What creature will succeed the couch potato?

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With these barriers between the television and the broader Net falling fast, money is flowing into other companies, such as Brightcove and iSeeTV that allow video producers to distribute their work online, outside the confines of the traditional cable or network channels.

Predictably, that's leading to an explosion in the amount of content available, and video search companies such as Blinx and the America Online-owned Singingfish, as well as search giants Google and Yahoo, are hoping to help make sense of the maze of video.

The networks themselves are contributing to this explosion in content with the early development of multicasting services, which use digital signals to send four to six video streams through the space ordinarily dedicated to a single analog TV signal.

For television networks and producers, it's increasingly difficult to figure out what this means for their own work. Certainly the interest in media hasn't hurt. According to Nielsen, television watching is at its highest level since the organization started measuring decades ago, up more than 12 percent from 10 years ago.

But with audiences less and less attached to schedules, or even to the television itself as a necessary viewing device, even TV giants worry about maintaining their traditional relationship with their audience. At this conference, and at those like it, much talk is devoted to how to build a brand that can cross media, and that's no longer confined to a certain slot in a TV guide.

ABC's experience with the shows "Lost" and "Desperate Housewives," which helped revitalize the network, are looked at as a powerful model, particularly since parent company Disney's release of the shows to Apple's iTunes store for download to computers and to the video iPod. But for all their experimentation with different platforms, ABC executives are adamant that the TV is still the hub of their content universe.

"At the moment, the primary platform, the driver of content, is the TV," said Anne Sweeney, president of the Disney-ABC Television Group. "Watching something on a computer is very different than sitting comfortably on the couch at 9 o'clock."

The industry is in a deeply experimental mode as programming finds its way to cell phones, PDAs and laptops, and as shows encounter increasingly professional competition from online sources. It will take years before it's clear how real, mainstream consumers enter the world of the active viewer, and whether that will match the patterns of today's early adopters.

That uncertainly has left the TV industry in a state of creative confusion, realizing that it's in the midst of perhaps the biggest change since cable networks began laying cable, and not knowing what, exactly, the future will actually look like.

"I don't even try to figure out what's happening today," NBC Universal Senior Vice President Steve Schwaid said. "Let the operations guy do that. It's more important to try to figure out where we're going to be in 10 months, and then try to figure out how to get there."

[bob_c]

Missing the point?

In most articles like this, discussing changes in viewing habits, it seems that the most obvious point is skimmed-over: that television viewers are frustrated with the GLUT of commercials and "promotions" that are forced on them by the TV networks! Can anyone suggest that the success of TiVo and other DVR companies is NOT the result of a desire to SKIP the commercials?!?

The commercial networks are obviously in a panic over finding a way to placate their advertisers, who seem to be casting a blind eye to the situation. How can the networks afford to pay the multi-million dollar salaries to their talking heads if they can't keep their advertisers happy?

The truth is, we now only get about 40 minutes of entertainment, and 20 minutes of commercials. That's ONE-THIRD commercials, folks! It seems to me that GREED has overcome common sense. Do any of those network honchos really THINK that people are watching those annoying commercials just so they can get tiny 6-minute doses of their shows before the commercial-barrage starts up again?

Something's gotta give, folks, and I think it's going to the demise of "free" network TV. There's no way they can go back now, because too much money is at stake.

[ppdeagle]

The Couch Potato will remain king.

"At the moment, the primary platform, the driver of content, is the TV," said Anne Sweeney, president of the Disney-ABC Television Group. "Watching something on a computer is very different than sitting comfortably on the couch at 9 o'clock."

This is absolutely correct. Viewing video content on mobile-devises will always be secondary to viewing such content in the comfort of the living room couch.

Fortunately, there are a number of companies that realize this fact and are actively taking steps to insure that, however the content is accessed (be it via satellite, cable or Internet), the viewer will watch the programming where they always have -- in front of their TVs.

And the fact that the Internet is now totally accessible on their TV is a benefit that savy consumers will soon take advantage of ( see <a class="jive-link-external" href="http://mybrightbox.com/ppdeagle" target="_newWindow">http://mybrightbox.com/ppdeagle</a> )

For further details on why this convergence is taking place, see <a class="jive-link-external" href="http://my-video-blog.com" target="_newWindow">http://my-video-blog.com</a>

[paulsecic]

New Media

I agree the TV will be king, until DSL, cable gets more bandwith so that buffering becomes a thing of the past.

[DraconumPB]

Uh wha? WebTV?!?

"And the fact that the Internet is now totally accessible on their TV is a benefit that savy consumers will soon take advantage of ( see <a class="jive-link-external" href="http://mybrightbox.com/ppdeagle" target="_newWindow">http://mybrightbox.com/ppdeagle</a> )"

Where were you when WebTV came and went? Sega Dreamcast perhaps? I've been on the web on my television, and I'll tell ya', it's not pretty...

Viewing the web on anything other than a PC is a pain (whether it's a television, PDA, or Playstation Portable). The truly passionate should discover wi-fi enabled laptops. Everyone else should be content with taking that long trip to the desk chair. Geez.

[208774626618253979477959487856]

Go Potato!

<a class="jive-link-external" href="http://www.analogstereo.com/ford_crown_victoria_owners_manual.htm" target="_newWindow">http://www.analogstereo.com/ford_crown_victoria_owners_manual.htm</a>

[Richie]

Leaving behind

Again the middle aged American is left behind in TV viewing. We make up the majority of TV viewers and get thought of as the least important. Younger Americans are out in the evening doing something else and TV programers think we want to watch garbage on TV. No wonder Neilson gets it all wrong.

[djimm]

Re: Missing the point

This is also true of cable t.v., satellite, or any other method by which we receive signals. We are forced to watch commercials even though we may be paying extra to have access to television. I am unsure that there is any escape from the growing amount of commercial time.