Twelve Black Code Monkeys

There’s an interesting post by Eric McErlain over at Off Wing Opinion about TiVo and broadcasting networks intentionally trying to defeat TiVo’s recording technology. Like so many companies (especially content producers) faced with obsolescence due to technological changes, the networks seemingly have only defensive answers – restrict progress.

Networks have had to share more and more of their audience with cable/satellite channels, and are deathly afraid that their primary source of income from commercials will dry up due to decreased viewership and companies not wanting to pay them for shows that people are just TiVo’ing and skipping over the commercials. In some ways it’s a lose-lose situation for these Networks because this is how the whole structure of broadcast networks was built. Unlike in the U.K. where all TV is pay, broadcast networks must provide their signal free of charge. The only way to get funding is through advertising. Unlike public television (PBS), there are no public funds nor are there donation drives. While most cable channels have commercials as well, they are also subsidized to some extent by the cable and satellite companies, so they have at least some net to fall into.

Eric mentions product placements as one solution - instead of actual commercials, one would see products put into the shows themselves. While this might help, it seems like it’s an intrusion on the show’s content and the writer’s creativity to force it to include specific products. What I fear we may see in the long run are a type of “banner ad” included in the program’s signal that would pop something up by TiVo itself, which when clicked on would bring the user to a screen of more info. We’ve already seen something like this in a less interactive form by all the preview graphics that pop up on the bottom of the screen on many prime-time network shows, advertising an upcoming episode of another show.

I don’t know what the solution is really, except for these companies to downsize or figure out a different business model. Unlike other content companies their hands are more tied by the fact that they have to provide a service that’s free to the viewer. Many of these companies have branched into cable/satellite, and hopefully this will help them to diversify, but maybe that is just prolonging the wait before they are truly desperate enough to be forced into trying something that’s much more radical than the current practices which are just going to alienate more viewers. Those left who are forced to watch broadcast because they either choose not to buy into cable or satellite or because they can’t afford to, are not the big-spenders than their opposite demographic is, which just means even less advertising revenues for the networks. So if they want to get out of this death spiral, they will need to do something much more ingenious. What that is, I have no idea.