. I mean if you’re really going to have interactivity in that context you need well, what’s called a back channel, you need a connection from your TV set or set top box back to the source so you can communicate back and forth. To interact you’ve got to communicate back and forth effectively. But one of the trends we’re seeing is this integration of what we think of as TV with things like the Internet and mobile phones and other kinds of media forms. So that in a few years time, when we think about television, it’ll be integrated across a wide range of different media forms that actually kind of converge together in some sense. So when you’re talking about interactivity and TV, it wont just be about the broadcast TV signal, it’ll be about all these other media forms as well. And that’s already happening to some extent.
8. What is the audience appeal of networked media over broadcast media?
Well one of the issues is, well one of the distinction you can make between the two is traditional broadcast media is essentially a lean back medium, you just sit back and it comes to you and you don’t have to do anything, and you know, when you’ve just done 10 hours of work, that’s pretty appealing, You don’t want to interact necessarily. Networked media provides the possibility, or more possibility for an active relationship through media, so if you think about computer gaming for example, is inherently interactive, you have to do something to actually play the game. So it’s a lean forward medium you have to get into the world that you’re provided with in some way or another. So in terms of the relationship between this I guess there’s two different modes of engagement. Each of which has their appeal. I certainly don’t think that networked media, the kind of lean forward media is going to replace broadcast television, because sometimes you don’t wanna lean forward. You know, you just wanna sit back and have the fun come to you.
9. Will broadcast television ever be able to accept working towards content for “communities of interest” over controlling content for mass audiences as they’ve done for so long?
That’s a, well I think that’s a really interesting question. It’s inherent in the idea of broadcast media that it’s aiming at a large audience, in theory, as large an audience as possible. That’s what makes it a mass medium. A mass media medium. Networked media allows for the, an address to much smaller audiences, the idea of niche audiences or a community of interest. The idea of a website for example that’s devoted just to trainspotting. It’s not going to appeal to everyone! There are lots of factors involved in those differences. Broadcast TV’s really expensive to make, so you’ve got to address the widest audience possible. Networked media can be very cheap. You know it’s at the point, it has been for some time now, where individuals effectively are becoming media producers, so the idea of your myspace site, or contributions to youtube, or your webpage or your blog, That’s you as a media producer and you’ve been doing that with no, well almost no cost, and you’re able to get that out theoretically to the world, or to the world that’s on the internet anyway. But the only people that are really going to read that are the ones who have some kind of engagement with what you’re doing in that, your particular focus, that which makes them a community of interest, a niche. So in terms of broadcast media forms accepting or trying to address niche audiences there’s this kind of conflict between their primary function in some sense which is their mass media form, they need to be able to compete with other media forms, so networked media forms, coz one of the things that’s happening is TV audiences seem to be going into decline, and people are spending more time with other media forms, like computer games or the internet. So they have to try and pull these people in somehow. That’s where this idea of TV spreading out to other media forms has a certain kind of relevance. By taking a TV show and having a website and mobile phone episodes which give you extra material, it’s giving you multiple points of entry which are hopefully going to hopefully draw you back to the mass audience experience. If you think about it, TV already has a kind of address to communities of interest just in terms of the generate nature of it. So you know you have your TV audience broken into the sport news entertainment drama comedy, you know they’re not exactly niche audiences, they’re still very broad generic distinctions, but they’re a step towards that. So it’s always done that. The question of how much they can actually negotiate trying to have both at once is a really interesting one. It’s a real challenge. Particularly when you start thinking about the idea of audience generated content. The idea that the community is actually creating media. You know, how can a TV show draw on that? One example of how it’s done that for a long time is something like Funniest Home Videos. That’s user generated content. It’s horribly boring, but it is user generated content. So that’s always been there to some extent. You know when people talk about there being this radical difference between broadcast and networked, and networked is something totally new, it’s almost never completely true.
10. You’ve also stated, “if you want to know what future media will look like, think games, not stories.” with this kind of thinking, would the Television drama be able to survive? Or by this do you imply that if there isn’t some form of audience interactivity within a television program, it may not be successful?
Well, when I was thinking about games, it wasn’t necessarily or primarily the interactive aspect of them that I was thinking about, I was thinking more in terms of the way that particularly with a lot of contemporary computer games, what they do is they actually, they don’t just offer a story, they offer an entire world that the user enters and actively participates in. And I’m not just talking about when you’re playing the game, but also in terms of the way that the users then go on to use that world as a springpoint, or a springboard for their own creativity. So if you take for example World of Warcraft, which is a very popular computer game at the moment, there’s a whole genre of little movies that people make within that world. They tell their own stories within the framework the world provides and you know put them on youtube, put them on their own website. Which goes back to this idea of fan fiction for example, which is a pre-networked media phenomenon, where fans of a TV show, for example, will write stories for example that take place within the world of that fiction. Star Trek is the classic example as a whole genre of what’s called slash fiction. So it’s Spock slash Kirk, that’s drawing out the what’s implicit, you know Spock and Kirk have this very intense relationship so there’s all this essentially this fantasies about their gay relationship, which these fan fiction, slash fiction is exploring. So which is in a sense, the audience or the viewer taking their own kind of fantasy world, their own kind of interests or whatever, and expressing within the world the show provides. Now that goes up to a whole new level in that kind of game world. So interactivity clearly is a big issue in TV at the moment, in providing some kind of interactive experience, I’m thinking more in terms of the idea of going beyond just the idea of story, but creating a world that people can participate in, and providing means for those people to express that engagement with that world. So providing in some sense, tools for their creative expression. You know, that already happens with websites, that kind of stuff, but creating space for that seems to me a really good way of drawing an audience to your product. You know the primary thing of trying to get them to watch the TV show. If you looked at the way that the Lord of the Rings series for example, which you know went over a number of years, the website for that show was phenomenally large. And you know had lots of kind of valuated content, so lots of little documentaries about the making of the film, invited you to actually contribute material. That’s more the idea that I’m sort of thinking.
11. If the broadcasters fully accept the networked media world and work with them, what benefits are they set to gain? How will it be beneficial to them in the future?
Well I guess that’s partly what I was just talking about, this idea that by trying to make these links between the ideas that networked media provide, and their own broadcast media, it’s actually another way to draw their audiences to their show, to get their audiences to engage with their show, rather than being you know this half hour show that you watch every Tuesday evening, it can become something they can actually be pulled towards right throughout the week, whether its via the website, via extra content on mobile phones, etc. etc. So I think it does provide real benefits for the broadcasters, but it does require a shift in the way they think about what they’re doing and how they make their money. Which, TV stations are still, well they’re really, I think they’ve recognised the importance of doing this, but they’re not quite sure how to go about it. So they’re experimenting. So if you’ve looked at say, thank god you’re here, for example, one of the things they did was, you know the best skit from that evenings show was then made available for downloading for mobile phones. They’re essentially testing it out to see if it works. I can’t remember which, I think I can’t remember which TV station was doing this, I think it was a competition that was taking place which invited people to submit an idea for a TV show which would appear both on TV, on mobile phones and on the Internet. What they’re doing there is they’re actually using user generated creativity in a really clever way. They’re getting their audience to do their research for them. Coming up with ideas about how you could make a show that crosses those media forms. So they don’t have to think it up, they get the fans to do it. Which is something that computer games have done for a long time. Using the user base as a source of ideas and often of material. I read somewhere that the Sims for example, something like 80 or 90 percent of the content of that game was user generated. It’s a fantastic business model. Your game stays alive because there’s new material being added, and it doesn’t cost you anything. And it gives the audience a sense of ownership.
12. To summarise, how do you envision the Australian TV landscape in 5 to 10 years? How different will it be to now, what trends will be adopted? Will it change the way we watch TV and interact with it?
It’s almost an impossible question to answer in the sense that if you look at the pace of change in media technologies and the way that people use them, you see radical changes at least form year to year, if not form month to month. Youtube only started, was it the beginning of 2005 I think, but it’s become such an important issue within TV and media in general, in the space in a couple of years. It’s radically changed the relationships that you have with audiences and the way that you can communicate with them, not just for TV, but for all sorts of other spaces. You know like I said earlier, this idea that the future of Tv is ___ we don’t know it yet, you know, last year was a point at which people you know kind of really realised, what was going on. I have no idea what the future is going to hold. you can make some guesses. There’s been an increasing shift towards mobile media experiences. So you look at things like the mobile phone, but also the ipod for example. In a sense you can look at them as being a step backwards, for the media you know the ipod doesn’t give you great audio quality, if you’re watching TV on a mobile phone, you’re looking at a screen this big. Which is terrible! So in terms of quality, it’s not about getting better quality images and sounds, it’s about getting them when you want them and where you want them. It’s that kind of mobility thing. Convenience seems to be a key thing that’s going on. I’d guess that in the next few years we’ll see a lot more development in networked media in the sense of say for example, your mobile phone being constantly connected to the Internet A shift towards much more use of wireless technologies, You can even see at the moment there’s a push towards having the networked home for example. So where your computer becomes a media centre which is wirelessly networked to your TV and your stereo and those kinds of things. LG came out with a Internet enabled fridge years ago. I don’t think anyone ever bought it, but their idea there was actually not about selling a fridge, it was about positioning themselves in the marketplace as a technological leader. It didn’t matter if they sold the TV’s, it was about saying we’re really advanced. that’s a side issue. I suspect that we’ll start seeing things like you know cameras like this being wirelessly networked so that rather than actually recording to tape, they may just record straight to the internet, you know they actually download the digital material straight onto your drive on the Net somewhere. So in a sense you’re able to access your media material but also the technologies for manipulating it anywhere you go via the internet, or via your phone. Convergence has obviously been a big issue, there’s a question of actually how much you can actually converge onto a mobile phone for example, they already do so much, its almost an impossible to navigate. There’s a tension between what technology enables you to do, and what people are willing to be bothered learning. The technologies that are really successful are not the most complex powerful ones, they’re the ones that make things simple. So for example the ipod and itunes, one of the reasons it works is because it just makes it really easy to use. So rather than focussing on the most technologically advanced experience, the most successful models seem to be the ones that give people simple easy tools to use. Which potentially can be scaled up to higher levels if you want to. I read somewhere the other day that say for example with social networking sites, ones that rely on user contributions, that only one percent of the people that visit those sites, contribute consistently. another 9 percent contribute occasionally, but 90 percent just sit back and read it. So really 90 percent of the people using those social networking sites are in a lean back kind of way. having a largely passive media experience. Which just shows that for all this focus on interactivity and user generated content, theres a hell of a lot of people out there who really don’t wanna go that far. The more simple you make it for those people, the more likely they are to go out and do it.
1. It was claimed that “18th October 2004 is the day TV died”. Could you explain what is meant by this and whether you agree?
… that was made by Mark Pesce in I think 2004, and what Pesce actually talking about is peer to peer networking the kind of Napster idea but with TV rather than music. The problem that arises there being why are people gonna watch TV when they can download what they want when they want, so from that he’s extrapolating saying that TV as we know it is in real trouble.
2. Is the popularity with downloading shows online set to increase as more households increase their broadband speeds and the technology improves?
There’s no question about it. In Australia we’re in quite a backwards situation what we call broadband here is very slow compared to a lot of the rest of the world so in a sense we’re behind the game. And yet Australia is I think I read somewhere the second worst in terms of pure numbers and the worst in per head of population in terms of downloading material off TV so we do it all the time. The reasons that people do it are really straightforward, it’s you get to watch what you want, when you want rather than stuck with the schedule of the TV station and given the increasing pace of the lifestyles the demands of work you know that kind of stuff being able to watch what you want at your own pleasure, is very appealing. And in many cases you get to watch it without the ads, which is also one of the reasons that Pesce talks about the death of TV because if people are no longer watching the ads, whether its, like they’re watching a download for example, advertisers get less value for money so they’re going to pay less for their ads for profitability of the TV stations starts to fall. I’ve seen some extrapolations which suggest that the break even point where they start losing money could happen within 4 or 5 years. That could be a wort case scenario, but it’s definitely something that they’re worried about!
3. What do you think television stations and advertisers will do to try and combat viewers avoiding watching commercials through downloading digital recording or other means in order to earn revenue? What tactics will they adopt?
Well Pesce talks about one option which is focusing broadcast TV on live events, you know, things that you wanna watch when they’re happening like sport for example is the perfect example. They’re also doing things like experimenting with adding more interactivity to shows. Whether it’s something as simple as sms voting that kind of stuff. A lot of what’s happening with reality TV can be seen in some sense as responding to this kind of stuff. Something like big brother, there’s not much point watching it you know three weeks later or a month later or some other time so that in itself is partly a response. It’s also been suggested that there can be a shift towards incorporating advertising into the shows rather than as separate ads so the idea of product placement I suppose and sponsorship deals that kind of stuff. Also the idea of using the watermark at the bottom of the screen as an ad in itself coz you just can’t get rid of it without getting rid of the show. So those are some of the kinds of solutions. You’ll also notice that a lot of TV shows now are starting to be available across different media forms, so for example they’re experimenting with things like having, for example the show 24 having episodes available for the mobile phone which are quite separate, different content to the actual TV show. Actually giving you back stories for example about certain characters. So TV is becoming not just TV but spreading across various spaces.
4. You’ve claimed that the future of television “is already here, we just haven’t noticed it yet.” What is the future and why haven’t we noticed?
I made that claim a couple of years ago, and I think people have noticed now. There was a really noticeable shift in the kind of reach last year about these kind of issues and I reckon that was the point where people started to notice that there really are changes happening. Kind of equivalent to the point at which the music industry started to realise that peer to peer downloading was a challenge to their business model. So what you saw last year was much much much more coverage on that issue relating to TV, but also the addition of things like thinking about mobile phones as a TV medium. And the impact of the Internet and Internet based TV providers. So the people have started to notice now. I mean you could talk to most people on the streets and they’ll have some idea of these kinds of issues even if they haven’t thought about them in those contexts. So yeah, I think it’s past that tipping point now people are really aware of it.
5. What is the difference between analogue television and digital television?
Okay, when you’re talking about analogue and digital TV, in both cases we’re talking about a broadcast idea of television. It’s really as simple as, well if you’re talking about the idea of digital TV, you’re not talking about the means of capturing the image so the cameras for example, they’ve been digital for years. Then your editing and postproduction stuff has been digital for a long time. We’re really talking about the actual signal that’s broadcast itself. So it’s just a case of shifting from an analogue signal to a digital signal so ones and zeros, the language of computers, that kind of stuff. Now that seems like a small shift in some ways, but it has massive implications across lots of different areas. From spectrum allocation to cross media kind of multimedia or even things like mash ups for example, coz once something’s in a digital format, you can manipulate it using the computer. Using technology that are on just about every home computer these days.
6. How successfully will viewers accept digital TV in the future like when it’s fully implemented in 2012? I understand that the digital take-up rate in Australia has been slow, is this set to change in coming years when viewers are given more benefit for their money?
Well there are a couple of issues with that. 2012 as I understand it is the point at which the Government wants to switch off the analogue signal all together so the take up then should be pretty strong coz there won’t be any other options. That raises problems itself. One of the reasons the take up has been so slow is that when it was, digital broadcast TV was introduced in I think 2001 that the TV sets that you needed to receive it were really expensive, and they didn’t offer you all that much that was different from what you were getting already. If you got a, in 2001 if you bought a high definition TV set it could cost you, you know 7 or 8 thousand dollars, and all you were getting was a better picture. That’s a function of the limitations that the government legislation’s put on what you can do with digital TV rather than the technology itself. But it just wasn’t offering the consumer anything particularly different. Not enough to make them want to make that change. Not 7 or 10 thousand dollars worth of change. Now the rate of pick-up has accelerated it’s now, it’s I don’t know the figures, but it’s, the take up is a lot higher, and is picking up pace. The technology has come down in price massively, the shift from ____________ TV’s, to plasma screens and LCD’s has helped that because they enable you to get the higher picture quality without paying this massive amount for a TV set. They’re still expensive, you know, a thousand dollars in the least for an LCD screen of a decent size, but they’re getting to within the realms of possibility. And they’re in all the stores now. And people know more about it, they’re a bit more aware of it. It’s still not great, but yeah, come 2012 ____ originally this year, 2007, was meant to be the cut off date in the original legislation, and it clearly didn’t work, so they shifted it to 2012. Whether they shift it again is anybody’s guess.
7. When digital TV is in full force in the future, do you think viewers will embrace the new interactivity options that they’re given?
Well it depends on how much those interactive options actually provide them. At the moment there’s very little that’s actually coming as a function of digital broadcast TV itself. I mean if you’re really going to have interactivity in that context you need well, what’s called a back channel, you need a connection from your TV set or set top box back to the source so you can communicate back and forth. To interact you’ve got to communicate back and forth effectively. But one of the trends we’re seeing is this integration of what we think of as TV with things like the Internet and mobile phones and other kinds of media forms. So that in a few years time, when we think about television, it’ll be integrated across a wide range of different media forms that actually kind of converge together in some sense. So when you’re talking about interactivity and TV, it wont just be about the broadcast TV signal, it’ll be about all these other media forms as well. And that’s already happening to some extent.
8. What is the audience appeal of networked media over broadcast media?
Well one of the issues is, well one of the distinction you can make between the two is traditional broadcast media is essentially a lean back medium, you just sit back and it comes to you and you don’t have to do anything, and you know, when you’ve just done 10 hours of work, that’s pretty appealing, You don’t want to interact necessarily. Networked media provides the possibility, or more possibility for an active relationship through media, so if you think about computer gaming for example, is inherently interactive, you have to do something to actually play the game. So it’s a lean forward medium you have to get into the world that you’re provided with in some way or another. So in terms of the relationship between this I guess there’s two different modes of engagement. Each of which has their appeal. I certainly don’t think that networked media, the kind of lean forward media is going to replace broadcast television, because sometimes you don’t wanna lean forward. You know, you just wanna sit back and have the fun come to you.
9. Will broadcast television ever be able to accept working towards content for “communities of interest” over controlling content for mass audiences as they’ve done for so long?
That’s a, well I think that’s a really interesting question. It’s inherent in the idea of broadcast media that it’s aiming at a large audience, in theory, as large an audience as possible. That’s what makes it a mass medium. A mass media medium. Networked media allows for the, an address to much smaller audiences, the idea of niche audiences or a community of interest. The idea of a website for example that’s devoted just to trainspotting. It’s not going to appeal to everyone! There are lots of factors involved in those differences. Broadcast TV’s really expensive to make, so you’ve got to address the widest audience possible. Networked media can be very cheap. You know it’s at the point, it has been for some time now, where individuals effectively are becoming media producers, so the idea of your myspace site, or contributions to youtube, or your webpage or your blog, That’s you as a media producer and you’ve been doing that with no, well almost no cost, and you’re able to get that out theoretically to the world, or to the world that’s on the internet anyway. But the only people that are really going to read that are the ones who have some kind of engagement with what you’re doing in that, your particular focus, that which makes them a community of interest, a niche. So in terms of broadcast media forms accepting or trying to address niche audiences there’s this kind of conflict between their primary function in some sense which is their mass media form, they need to be able to compete with other media forms, so networked media forms, coz one of the things that’s happening is TV audiences seem to be going into decline, and people are spending more time with other media forms, like computer games or the internet. So they have to try and pull these people in somehow. That’s where this idea of TV spreading out to other media forms has a certain kind of relevance. By taking a TV show and having a website and mobile phone episodes which give you extra material, it’s giving you multiple points of entry which are hopefully going to hopefully draw you back to the mass audience experience. If you think about it, TV already has a kind of address to communities of interest just in terms of the generate nature of it. So you know you have your TV audience broken into the sport news entertainment drama comedy, you know they’re not exactly niche audiences, they’re still very broad generic distinctions, but they’re a step towards that. So it’s always done that. The question of how much they can actually negotiate trying to have both at once is a really interesting one. It’s a real challenge. Particularly when you start thinking about the idea of audience generated content. The idea that the community is actually creating media. You know, how can a TV show draw on that? One example of how it’s done that for a long time is something like Funniest Home Videos. That’s user generated content. It’s horribly boring, but it is user generated content. So that’s always been there to some extent. You know when people talk about there being this radical difference between broadcast and networked, and networked is something totally new, it’s almost never completely true.
10. You’ve also stated, “if you want to know what future media will look like, think games, not stories.” with this kind of thinking, would the Television drama be able to survive? Or by this do you imply that if there isn’t some form of audience interactivity within a television program, it may not be successful?
Well, when I was thinking about games, it wasn’t necessarily or primarily the interactive aspect of them that I was thinking about, I was thinking more in terms of the way that particularly with a lot of contemporary computer games, what they do is they actually, they don’t just offer a story, they offer an entire world that the user enters and actively participates in. And I’m not just talking about when you’re playing the game, but also in terms of the way that the users then go on to use that world as a springpoint, or a springboard for their own creativity. So if you take for example World of Warcraft, which is a very popular computer game at the moment, there’s a whole genre of little movies that people make within that world. They tell their own stories within the framework the world provides and you know put them on youtube, put them on their own website. Which goes back to this idea of fan fiction for example, which is a pre-networked media phenomenon, where fans of a TV show, for example, will write stories for example that take place within the world of that fiction. Star Trek is the classic example as a whole genre of what’s called slash fiction. So it’s Spock slash Kirk, that’s drawing out the what’s implicit, you know Spock and Kirk have this very intense relationship so there’s all this essentially this fantasies about their gay relationship, which these fan fiction, slash fiction is exploring. So which is in a sense, the audience or the viewer taking their own kind of fantasy world, their own kind of interests or whatever, and expressing within the world the show provides. Now that goes up to a whole new level in that kind of game world. So interactivity clearly is a big issue in TV at the moment, in providing some kind of interactive experience, I’m thinking more in terms of the idea of going beyond just the idea of story, but creating a world that people can participate in, and providing means for those people to express that engagement with that world. So providing in some sense, tools for their creative expression. You know, that already happens with websites, that kind of stuff, but creating space for that seems to me a really good way of drawing an audience to your product. You know the primary thing of trying to get them to watch the TV show. If you looked at the way that the Lord of the Rings series for example, which you know went over a number of years, the website for that show was phenomenally large. And you know had lots of kind of valuated content, so lots of little documentaries about the making of the film, invited you to actually contribute material. That’s more the idea that I’m sort of thinking.
11. If the broadcasters fully accept the networked media world and work with them, what benefits are they set to gain? How will it be beneficial to them in the future?
Well I guess that’s partly what I was just talking about, this idea that by trying to make these links between the ideas that networked media provide, and their own broadcast media, it’s actually another way to draw their audiences to their show, to get their audiences to engage with their show, rather than being you know this half hour show that you watch every Tuesday evening, it can become something they can actually be pulled towards right throughout the week, whether its via the website, via extra content on mobile phones, etc. etc. So I think it does provide real benefits for the broadcasters, but it does require a shift in the way they think about what they’re doing and how they make their money. Which, TV stations are still, well they’re really, I think they’ve recognised the importance of doing this, but they’re not quite sure how to go about it. So they’re experimenting. So if you’ve looked at say, thank god you’re here, for example, one of the things they did was, you know the best skit from that evenings show was then made available for downloading for mobile phones. They’re essentially testing it out to see if it works. I can’t remember which, I think I can’t remember which TV station was doing this, I think it was a competition that was taking place which invited people to submit an idea for a TV show which would appear both on TV, on mobile phones and on the Internet. What they’re doing there is they’re actually using user generated creativity in a really clever way. They’re getting their audience to do their research for them. Coming up with ideas about how you could make a show that crosses those media forms. So they don’t have to think it up, they get the fans to do it. Which is something that computer games have done for a long time. Using the user base as a source of ideas and often of material. I read somewhere that the Sims for example, something like 80 or 90 percent of the content of that game was user generated. It’s a fantastic business model. Your game stays alive because there’s new material being added, and it doesn’t cost you anything. And it gives the audience a sense of ownership.
12. To summarise, how do you envision the Australian TV landscape in 5 to 10 years? How different will it be to now, what trends will be adopted? Will it change the way we watch TV and interact with it?
It’s almost an impossible question to answer in the sense that if you look at the pace of change in media technologies and the way that people use them, you see radical changes at least form year to year, if not form month to month. Youtube only started, was it the beginning of 2005 I think, but it’s become such an important issue within TV and media in general, in the space in a couple of years. It’s radically changed the relationships that you have with audiences and the way that you can communicate with them, not just for TV, but for all sorts of other spaces. You know like I said earlier, this idea that the future of Tv is ___ we don’t know it yet, you know, last year was a point at which people you know kind of really realised, what was going on. I have no idea what the future is going to hold. you can make some guesses. There’s been an increasing shift towards mobile media experiences. So you look at things like the mobile phone, but also the ipod for example. In a sense you can look at them as being a step backwards, for the media you know the ipod doesn’t give you great audio quality, if you’re watching TV on a mobile phone, you’re looking at a screen this big. Which is terrible! So in terms of quality, it’s not about getting better quality images and sounds, it’s about getting them when you want them and where you want them. It’s that kind of mobility thing. Convenience seems to be a key thing that’s going on. I’d guess that in the next few years we’ll see a lot more development in networked media in the sense of say for example, your mobile phone being constantly connected to the Internet A shift towards much more use of wireless technologies, You can even see at the moment there’s a push towards having the networked home for example. So where your computer becomes a media centre which is wirelessly networked to your TV and your stereo and those kinds of things. LG came out with a Internet enabled fridge years ago. I don’t think anyone ever bought it, but their idea there was actually not about selling a fridge, it was about positioning themselves in the marketplace as a technological leader. It didn’t matter if they sold the TV’s, it was about saying we’re really advanced. that’s a side issue. I suspect that we’ll start seeing things like you know cameras like this being wirelessly networked so that rather than actually recording to tape, they may just record straight to the internet, you know they actually download the digital material straight onto your drive on the Net somewhere. So in a sense you’re able to access your media material but also the technologies for manipulating it anywhere you go via the internet, or via your phone. Convergence has obviously been a big issue, there’s a question of actually how much you can actually converge onto a mobile phone for example, they already do so much, its almost an impossible to navigate. There’s a tension between what technology enables you to do, and what people are willing to be bothered learning. The technologies that are really successful are not the most complex powerful ones, they’re the ones that make things simple. So for example the ipod and itunes, one of the reasons it works is because it just makes it really easy to use. So rather than focussing on the most technologically advanced experience, the most successful models seem to be the ones that give people simple easy tools to use. Which potentially can be scaled up to higher levels if you want to. I read somewhere the other day that say for example with social networking sites, ones that rely on user contributions, that only one percent of the people that visit those sites, contribute consistently. another 9 percent contribute occasionally, but 90 percent just sit back and read it. So really 90 percent of the people using those social networking sites are in a lean back kind of way. having a largely passive media experience. Which just shows that for all this focus on interactivity and user generated content, theres a hell of a lot of people out there who really don’t wanna go that far. The more simple you make it for those people, the more likely they are to go out and do it.
Ratings
The Australian television audience measurement reports play a significant role in programming content. These reports not only reflect whether the decisions of the network programming coordinators was reputable or not, but also the “$205 million local TV drama production industry” as well as reassure advertisers, who spend “$3.3 billion a year …on Australian television” that they have invested accordingly.
By viewing “The Ratings Process,” accessible through OzTam’s website, the average person would think this process calculates ratings fairly, with the selection of panel homes being based according to a statistical design which provides recruitment criteria that guarantee that the panel represents the Australian TV audience.”
However the exact mechanics of how ratings are calculated and just how reliable they are must be discussed. According to Ian Garland, the former managing director in Australia of Nielsen Media Research and current commercial director of the Australian Subscription Television and Radio Association (ASTRA), states that “Australian ratings system is equal to any in the world, but also argues it needs to adapt to viewers' rapidly changing television habits”.
We live in a technologically evolving society and with various avenues of watching television programs such as via the internet, tv, youtube, vodcasts, personal video recorders, time delay channels such as ABC2, mobile telephones etc, it is inevitable that these reports do not truly calculate ratings affectively. It offers convenience, enabling viewers the ability to choose what they want to watch, where, when and on what device.
Are ratings reports accurate? Figures, rounded to the thousands are shown, but Oztam states that “audience estimates are based on a sample”
Furthermore, samples are “prone to sampling error” and calculating ratings figures are no exception. Media analyst Steve Allen, who heads Fusion Strategy, said that “various random events …can affect ratings figures” and therefore this should be taken into consideration. Examples include that someone in a people-meter household may need to work late three days running, or their child might be in a school play."
Allen does present the fact that “ratings figures are taken continuously - or at least for the 40 ratings weeks each year - which over time makes them more reliable”. In addition Oztam states that the “Panel homes are selected according to a statistical design which provides recruitment criteria that guarantee that the panel represents the Australian TV audience”.
If Oztam believes their ratings process is effective, their next challenge is “adapting to changing media consumption habits driven by the gradual rise of subscription television and myriad new technologies”. Not only this but also extend their data collection to include television ratings within “offices, fitness clubs, hotels, bars and other out-of-home locations” which the Nielsen Company and Integrated Media Measurement Inc are launching in the US in September 2007, while television programmers should consider the popularity of Australian shows on other platforms before cancelling a show.
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Garland says: "The real threat to free-to-air television is that the need to maximise your audience is no longer the definitive point. Winning the ratings may give a network bragging rights but subscription television does not need to have 1.6 million people watching at any given time because people are willing to pay for our service."
All these new ways of seeing "the box" still comprise only a minority of the total amount of viewing, but a survey done last year by Oztam's English equivalent, the Broadcasters' Audience Research Board (BARB), estimated that live, in-home TV viewing will fall from 86 per cent of people's total viewing in 2005 to 76 per cent in 2010 and just 63 per cent by 2015.
BARB also estimated that the new forms of TV viewing, such as via personal computers, mobile phones or other handheld screens, will rise from 6 per cent in 2005 to 9 per cent in 2010 and 17 per cent in 2015.
By viewing “The Ratings Process,” accessible through OzTam’s website, the average person would think this process calculates ratings fairly, with the selection of panel homes being based according to a statistical design which provides recruitment criteria that guarantee that the panel represents the Australian TV audience.”
However the exact mechanics of how ratings are calculated and just how reliable they are must be discussed. According to Ian Garland, the former managing director in Australia of Nielsen Media Research and current commercial director of the Australian Subscription Television and Radio Association (ASTRA), states that “Australian ratings system is equal to any in the world, but also argues it needs to adapt to viewers' rapidly changing television habits”.
We live in a technologically evolving society and with various avenues of watching television programs such as via the internet, tv, youtube, vodcasts, personal video recorders, time delay channels such as ABC2, mobile telephones etc, it is inevitable that these reports do not truly calculate ratings affectively. It offers convenience, enabling viewers the ability to choose what they want to watch, where, when and on what device.
Are ratings reports accurate? Figures, rounded to the thousands are shown, but Oztam states that “audience estimates are based on a sample”
Furthermore, samples are “prone to sampling error” and calculating ratings figures are no exception. Media analyst Steve Allen, who heads Fusion Strategy, said that “various random events …can affect ratings figures” and therefore this should be taken into consideration. Examples include that someone in a people-meter household may need to work late three days running, or their child might be in a school play."
Allen does present the fact that “ratings figures are taken continuously - or at least for the 40 ratings weeks each year - which over time makes them more reliable”. In addition Oztam states that the “Panel homes are selected according to a statistical design which provides recruitment criteria that guarantee that the panel represents the Australian TV audience”.
If Oztam believes their ratings process is effective, their next challenge is “adapting to changing media consumption habits driven by the gradual rise of subscription television and myriad new technologies”. Not only this but also extend their data collection to include television ratings within “offices, fitness clubs, hotels, bars and other out-of-home locations” which the Nielsen Company and Integrated Media Measurement Inc are launching in the US in September 2007, while television programmers should consider the popularity of Australian shows on other platforms before cancelling a show.
--------------
Include this later:
Garland says: "The real threat to free-to-air television is that the need to maximise your audience is no longer the definitive point. Winning the ratings may give a network bragging rights but subscription television does not need to have 1.6 million people watching at any given time because people are willing to pay for our service."
All these new ways of seeing "the box" still comprise only a minority of the total amount of viewing, but a survey done last year by Oztam's English equivalent, the Broadcasters' Audience Research Board (BARB), estimated that live, in-home TV viewing will fall from 86 per cent of people's total viewing in 2005 to 76 per cent in 2010 and just 63 per cent by 2015.
BARB also estimated that the new forms of TV viewing, such as via personal computers, mobile phones or other handheld screens, will rise from 6 per cent in 2005 to 9 per cent in 2010 and 17 per cent in 2015.
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