Only Wrinklies Watching!
This report from the Guardian illustrates the malaise that’s afflicting broadcasters across the developed world – the youngsters are defecting. Apparently the average Amercian TV viewer is now 50 and many so-called prime-time shows only manage to attract septuagenarians. The kids, meanwhile, are on Facebook, on their Wiis or watching some Web-TV show when it suits them.
New technology is causing sea-changes in the ways that consumers consume entertainment and media services and the demarcation lines between services is also blurring (is a mobile phone a communications device or entertainment device?)
It used to be that television almost had the market to itself for in-home entertainment services – competing only with VHS, then DVD formats. Now, terrestrial broadcasters compete with a plethora of entertainment and gaming devices. Increasingly, the Internet and Internet-enabled mobile phone, are becoming delivery mechanisms for entertainment services in parallel with terrestrial broadcast channels and cable services.
A recent editorial in the LA Times identified the cause of disturbance very neatly and summarised some of the technologies that are eroding the traditional terrestrial TV and movie businesses:
“Already, video games generate more income than movies by centralizing the user and turning him into the protagonist. Popular websites such as Facebook, MySpace and YouTube, in which the user is effectively made into a star and in which content is democratized, get far more hits than movies get audiences. MySpace has more than 100 million users worldwide, and Fortune magazine reported that 54 million of them spend, on average, 124 minutes on the site for each visit, while 11.6 million users spend 72 minutes a visit on Facebook. YouTube’s most popular videos attract more than 40 million hits, which is substantially larger than the audience for all but a very, very few movies.”
Ironically, the “democratisation” of the medium means that more and more companies can jump on this huge bandwagon.
Already we’re seeing the emergence of IPTV aggregators that are becoming multiple channel operators – not just of mainstream content but also, increasingly, niche and B2B content. This new generation of TV content aggregator includes brands like Joost, Blip.tv and Brightcove. In addition, the mainstream TV operators, like the BBC, are carving out new IPTV niches for themselves with their own player technologies (like BBC iPlayer).
There are also opportunities inside the gorilla social networking communities. The leading player in the UK – Bebo – has some 35 million users worldwide and growing.
Late last year a new alliance of social networking players was announced with members including MySpace, Linked-In, Bebo and several others – collectively with around 200 million members. These companies have agreed to open up their doors to third party developers who can, in effect, create a mart of new mini services or applications (widgets in social networking speak) that reside within and between the member firms. Facebook – the other social networking giant– has already done something similar.
This means that vast, global social networking media are emerging that look less like ‘communities’ and more like vast, big-spending continents with much more information about market inhabitants than Hollywood ever thought possible.
Meanwhile the world of TV, movie, gaming and music distribution has changed – and it seems to have happened very quickly. As television and Internet get closer and closer the only medium of distribution that the producers are looking at these days is video-on-demand. It’s been hyped for years but suddenly it’s arrived. Apple has become the lead player in this space with iTunes now suddenly offering movies that can be watched in near DVD quality on iPods, PCs/Macs and on TVs connected to hard disc recorders.
Meanwhile, keen to get a share of Apple’s action Microsoft is developing a new service for its XBOX 360 games console (which handily incorporates a hard drive) – where movies can be downloaded and networked over the users’ home WiFi networks.
And another theme is that of ‘doing it for yourself’.
DIY broadcasting is the new, new thing. Traditional media publishers are falling over themselves to develop Web TV channels. Early forays by the social networkers into TV have been fumbling. But increasingly we’re seeing the emergence channels that focus on niche interests.
In this context market research has a fresh set of challenges. While some consumers are ready adopters of new technologies, some are not. Society is increasingly dividing into the social network generation (the sub-30 age group) and the rest.
June 21, 2009 at 11:00 pm
Entertainment devices today are getting out of control. In the movie “He’s Just Not That Into You” they describe how trying to keep up with friends lives have become impossible with these websites and meeting people is difficult. You can feasibly have a conversation with one person in one day through text, email, twitter, instant message, and just by calling them. And going to buy a new cell phone is ridiculous its almost impossible to find just a normal phone that you can just talk on anymore. The good thing about all this technology is that is is preparing the next generations for the future and it is forcing people to learn to use a computer they may not have otherwise used one.