57 Channels (And Nothin' On)
“57 Channels (And Nothin’ On)” is the name of a Bruce Springsteen song from his 1992 album Human Touch and represented a growing frustration in the United States at the time. While television had once been the sole domain of ABC, CBS and NBC in the early days of the medium, the growth of cable in the 1970s and 80s offered a plethora of new channels to explore. As the likes of AMC, TNT and USA Network sprouted and grew on cable boxes, American consumers were suddenly offered more options for their television viewing habits.
Despite more choices, however, many felt that there was nothing on the channels worth watching. The majority of these new cable channels relied on old TV shows and movies, as well as long-form infomercials, for their content, playing over and over in perpetual repeats. Adding to the problem was that not every channel was available in every part of the nation. The catch phrase “I want my MTV,” for instance, was originally conceived as way to convince service providers to include the music video channel in their subscription packages.
A lot has changed in the twenty years since Bruce Springsteen wrote “57 Channels (And Nothin’ On),” with cable channels like the previously mentioned AMC, TNT and USA Network now getting into the original programming game and amassing critical acclaim with such fare as Mad Men, The Closer and Burn Notice. But as the content has shifted from reruns of old shows to quality episodes of new comedies and dramas, a different dilemma has arisen—an ability to find the good content that is buried in a sea of multiple channels and similar offerings.
“Who really remembers if that upcoming program they heard about on secret tunnels under Old Jerusalem was going to air on PBS, Discovery, the History Channel, History International, the Travel Channel, Hallmark, Ovation, or NatGeo?” media management consultant Andrei Jazierski writes in his book Television Everywhere: How Hollywood Can Take Back the Internet and Turn Digital Dimes Into Dollars (iUniverse, 2010), an observation that is unfortunately true for most people.
Just as television viewing shifted from a reliance on the Big Three networks with the advent of cable, so too has viewing shifted in recent years onto the World Wide Web. Internet consumption of online video is on the rise and everyone from CNN to The Wall Street Journal has featured articles on how more and more consumers are “cutting the cord” of their cable subscriptions and are now relying on the Internet instead. But while finding a particular show has become more difficult due to the multitude of options available via a cable box, it is even more daunting of a task when it comes to the World Wide Web.
Online video portal Hulu, for instance, was launched in 2007 as a joint venture of NBC and FOX, with ABC becoming a partner in 2009. Episodes of the various television shows those three networks broadcast can often be found the next morning on Hulu. But what about CBS? What is often billed as “America’s Most Watched Network” utilizes its own website for new installments of its shows, albeit for a very limited timeframe. This mainly, however, applies to content which it produces in-house, such as Hawaii Five-O. CBS also airs programs that are produced by the likes of Warner Brothers, including The Big Bang Theory. Because of disagreements regarding the distribution of online advertising revenue between the two media giants, episodes of those shows were not available for next-day online viewing until the 2011-2012 television season.
While CBS initially made it impossible to watch The Big Bang Theory without some sort of television service, cable channels operate with the same mentality. Because of lower viewership in general when compared to the now Big Four networks, the likes of AMC are guarded when it comes to their original content. Although shows like Mad Men and The Killing are available for purchase via iTunes, they are not leased to Hulu or even find their way to the AMC website with the exception of limited-time promotions to help build ratings for future episodes. Mad Men won’t even be available on Hulu any time soon, as AMC signed an agreement with Netflix for the exclusive streaming of past seasons from the Emmy-award winning drama beginning in 2011.
Oh yeah, did I fail to mention Netflix? The one-time mail video rental company has transformed itself into an online streaming video rental company and has signed numerous agreements—some of them exclusive—with television content providers, making it an Internet-viewing powerhouse in the process. Just don’t expect to find an HBO series on Netflix, as the two companies have struggled to reach any sort of financial agreement.
CBC.com, Hulu, Netflix, iTunes. Despite a growing number of “cable cord cutters,” the Internet is still a vast wasteland to maneuver in one’s search for a particular television show or episode to watch online. Some of this is by design—content owners are reluctant to put all their eggs in one basket, fearing a de facto distribution takeover like Apple did with the music industry. But if the casual television connoisseur has difficulty finding something to watch on their flat screen television with a cable box, multiple TV guides and a remote control, it is obviously even more difficult for them surfing the net with only Google and a mouse for guidance and navigation.
There is more to online video than just television shows, however, as recent years has seen the rise of the webseries medium. When streaming was perfected as a video delivery system shortly after the turn of the century, many independent entrepreneurs took it upon themselves to film their own short versions of a traditional television series. Even industry insiders like writer/producer Joss Whedon turned to the Internet because of the lower costs and creative freedom it offered. Whedon’s three-act musical Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog garnered positive press from the New York Times, Hollywood Reporter, USA Today and Entertainment Weekly, raising the awareness of the webseries medium to millions of people in the process.
“Dr. Horrible was just way ahead of its time,” co-star Felicia Day told Cinemaspy.com in May 2011 in regards to why more Hollywood professionals did not follow Joss Whedon’s lead at the time. She also stated that she believed 2011 would be a breakthrough year for the webseries medium in general. “There are some really high profile webseries that are going to come out that are either financed by studios or through tech companies. I truly believe this year will be a tipping point.”
Felicia Day is considered by many to be an online media “guru” of sorts, having had early success with her own independently produced webseries The Guild, so her words carry some weight. And there indeed were a number of high-profile webseries in 2011—Kiefer Sutherland, for instance, chose the medium as his first acting job after the FOX drama 24 ended with The Confession, a critical and financial success story in its own right. But even if the webseries is indeed poised to breakout as a legitimate source of entertainment, the same conundrum yet again exists: how will people find the content?
Fortunately at least two companies, KoldCast TV and blip.tv, were conceived as online networks that cater to the webseries medium. Over the past few years, they have amassed a vast library consisting of a majority of the best webseries available on the Internet, as well as millions upon millions of video viewings in the process. Unfortunately, KoldCast and blip.tv are not the only sources of webseries entertainment, as more mainstream online video portals like Hulu, Funny or Die and Crackle likewise serve as the delivery vehicle for a large number of webseries. And then there’s the granddaddy of online video, YouTube, as well as countless productions that have elected to remain independent.
From cable to the Internet to the webseries medium, it appears that the more choices that become available, the harder it is to find the good stuff.
The proliferation of cable channels was still in its infant stages when Bruce Springsteen recorded “57 Channels (And Nothin’ On),” and while some of those channels may still be difficult to locate, it can no longer be said that there is nothing on television to watch. AMC, after all, transformed itself from repeats of old movies to the home of original quality fare like Mad Men, Breaking Bad and The Killing. FX, meanwhile, went from reruns of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and The X-Files to It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia and Justified.
Online video viewing and the webseries medium are also still in their infant stages. As more and more television viewers turn to the World Wide Web for content, the systematic finding of that content will no doubt become easier. There is simply too much money at stake, after all, for content owners to make it too difficult for too long of a time period. While webseries have an even greater mountain to climb—more people are aware of Hawaii Five-O and The Big Bang Theory than they are Felicia Day’s The Guild—the more high profile productions that get released, the greater the publicity in mainstream media, and thus the greater the visibility for the medium in general.
It’s not simply a matter of visibility, however, but findability as well. In the song “57 Channels (And Nothin’ On),” the fictitious narrator initially buys into the hype of having so many television viewing options. When he is subsequently unable to locate anything worth watching, he ends up losing his girlfriend, shooting the television set and is then hauled before a district magistrate for disturbing the peace in the aftermath.
Hardly a happy ending, but hopefully the online futures of both television and the webseries can write a better one.
Anthony Letizia (June 20, 2011)
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