A Different Kind of 'Television Everywhere'
Television is dead. The Internet, mobile devices, Hulu, Netflix and even the likes of Apple and Google have seen to that by offering the convenience of allowing viewers to watch their favorite shows with fewer commercials and at a time and place of their choosing. People are cutting the cords of their cable suppliers, saving money in the process, and creating havoc within the industry. It is only a matter of time before networks become obsolete and a new television landscape emerges for the better.
Or so goes popular belief. In his book, Television Everywhere: How Hollywood Can Take Back the Internet and Turn Digital Dimes Into Dollars (iUniverse, 2010), management consultant Andrei Jezierski disproves such epitaphs, citing numerous surveys and statistics to demonstrate that traditional television viewing is actually on the upswing while Internet viewing is miniscule in comparison. Although he does recognize that the industry will eventually witness many of the changes that the media insists have already begun, he believes that they are years—if not decades—in the future. While television is far from dead, Jezierski advocates that the industry can still take the necessary steps now to shape that future for the better, and not just for the betterment of network executives but for content creators and television fans as well.
While most people consider the rise of video viewing on the Internet as the greatest threat to the industry, Andrei Jezierski sees a more immediate peril. Television isn’t losing viewers to the Internet, he insists, it is losing viewers due to a fragmentation of the industry and a four-hundred-channel landscape that is difficult to navigate. “If you’re a viewer, it’s too hard to discover, locate and organize what you like to watch,” he writes. “If you’re a supplier, it’s too hard, too hit-or-miss, and too expensive to find, attract and retain audiences, and the window in which to do so continues to shrink. Programs disappear unknown, unsampled, unwatched, into a zombie world of brand and channel clutter, schedule confusion, and unreached audiences, just like the advertising that pays for them.”
While the advent of cable channels offered the promise of more choices for television viewers, it has instead muddled the landscape. Even technologies that were designed to assist viewers have failed, as statistics show that the vast majority of DVR users do not take advantage of the multiple features with which they are equipped. Instead of fulfilling its promise, the increase in channels has instead made things more confusing for television consumers, even when it comes to niche programming. “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?” Jezierski rhetorically asks.
The author believes, however, that the Internet—which many believe is positioned to kill television—can actually be its savior by better utilizing it to help viewers find programming that appeals to them. The industry may be fragmented but that fragmentation can still lead to strong enough ratings for profitability if only the industry made it easier for viewers to tune in. Andrei Jezierski thus believes that television should be thought of as an application rather than a medium, with a six step process designed to place the industry in a healthier position: Discover, Find, Engage, Organize, Retain and Reward.
“Instead of viewing the Internet as a threat, each of these steps can be helped along by tools using today’s technologies and approaches to applications to transcend and radically simplify the world of sixty-button remotes and multi-layer menus,” he contends. Thus in the television future that Jezierski advocates, there would be “an app for that,” a software platform in which viewers and content creators interact to enhance the television experience and reduce the current confusion and waste of programming.
“Right now we believe it’s more important to use the Internet to help viewers and suppliers cope with the world of four-hundred-channel fragmentation than it is to figure out how to turn Internet TV into a viable business,” Jezierski writes.
Despite this belief, the author nonetheless offers a strategic plan that utilizes the potential of Internet video for the benefit of both the industry and consumer. Lost advertising revenue is often cited as the major obstacle when it comes to Internet viewing. The amount of money a network or cable channel, and by default television production companies, can make through traditional viewing is significantly higher than an Internet-based delivery system. Andrei Jezierski, however, considers this to be a myth as well.
First of all, an Internet-based delivery system would be cheaper for the networks and cable channels compared to the current method. “A hypothetical new Hollywood-driven ‘cable bypass’ video delivery business model could have major cost advantages for two reasons,” Jezierski writes. “One is the comparatively lower costs of delivery over the open Internet; the other is the likely substantial reduction in middleman distribution costs paid to today’s cable and satellite intermediaries.”
Secondly, while Internet advertising dollars may be insignificant in today’s world of limited Internet video viewing when compared to tradition television, that revenue potential increases as more and more viewers tune in online. “The basic economic challenge for turning digital ‘dimes’ into dollars (is) simply scale,” Andrei Jezierski contends. “For content owners, there is nothing inherently unprofitable about Internet distribution. Lower commercial loads are likely to be offset by higher CPMs at comparable sale and significantly lower distribution costs. So we believe that as exhibitors gradually accrete ever larger Internet audiences and thus increasingly bypass today’s middlemen (e.g., cable, satellite), Hollywood’s economics could be as good as ever.”
The move away from the traditional television delivery system to an Internet-based model, however, needs to be a slow process. Jezierski asserts that despite numerous declarations in the media that Internet viewing is on the rise, it is still minuscule and below the necessary threshold to make the shift financially viable. As more and more people turn to the Internet, the author instead envisions an “equilibrium” being reached between the two mediums. Higher rated shows, for instance, would still be primarily delivered in the traditional method while lower rated shows are shifted onto the Internet. The inherent reduction of the current four-hundred-channel cable landscape would be replaced by “promotional channels that provide previews and highlights that aid discovery of the Internet-delivered programming.”
This equilibrium would also assist ratings-challenged programming that is often faced with the threat of cancellation. Instead of just pulling the plug on such productions, the networks could shift those shows onto the Internet where the lower cost of delivery and more focused advertising could make such series profitable.
For any of this to work, Andrei Jezierski believes that Hollywood first needs to “take strategic control of its Internet destiny.” The industry owns the content, after all, which places it in prime position to dictate the future of television. Currently, however, they are allowing cable providers like Comcast, as well as video suppliers like Netflix, to treat the industry as a “library” in need of a mode of distribution.
“Cable’s apparent desire is that, once network technology changes are made, the TV industry will wake up one day and see that cable commands most of Internet TV distribution, both through its end-user access and transport infrastructure, but also with ‘enhanced’ viewing options, for an additional subscription fee, naturally, with a few coins dropped in Hollywood’s collection plate,” the author writes. “What the cable industry is banking on is that Hollywood will value comfort with today’s distribution arrangements over uncomfortable and risky discontinuities.”
If that happens, Hollywood will have allowed itself to be marginalized within the industry it has in effect created, and the result could be detrimental to traditional television, production companies and fans of the medium. The “TV Everywhere” that Comcast advocates is simply a business slogan designed to keep the cable industry at the forefront of television distribution and at the expense of others involved. The alternative meaning of the phrase that Andrei Jezierski outlines in his book Television Everywhere: How Hollywood Can Take Back the Internet and Turn Digital Dimes Into Dollars, meanwhile, contains a slowly shifting landscape that benefits everyone else.
Let’s hope that when the future of television finally arrives, it contains the “everywhere” of Andrei Jezierski.
Anthony Letizia (March 21, 2011)
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