The Future of Television is just about here. A couple of years ago I attended the NATPE (National Association of Television Producers and Executives) conference. This is the industry convention where production companies go to pitch their programs to networks and distributors globally. I was intrigued by the overall theme of the event, which was in many ways set into play by NBC Universal president and CEO Jeff Zucker’s keynote. The theme, which was revisited on various discussions was direct, how do we avoid the TV industry from becoming the recorded music business? One interesting item was to do away with pilots that never make it to broadcast. By following this premise, plenty of dollars are saved by actually airing created content, regardless of whether it gets picked up for an actual series.
Here’s the most important takeaway:
The industry makes money from advertising, so make the website the network. This means actually offering as much content as possible there. Ultimately, if it’s not available in a convenient platform, people are going to upload the content and fans will watch it. Instead, the television business learned from the missteps of the music industry. They’ve learned to monetize content with ads on Internet streams or through subscription models. A clear glance at TV’s future is the success realized by Netflix. The company has been making significant waves once for their $10 subscription model, which allows viewers to access all of their on-demand programming for such an appealing price point. Apple TV and Amazon’s Video On Demand provide programming à la carte, however, it would take a true fan of a program to pay per show.
It’s clear now that the television industry has followed their plan of action. Between the networks’ sites, programming on Netflix, Hulu, and accessibility via Internet ready television sets and game consoles, viewers now have the freedom to watch countless hours of traditional television programming on various screens TVs on a whim. -Israel Vasquetelle
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