The next time you're at a brick and mortar establishment, looking for an entertainment fix in the video section, take a look at the percentage of shelf space dedicated to TV on DVD. TV shows on DVD are really cannibalizing the shelves, they're taking over! I don't care if it was last years shows or "Magnum PI" or "Leave It To Beaver", it's on the shelf and it ain't cheap!
People like to watch television series on demand, even canceled ones, even ones they have seen 1000 times like "The Andy Griffith Show" because they can watch them when they want, without commercial interruption and they can finally see the complete program without edits for increased ads. They even like watching the commercials, as sometimes they are added separately as a "bonus" like the previously mentioned DVD series about Mayberry. Did you know that the complete series of "The Dick Van Dyke Show" is around 250 dollars US? Take that Harry Potter. As a matter of fact, I just ordered the DVD set of the now canceled show "Firefly" and the accompanying DVD movie "Serenity" that ties up all the loose ends from the final cliff-hanger episode and paid 52 bucks online. I never once watched the show while it was on television, never even heard of it.
Television is in a bit of a catch-22 situation because of this optical media and on-demand thing. Why? Because based on my admittedly personal speculation, it would seem logical that the audience has been depleted, as there are only so many hours in the day to watch shows. If we accept that, then the networks cannot demand the same charges from the sponsors for advertising, therefore more ads must be run, in turn driving off more "customers" that are appalled at the interruptions, a vicious cycle. In addition, once we were initiated to time shifting through modern devices like TiVo, watching television "Live" is no longer palatable. In fact, on one TiVo forum, I read a comment where a poster declared that if you had a TiVo and you still watched live TV, you were not using the device properly. I agree.
We should consider the broadcasts of series and programs as nothing more than modern day trailers for on-demand or optical versions that will hit the retail market later. Nowdays, it seems that the commercials not only sell products for the advertisers, they also sell the shows, especially if they are worthy. Not bad!
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ABC first made episodes of some of its programs available at iTunes; NBC followed (The Office, a relatively low-rated sitcom, is a hit at iTunes, with episodes taking up 13 of the top 40 positions on the video sales list), and added on-demand offerings of some of its programming through DirecTV. CBS is doing the same via some Comcast digital cable operators. Are these networks taking baby steps to their own future irrelevance? When any programming is available whenever the viewer wants it, what does that portend for those carefully strategized prime-time lineups? ''There's been a declining audience for network TV for a while,'' says Spotnitz. Besides cable and the Internet, he says, ``people have their own libraries of things they specifically want to see, which competes for TV viewing time. More options is good news for the consumer but bad news for the networks, who are responsible for the most expensive hours of TV produced. It'll be harder and harder to maintain an audience that justifies that business model.'' Starz!'s Maglio agrees. ``There's been a steady erosion of ratings off broadcast, and now a couple of other factors -- the on-demand mentality, and in a parallel path, the youth of America who prefer broadband, Internet-based content options. Put all that together, and what's moving south is an adherence to a fixed-schedule viewing pattern. What's emerging is a personal prime time, where you become the programmer, selecting among the options available to you.'' |
Who would ever dreamed decades ago, that we would one day pay for television. But now we have cable and satellite, who could live without it? Now, it has gone to yet another level or layer of cost. The funny thing is, it would not be possible, or much less likely, that the content providers could pull this off, if it were not for the plethora of ads that pepper the broadcasts, making them unbearable to watch-even for "free".
Make sure to check out this commentary at the Miami Herald, it's a good one!
Source: Miami Herald
