The Internet-to-broadcast series "quarterlife"

So it seems a TV show can be repurposed on the web, but a web show should not be repurposed on TV.

Why NBC is continuing to run the series, even on Bravo, seems odd. Lick your wounds and move on.

Enough said.

blinkx Survey of TV and Online Video Habits Reveals Surprising User Behavior

Back on February 20, I wrote a blog that said that web video watching was not a zero sum game. This survey, backed by Blinkx and Harris, confirms that users are indeed media multitaskers who can enjoy their TV viewing experience and surf the web at the same time. The question left unsaid is the value of the advertising on each media and how can it break through to the user with so much distraction.

Previously, the TV advertiser had to contend with bathroom breaks, but now web surfing interrupts the ability to take in the ad message. Can an ad break through this clutter. The Super Bowl and Oscars on TV have been used as events to premiere new spots, but for the average show, has the web further reduced the effectiveness of TV advertising?

Some Survey Highlights:

-- 78% of adults who watch television use the web while doing so

-- 35% report doing so often or always

-- 62% of double-dippers surf for content related to what they're
watching
-- 40% of them look for products/services that appeared in or were
advertised during the program they're watching

-- 39% of them look for upcoming/related events

-- When it comes to watching video or television content online,
twice as many online adults typically watch full-length television
shows, movies, or sporting events, as compared to user-generated
content (25% vs. 13%, respectively).

-- When it comes to finding Internet video content, consumer behavior
is almost equally divided between search engines and users going
directly to content owner Web sites.

The challenge remains, how does a piece of video find large viewership and how do you effectively monetize its viewership to make a profit. If the ad community does not find the cost of advertising effective or efficient, new ways to monetize must be discovered.

ESPN is the Master of MultiPlatform Content

Cynopsis Digital did a terrific job outlining all the ways ESPN will cover its Masters coverage in April.
Multiplatform features include:
- ESPN360.com: video coverage of Par 3 contest on April 9, 3-5 pm ET
- ESPN.com: live "look ins" of the action, video highlights, analysis, live blogging and chats, WAP-compatible scores and information
- ESPN Arcade: a putting game simulating the greens of the 11th, 12th and 13th holes
- ESPN Widgets: embeddable application providing scoring, news and video highlights
- ESPN PodCenter: daily coverage of Thursday & Friday play and highlights from all 4 days

To me this is the ideal use of linear TV and broadband. I'm sure they are looking at more mobile opportunities, and the opportunity to show more video on cellular. But it is clear, that the strategy is to augment the viewing experience across platforms, not simply be duplicative. It uses the strengths of each platform to enhance the linear viewing experience. I can't wait to watch!

Sports Illustrated Swimsuits Online Success

It has always been argued that a swimsuit edition does not belong on a sports magazine. But the winning formula used by Sports Illustrated to grow the print side of the business has clearly extended to new media. As the numbers suggest, online usage to view attractive models in skimpy clothing is a real winner. Now if only SI can find a way to keep these users to return; it doesn't seem to be the sports coverage so perhaps a second edition devoted to swimsuits in the Summer to furhter impact usage.

New York Magazine seems to understand what the user wants. They too used nude-like photographs of Lindsey Lohan recreating Marilyn Monroe poses to impact their print and online usage as well.

And while newstands can try to police usage, the web is much more difficult. And while it is hard to call these two magazines obscene, there is no formal group looking out for the public interest. I bring this up because of the recent fines of almost $2 mm against Fox TV stations that aired a butt shot from a repeat episode of NYPD Blue. That these stations get fined simply shows that there is a bigger issue at stake.

I do not think these fines are fair, nor do I think the Sports Illustrated and New York Magazine sites are obscene. It simply demonstrates that the changing landscape of the web has caused a very slippery slope to form. How one form of media gets fined while another with equal if not potentially wider access is not, shows that the FCC does not see how the world has changed.

Why are Cable VOD Rentals Just 24 Hours?

The kids were bored on a Saturday afternoon and the weather was cold and wet. A perfect opportunity to watch a movie. The choice was to get in the car and head off to the movie theater or stay at home and watch a movie on demand. What was not in our decision process was to get in the car and go to the store and rent a movie. Financially, a day at the movies for a family of 4 can approach $50 with popcorn. A movie on demand, $5. And if we had gone to the video store, about the same.

We chose the movie on demand. As the economy appears to enter a recession, I would expect more families to opt for their living room than the movie house. And while it was financially more pleasant, it was not as easy to watch. First, it took a few times to get through the on demand menu because of contention on the line. Second, we were interrupted an hour into the movie the dual DVR feature began recording two shows and our on demand movie stopped. Third, the movie was saved, but did not know where we stopped and so we had to slowly fast forward an hour. That trick feature took 10 minutes and made me wish that VOD worked like a Tivo and could advance in 15 minute increments or like a DVD and fid the correct scene. Fourth, and last point, the movie, while inexpensive was only available for 24 hours while a video rental of the same price has a much longer rental period. While adults tend to be fine with a single viewing experience, kids like to watch shows over and over again. It is hard to believe that a longer rental period could not be made available for movies, especially to further compete with the video rental experience.

Now of the four issues, while the 24 hour rental is irksome, it can be bypassed in a kids world by buying the film say on a Saturday afternoon and watching it again on Sunday morning. For the kids, they feel like they got the multiple viewing. What might make me reconsider the video rental experience is the scene selection and flexibility to access points in the movie. Perhaps cable should worry about Netflix or Apple overtaking them.

CBS and NBC to offer more TV shows online

It is becoming abundantly clear that the broadcasters are throwing everything against the wall and seeing what sticks. NBC has Hulu and CBS has been working with Joost, but they still feel the need to complicate the web by putting the same content on multiple sites. Now classic shows can be seen on multiple websites and one must wonder what the strategy is behind this move. Does it make access to shows easier to find, does it increase visibility of the content, does it improve revenue models, does it grow usage?

Perhaps the confusion is that the questions that should be asked are: How is the potential viewer likely to find these shows? Do they haphazardly "turn the channel" to hulu or nbc.com and as they thumb through the categories and lists, find something that appeals to them. Do they see a promotion on NBC TV or nbc.com that pushes them to another site? Do they have an interest in a particular show and use a search engine - Google, Blinx, Ask.com, etc to find the link to the show? Do they watch an online clip on You Tube that pushes them to watch the entire episode someplace else?

I think that full length episodes should be associated with the network's website. Search engines inside that site should easily and quickly guide them to the show; and they should be also embedded inside a relevent website that people might expect to find such programming. Star Trek for example, makes sense to be inside the Sci Fi site, which is part of NBC.com total search.

But to me, Hulu duplicates what NBC.com should be doing on its own. Rather they should devote this kind of site as promotion with links to full episodes. Yes, these sites aggregate content across multiple networks, but they do little to enhance the brand value of the content back to its linear TV counterpart. It lacks the synergy to enhance the experience. So in the above example, the value of streaming Star Trek, should also remind the user that similar great sci fi programming is on the Sci Fi Channel. Hulu does not do that; connecting a show through its particular TV network does.

Now I must say that I think Hulu's platform is very slick and I enjoy the user experience; my point is that as a website, it stands alone and does little to engage the user to the core brand or to create a positive transference between the show and other similar shows on the channel. And while the argument may be made that it was developed as a destination site and to compete with You Tube, it does not explain why nbc.com could not have done the exact same thing.

Did Greed Kill the TV Ad Model

A simple enough question as advertising effectiveness on TV has been hurt - by falling ratings, by more fragmentation of TV choices, and because of the DVR. I believe that broadcasters have killed the golden goose of TV by adding more minutes per hour to a show, reducing the time spent inside the show and increasing viewer dissatisfaction with the growing number and length of breaks. As non-programming minutes have grown per hour, viewers have hit their wall and began seeking alternatives. One was the development of the DVR to literally skip over commercials; another, was to keep the pc in the same room as the TV and switch attention during commercial breaks from the show to other interactive applications. I believe if audiences were less bombarded by the number of ads and breaks, the DVR would not have become the necessary tool that it is to stay engaged with TV's content.

Last night, for instance, American Idol was a 2 hour show. Great family entertainment, yet filled with way too many ads. Luckily, I was able to start the show with my DVR and skip those too long breaks. Not good for the advertisers, but more satisfying viewing by me and my family. And yet, I still was able to recall key sponsors integrated into the programming of the show. Branded entertainment can be less invasive when done well and more effective use of dollars.

The same ad problems will happen to the web and VOD advertising as pre-rolls and overlays disrupt the content and cause the viewer to create new remedies to avoid them as well. A short form video can't have a :30 pre-roll each time. The viewer will disengage quickly from multiple views. Overlays remind me of snipes on the bottom of today's tv network programs, but at least they seem to be able to be clicked off.

It is okay to earn money through advertising; the point is that sometimes less is more and when you get greedy, you will lose everything. Gecko's quote from Wall Street is not true, Greed is not good.

Web Viewership Not a Zero Sum Game

This week's Multichannel looks closely at the effects of the writers strike on TV viewing. And makes an interesting point, that web video usage may have risen, but not at the expense of TV. And even with the writers strike two months in, January TV viewing still did well with reality programming and sports. Cable continues to impact broadcast viewing, perhaps even more than the writers strike did, by being able to carve up smaller pieces to reach individual interests.

Most interesting, according to Multichannel, "the splintering of the viewing audience among hundreds of TV channels and innumerable Web sites had already been in play before the strike started Nov. 5. The effects of the strike only really became noticeable, one top cable-research official said, when broadcast networks began running out of fresh episodes of hits like ABC’s Grey’s Anatomy."

We live in an age of multitasking and the ability to do many things at once. Most recently, that ability has become noticable with TV and web usage. The TV is on in one corner of the room, or perhaps even on one corner of the screen, while attention switches from show to web clip to blog and back to TV show again. And as most tv programming has become what I like to call low involvement viewing, it takes little attention to catch up to plot lines on the big tube.

I once worked on a research project that compared low and high involvement viewing to advertising effectiveness and the general results were that the higher the engagement, the higher the recall to the spots. It becomes much harder to multitask during a high involvement show. Still in today's world, younger viewers are more quickly able to move between online and tv engagements; that is to watch a high involvement show like Heroes, then quickly switch to the website and blogs during the commercial breaks. As the TV and the pc exist in the same room, those kinds of multitask relationships will only get stronger and web usage will grow, but not at the expense of broadcast or cable TV programming.

The Writers Strike Has Changed Network Programming

Will the networks change their programming models or are old habits hard to break? Some believe that networks have learned their lesson finally and are reshaping their models, buying less pilots, premiering new programming around the year and not just in the Fall and Spring, and following the cable model of multiple programming showings throughout the week. And why make all these changes - To assure that the viewing public watches these shows and their costs can be recouped.

But under this model, the networks would need to actually create more tv shows not less. They will have to spend more money for more pilots and than commit more of them to a large enough number of shows. As VOD and websites like Hulu become vast libraries of shows, the old model of rerunning shows will not work. Once networks begin to monetize them on these other platforms, their linear tv schedules need to become populated with more original content or will see declining ratings. And so when networks like NBC announce that they are producing fewer pilots it goes against the logic of their future endeavors. They should be announcing more shows being produced to capitalize on the additional inventory needed to fill all this space.

And to the discussion of upfronts; as the writers strike has left the networks without new product, it is hard to imagine the value of upfronts this Spring trying to sell old programming as new again. You can't sell the shinola unless the sh*t exists. It's hard to believe that any of the networks have enough new programming in the mix to sell the sizzle. Get your programming house in order, than take it to the market. Agencies are tired of empty calories, make the effort to show the beef.