

Why TV Lost - ecommercematt
http://paulgraham.com/convergence.html

======
9oliYQjP
My brother writes for TV. There is quite an age difference between us; he's
older. The industry still does not fully comprehend the Internet as it relates
to its future. The other day we were having dinner and my brother said he
wishes he could just cut the middlemen (the producers/networks) out of the
equation and become a distributor on the Internet himself. He's tired of being
creatively limited by their vision -- or lack-there-of.

He was surprised when I said that it was well within his ability to do this
already. Not in a "woohoo I put up my own website with my own shows" kind of
way, but in a "I have become my own virtual CDN via EC2 et al" kind of way. He
argued that would simply make Amazon and the infrastructure providers into the
new middlemen. Perhaps, though that might be like saying that my computer use
is being held hostage by the electrical company. In theory it is, but in
practice it does not feel like the very exploitive sort of middle management
that exists in the entertainment industry.

I've done some work for this industry and the key point you have to understand
is that, whereas "Can we accomplish this?" is a matter of technological
feasibility to us hackers, it means something entirely different to
entertainment industry folks. To them, it is more of a legal matter. The whole
industry is mired in a complex web of contracts governing every detailed
aspect of intellectual property. So, when we scoff at how long it took the
networks to get something like Hulu up on the Internet, understand it was a
bunch of lawyers holding up the process. Then, when you get around some of the
service's limitations (e.g., geoblocking) understand that too, was a dumb
legal requirement. Everyone involved knows these restrictions are
circumventable but, they must be in place for the existing contracts not to
have to be re-negotiated.

Talk to anyone that's worked on the iTunes infrastructure. From what I gather,
at least initially, getting an album onto the iTMS involved dozens of
contracts. It made getting an iPhone application onto the App Store a cakewalk
in comparison.

Where a startup could provide tremendous value, it would be in overcoming the
legal hurdles to distributing content on the Internet. Spend the money on the
lawyers to setup all the contracts that you need, so you can get unsigned
artists onto your content distribution network, but more-or-less play by the
rules of the current industry. These people are afraid of change, so you don't
want to come out of left field in the way you operate. Then, when you become
the new boss of the industry, tear down the stupid legal constraints that
stifle creativity and innovation, and makes the Internet pretend to be
something it is not.

The networks are vulnerable. Writers, actors, and other workers hate working
for them because they take huge cuts of revenue and then play accounting games
to take an even larger portion. There's a reason the unions there are so
strong. They're united in their hatred of the middlemen. On the other side of
the coin, us consumers hate the networks too. Most of us are tired of their
antics.

So, any startup willing to take on this challenge would have a friendly set of
content suppliers, and a captive audience. Just get yourself the best lawyers
you can probably find, because you will need them ;)

~~~
mattmaroon
You can make a TV show and distribute it to everyone easily. That's not the
problem. The problem is getting together the budget to make a good TV show,
then making the ad revenue off of that show you need to make that profitable.

Hulu might make that possible, but it hasn't yet.

~~~
chris11
It actually has been done. Joss Whedon produced Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog
during the writer's strike. It was definitely a high quality production. And
it was well received. Also, after DVD's and songs on Itunes, Joss Whedon has
recouped all of the costs.

I do see your point though. Making high quality video is very hard. It cost
Joss Whedon around $200,000 to make. And Joss Whedon has a cult following, so
just having his name on it gave the project a lot of P.R. And Joss Whedon has
been involved with Hollywood movies and television shows, so he has the
experience necessary to make a high quality show.

I wonder if the entertainment industry is headed to a model comparable to
venture capitalism. Media Companies might be forced to split their services
into two sections. They would act like a vc firm and give money to producers
in exchange for a percent of the gross. And they could sell access to their
distribution network. I'm sure that no media company would want to do this
willingly though. It would mean giving up control over the ip rights, and they
would have to find new distribution methods.

Hulu:[http://www.hulu.com/watch/28327/dr-horribles-sing-along-
blog...](http://www.hulu.com/watch/28327/dr-horribles-sing-along-blog-act-one)

Wikipedia: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dr._Horrible%27s_Sing-
Along_Blo...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dr._Horrible%27s_Sing-Along_Blog)

~~~
mattmaroon
Yeah, when Radiohead did well releasing a CD online, everyone said "see, it
works for Radiohead, it can work for anyone." The problem is that anyone is
not Radiohead, or Joss Whedon. Recouping $200k is neat as an experiment, but
hardy the foundation of a replacement to television as we know it. One episode
of your favorite TV drama alone likely costs much more than that. If your
favorite TV drama is Lost, it's 50x that.

The entertainment industry already has a model very similar to what you just
described, just instead of distributing it over the net, they do so to
theaters and customers by way of DVD. See
[http://entertainment.howstuffworks.com/movie-
distribution.ht...](http://entertainment.howstuffworks.com/movie-
distribution.htm) . It explains why you see two or three production credits
before the opening sequence of each movie, those are basically their
equivalent of VCs.

------
geebee
"[2] Copyright owners tend to focus on the aspect they see of piracy, which is
the lost revenue. They therefore think what drives users to do it is the
desire to get something for free. But iTunes shows that people will pay for
stuff online, if you make it easy. A significant component of piracy is simply
that it offers a better user experience."

Man, is this ever true. I like to watch tennis a lot - which, being a niche
sport, is often not on TV. The memphis finals were televised in some places,
but not others. There was a web stream, but dig this - it was not available in
the US because of broadcasting rights. And it was limited to PCs (not Mac's)!

So I'm thinking about anti-piracy efforts, including a lot of moralizing about
how piracy is the equivalent of stealing (which, in some cases, it may well
be). A network bought coverage, declined to air it in my area, but also banned
a web feed that I would have gladly paid for, but with DRM that prevents it
from working on my Mac.

But I shouldn't watch a rogue feed, because Piracy would be, you know, wrong.
I should just be a passive viewer and decide to enjoy what the network decided
I should be watching that day.

Keep in mind, I'm more than willing to pay. I'm _trying_ to pay.

~~~
tlb
Their assumption, and it's true for most people, is that you're going to watch
something. If they don't put tennis on, you'll watch whatever they do show,
even if it's arena wrestling. So even by watching something niche that they
wouldn't broadcast anyway, you're stealing.

~~~
geebee
This probably isn't true for tennis, but it probably is true for a lot of
things. So you may have a pretty good reading on the mentality of the networks
here.

I'm not sure they're quite that sophisticated, though. I think they're
reasoning is more along the lines of "I own that, _I_ decide how and when it
will be viewed!" Kind of a total war mentality, where they're even willing to
shoot themselves in the foot to defend copyright.

I don't know much about copyright law, but this behavior does seem to run
counter to the _spirit_ of the law, which is to encourage the creation and
dissemination of content by granting a "temporary" monopoly for the creator.
In theory, this would expand the amount of content available to the public.
But what I constantly encounter is the use of copyright to _restrict_ access
to content by limiting what I can view, see, hear, or read - as well as
attacking the technologies that promote the dissemination of content because
they are used (extensively, I admit) for copyright violation.

It's all gone so wrong. Because congress has shown a willingness to grant
extensions to copyrights that were set to expire, and the supreme court has
decided that copyrights with repeated extensions don't qualify as copyrights
in perpetuity, it's hard to believe that the monopoly is temporary. For all
practical purposes, it's permanent - and the copyright cartel is more than
willing to use them to shut down the tech factor.

I do agree with PG that there's no turning back the tide. The computer will
defeat the TV. But the temporary delay can be a real pain in the ass.

------
mattmaroon
This is many years premature. It may come to pass, but is nowhere near that
now. TV is still by far the most common way of watching television shows (and
watching television shows is still the most common way of wasting time) and
overall viewership is increasing every year. This trend doesn't seem to be
changing for a few reasons.

1) TV screens are much bigger and cheaper. They don't need the resolution a
monitor does. Watching on a small screen is something you're happy to be able
to do on a plane, but would never want to do on a day to day basis.

2) Bandwidth is still not there, especially for HDTV, and progress seems to be
stalled. I still have pretty much the same connection for the same price that
I did 5 years ago, and I'll likely still have it in 5 years from now. Mark
Cuban talks about this a lot. Fiber to the premises may solve this one soon
for some subset of the country, but by no means everyone.

3) Live television is nearly non-existent online. It can't handle it. The
bandwidth to stream the Superbowl to everyone who wants it doesn't exist.
Sports are a huge part of the TV viewing audience.

4) Many people like to watch shows as soon as they're released. The internet
is terrible for this. I personally download mine, but I do so knowing that I'm
always going to be watching the Daily Show from 2 days ago. If I were a TV
addict (i.e. normal American) that would be unacceptable.

5) Content quality is better than ever. Single camera sitcoms, pay channel
dramas, reality tv (if you're into that). Almost everyone agrees this is a
golden era of television.

If you really think that more people are watching TV on a computer than on a
good old-fashioned TV, you need to come down from your Silicon Valley mountain
for a while.

~~~
pg
_Live television is nearly non-existent online._

I wish I could post the graph of unique visitors that the founders of
Justin.TV sent me. But while their actual numbers are presumably secret, I
will say that I have never seen a steeper graph of a one-year period from any
YC-funded startup. And I have seen some steep graphs now.

~~~
old-gregg
... which supports a few other argumets Matt's making, because justin.tv is
probably the most famous YC startup among my non-programming friends: we all
watch live college football and european soccer games on it, re-translated by
users with TV tuners.

I don't think this is something justin.tv is happy about because it kind of
transforms "broadcast yourself" into "share your cable subscription with
strangers" and inevitably leads to a conflict with Fox+ESPN+friends [and
possibly with cable/sat. providers too]

It all comes down to bandwidth. It doesn't exist and the situation is not
improving, I'm 100% with Matt here. Even ESPN's premiere 360 offering pretty
much sucks, let alone Justin's streams: they're basically backups for people
who don't have TV access (on the road, in another country, etc).

Security-minded, TCP-dominant, firewalled to death "Big Internet" is simply
the wrong platform to stream live HD video. Having worked at an IP-based HD
video surveillance startup I was amazed at how hard it was to reliably push
high-def streams over TCP/IP even within a large _local_ enterprise network.
Most of our IP was all about bandwidth management. I honestly can't even
imagine what would it take to stream even CNN to all their viewers, let alone
superbowl.

~~~
DomesticMouse
Broadcast has bandwidth. Computers have brains. Why are these two competing?
Broadcasting a signal that means something to computers, and having computers
then marshal that for users is way more profitable.

Easy place to start - start hiring a small TV station for an hour in the
morning, somewhere in amongst the informercials, and broadcast a signal that
people with TV Tuners can decode. Using some variation of colour 3D barcodes,
say. Have the TV Tuner decode software use this hour to pump content into
squid or some other form of web cache.

Monetisation strategy: give people the ability to vote on what gets broadcast
based on their cache logs.

~~~
sketerpot
Sounds like a lot of work compared to using Hulu or BitTorrent. The Internet
bandwidth costs more, sure, but it's convenient. Lazy wins.

~~~
DomesticMouse
Where there is a price difference, there is an arbitrage opportunity. Sure
it's a bunch of work, but it only has to be done once. With something like
software radio it can even be invisible to the end user. It becomes a usb
dongle that feeds them high def youtube et al.

------
jonmc12
TV lost? While I agree with many of the points PG brings up, I feel something
is missing.

According to Nielson, TV viewership is at an all time high
([http://blog.nielsen.com/nielsenwire/tag/total-us-
television-...](http://blog.nielsen.com/nielsenwire/tag/total-us-television-
viewers/)). Also, Oscars had a 13% increase from last year with 36.3M viewers.
50+M viewers watched Obama's inauguration on TV.. not on their computers. And
of course, we know that those teenagers who are using social apps still cast
more votes for their favorite american idol contestant than the sum of adults
cast for president. (btw, if anyone knows where to get an annual histogram of
viewership in US, that is what I was really looking for). TV viewership may
indeed plummet in the future, but as of right now its at an all time high.

Then, I can't help but notice that I still procure my internet from my cable
provider. And that same cable provider is not only actively fighting against
network neutrality, but they are also blocking my ability to download anything
from Torrent. They are far from beaten.

Lastly, what is the real difference between watching shows on my TV verse
Computer. They are both using digital pipes, they both have microprocessors,
memory and HDs - one has a bigger screen than the other (usually). The only
real difference, and increasingly so, is that one is proprietary, and one is
open. TV has not lost.. their content is (unfortunately) as relevant and
abundant to the average American as ever.

All TV has lost is utter dominance - much like MS windows lost its utter
dominance with the adoption of Linux and the rise of OSX (but they are still
#1 by a lot). However, whether its piped through a monitor or an HD
flatscreen, the US consumer will continue to glue their eyeballs to the
content we call TV today for some time before open content can even begin to
realize the same advertising dollars as the proprietary networks do.

~~~
abstractbill
_All TV has lost is utter dominance - much like MS windows lost its utter
dominance with the adoption of Linux and the rise of OSX (but they are still
#1 by a lot)._

Both TV and Microsoft lost. They just aren't quite dead yet - it takes time
for giants to fall.

~~~
madh
So losing 'utter dominance' is the same as 'lost'? I agree that it takes time
for giants to fall, but I don't really believe the race is anywhere near over.

That said I would bet on Netflix or Amazon (or even Microsoft) to give us the
next generation of TV before any of the networks do.

~~~
kd5bjo
Yes, losing 'utter dominance' is the same as 'lost' when it's a game of
monopolies. The internet has become a viable competitor to the TV networks,
which makes this an entirely different game than a few years ago.

------
iav999
Southern hemisphere calling – things look a bit different from here due to the
different network and broadband environment, but the basic principles cross
borders. I’d just caution about assuming TV=American TV. Sure, the US
situation is as interesting as hell but you’re missing a lot of cool stuff
happening in other places. Looking at the global impact of a profoundly
disruptive technology it helps to take a more global perspective.

I spent most of my youth working in network TV, then moved to talk radio and
the last 15 years in internet, most recently running the online video output
for a newspaper publisher. I moved to that job explicitly because I wanted to
have a hand on the knife that killed broadcast TV. Always wanted to live in
the future, to do what I could to bring it on, and I saw the power of the
networks as retarding at best and toxic at worst. Couple of years down the
track, I realize things ain’t that simple. I no longer see a simple dualism,
TV vs the Internet. Audiences are not fleeing one monolithic platform for
another, they are fragmenting. This is how Nielsen can find that TV
consumption is at record highs (151hrs/wk in US, according to a Feb 09 survey)
while internet usage is also rising. God only knows what crap is in that 151
hours, but the same can be said of internet video.

There’s a new ecology of media emerging, as a profusion of digitally networked
screens fill our living rooms, pockets, desks, cars and hands. To my eternal
joy it doesn’t look like it will settle to an ossified steady state any time
soon, unlike TV and Radio which have been using the same model for 70 and 50
years respectively.

Now I think the internet will no more kill TV than TV killed radio or radio
killed cinema. Despite DVDs and huge plasmas, cinema is doing just fine.
There’ll be less money for the successors of broadcast networks, fewer ad
dollars split more ways: so inevitably less money not just for the corporates
but also for the production crews and creatives. Cheaper TV. We will have an
ecology: a whole lot of fizzing and spitting new beasties have crawled out of
the media swamp and the big old beasties (a) don’t like the look of it at all,
they don’t play by the rules, and (b) don’t realize being eaten alive by ants
is still being eaten alive. Many of the networks will collapse; certainly the
corporate structures are unsustainable, but people will still want communal
big-screen narrative experiences, and will want them well made. That costs
money and takes, for better or worse, concentrations of expertise, machines
and skills that cost money.

We make short feature material, quite profitably, subverting a;ll the TV
[production models we can, but have discovered where the bottom limit for
professional ad-supported shortform online video is.. and it’s higher than you
think. Any fool can make a video and whack it up on YouTube as a hobby, and
not make a living. To make hundreds of videos over a span of years, supporting
several staff and turn a profit is not so easy. Fortunately the audience
fragmentation means we can turn a buck from any number of iterations,
including broadcast TV.

Network TV ain’t dead, you can’t kill it with a stick, it’s a zombie which has
no brain to speak of yet hungers for yours. It’s going to be with us for a
long time yet: but as one of the crowd, not the bully on the block.

------
swombat
Interestingly, another thing TV has done to adapt is create content that
expires very quickly. Reality shows like American Idol and Big Brother are
unlikely to end up downloaded, because they're not worth watching if you don't
watch them right away.

This is probably a huge component in why there are so many more reality shows
these days.

Breaking the broadcast model also won't work for those, because their value is
precisely in the fact that a lot of people watch them, so that they become
gossip points. I know some people who watch reality shows only because they
know that's what will be discussed around the water fountain the next day, and
so they want to be sure to be "in".

I agree that that's a pretty small niche to fit all of today's TV industry,
though.

~~~
redrobot5050
Actually, I wanted to refute your argument with a data point.

American Idol is the most DVR'd show in history. Even tho part of the
"process" is to watch and TXT your vote (for a fee), it turns out many people
are passively watching the show. They DVR it, watch it, and wait it out till
next week.

Essentially, this is the first evidence of internet lurking crossing over to
Reality TV contests.

But otherwise, you're completely right. TV is watercooler talk.

~~~
swombat
Interesting, I didn't know that. Thanks for sharing that data point!

------
Tichy
I am not sure, maybe a lot of TV viewers actually are very passive. What
always gets me about TV is the constant overexcited talking, which acts like
brainwashing. TV shows (series) are another matter, but I think there might be
a market for the constant babbeling brainwash. The primary function of TV is
to switch off the brain. The internet can't really replace it, because
choosing which shows to watch would be work.

Also lately I had this thought that maybe it is not even so bad. Consider a
person who watches TV shows for all their lives. Chances are their lives will
be much more exciting than the average person's live, if they really live with
the TV show characters. They'll experience every conceivable and inconceivable
human condition there is. Not that I recommend it myself, but still...

~~~
Goladus
Listening to people talk is relaxing.

'Switching off the Brain' is a somewhat pejorative way to say it. You don't
call a massage 'switching off your back muscles.'

~~~
Tichy
Not sure I buy that - not in the stressful way TV people talk. As I said,
overexcited, they constantly have to convey the impression that something
exciting is happening.

When was the last time you felt relaxed like after getting a massage from
watching TV?

~~~
Goladus
I rarely watch TV. Chronic stress is a concern for me.

------
jksmith
"The TV networks already seem, grudgingly, to see where things are going, and
have responded by putting their stuff, grudgingly, online. But they're still
dragging their heels."

The TV industry is a complicated business, with a lot of buying and selling
instruments that technologists outside of the industry generally don't
understand. So, the industry is brushed off as a bunch of "laggers" as was
describe to me by one VC group.

And because the new media channels (GOOG, etc) brush off the vagaries of the
business (selling methodologies, the role that Nielsen plays, service and
relationships), they're failing miserably at getting their hands on any
significant portion of that 30b annually that TV ad revenue is putting on the
books.

If GOOG is supposed to be setting the example for a new media channel
penetrating the legacy media industry, so far they're doing a lousy job. TV
booked 18b up front during 2008 buying season, while Youtube struggled to
clear 200m by year-end. <http://www.rbr.com/media-news/advertising/12912.html>

And now GOOG flopped on radio: <http://www.rbr.com/media-
news/advertising/12895.html>

The problem is that while the technology is there to change the face of media
consumption, traditional media still produces the best content, and content is
still king. If traditional media is not convinced that the new channels can
protect spot value, there's no way they're going to give up prime content on a
first run basis:
[http://www.siliconvalleywatcher.com/mt/archives/2009/02/goog...](http://www.siliconvalleywatcher.com/mt/archives/2009/02/google_devalues.php)

Don't confuse prime re-runs that you might see on Hulu with real value
content. The real value of that content was determined when it was running on
TV, which is why we get to see it at all on Hulu.

GOOG recently did a deal with NBC for some inventory. Here's how I imagined
the negotiation went down.

GOOG: Hey NBC, let us help you sell some of your inventory. Just imagine the
reach your advertisers can achieve! NBC: Ok, how do you plan to sell the
inventory. GOOG: By auction, using our online TV Ads application. NBC to
assistant: Ok, hand 'em that bag of crap (remnant inventory) over there and
let them try to sell it. GOOG: Come on, can't you give us anything better than
that? NBC: Look, four things are sold by auction: 1) art, 2) heirlooms, 3)
foreclosures, and 4) crap. There's no way we'd let you touch our gold
inventory with that model.

It was easy for TV technology to take off originally 70 years ago, but it
won't be nearly the same cakewalk this time around just because the technology
is superior and people are using it. Like with the oil-based economy, there's
a huge amount of infrastructure in place for creating and selling content that
was built and refined around a legacy technology. So suggesting that TV is
dead is every bit as wrong as suggesting that the oil industry is dead.

And approaching the problem from this point of view is I think a much better
business move than as PG suggests, "Now would be a good time to start any
company that competes with TV networks." This is equivalent to suggesting that
somebody needs to come up with a Tesla for the TV industry.

I love what Tesla is doing, but we know they're not going to rake in the bucks
for their effort. Their best chance for some bucks is a fat exit.

The solution is the hybrid engine, developed by a group who know the vagaries
of the business from the inside, but can help realize the technology that the
new media channels offer. Shameless Plug: This is exactly the project that my
team is working on.

------
zhyder
"TV" can mean many things:

1\. The content, which, as others here have stated, is here to stay for quite
some time. And this is what the networks (NBC/Fox/etc.) do best so I think
they're going to be around much longer than the RIAA. It's very inexpensive to
record quality music using home equipment (hence RIAA is screwed), but home
videos are still far from the quality of network produced shows. There is a
downward trend in cost to produce TV shows and movies, but it isn't quite as
cheap and easy yet.

2\. The big screen in the living room. This too is here to stay, though it
will evolve from just a medium to watch TV shows and movies to something
that'll be more interactive+connected+social.

~~~
HeyLaughingBoy
I think a large part of the problem is that the content is increasingly crap!

My TV watching is basically Food Network, Ovation TV (artist & musician
documentaries) some History channel, a bit of Discovery channel (Mythbusters &
Dirty Jobs), Cartoon Network adult swim and movies. I haven't watched
broadcast TV in almost a decade and I don't get the local satellite feed. My
local news comes from the radio during my commute.

Fox, ABC, NBC, etc. simply don't exist for me. CNN I have watched exactly ONCE
in the last year: I heard that a plane landed in the Hudson river and I rushed
home to watch it on TV then got disgusted by the usual crappy CNN coverage and
switched it off.

A local bar could have an open mike night streamed online and I would watch
that (with the bar's name prominently displayed in the background) over just
about anything on TV. And when I got tired of watching I could go to the bar
:-)

------
comatose_kid
It would be cool if a video camera manufacturer integrated their device with a
web back-end. Automatically compress and upload videos, and tag them from your
camera. Basically reduce the friction required to publish and organize your
content. It would be killer to integrate this with something like Facebook
groups...

~~~
arockwell
This is pretty close to reality in the form of the Eye-Fi: www.eye.fi. The sd
card automatically uploads pictures/video over wifi to your computer and/or
certain social networking sites.

------
mainsequence
Does this open up room for content-providers in other silos to expand into the
TV space? For example, magazines. Wired tried to start a science series on PBS
a couple years ago and it flopped. Could it work as an online-only thing?

------
run4yourlives
I think it's dangerous to declare this contest over. Clearly, the large
interests on the losing side of this battle aren't willing to go down without
a fight.

Between net-neutrality, restrictive piracy laws and all sorts of anti-consumer
tools we are far from seeing the notion of TV as it currently exists being
effectively replaced.

------
jwindish
Great essay. I don't agree on the locality point, I think that there are
enough people that a genuinely local oriented web model will succeed. But
writing my reply lead me to post "The Days of the Internet as Haven for
Citizen Production are Numbered." The nub of that argument is:

Despite any of the talk about Net Neutrality, networks are right now enforcing
a tiered level of offerings that disadvantages production at all service
levels. Where I live I can only get a 6 MB incoming line. Outgoing I’m limited
to half the speed of a 1990s era 512k connection. They will not even sell me
more if I am willing to pay extra!

We have seen this happen before. Broadcasting itself started out as an open
platform, built by innovators, nurtured by government and fostered by and for
educators. Once it was developed industry moved in. Promising improvements
they pushed every notion of citizen production aside. It required, we were
told, trained industry professionals to do anything worthwhile.

Cable did the same thing. Begun in rural Pennsylvania as a means to deliver
broadcast signals to rural homes, CATV (CoAxial cable TV) used the promise of
localism through channels dedicated to educational and governmental services
and Public Access TV, to take on the broadcast network monopoly. Once it had
its toehold, it starved and marginalized those channels. That same thing is
happening today with the Internet.

YouTube, we’re told, is filled with marginal citizen-produced nonsense and
gets most of its traffic through pirated programming. Remix culture — citizen
use of the mediasphere — is criminalized as piracy. And every attempt to by
you and me to upload quality versions of what we produce is literally slowed
down (and deteriorated) through service tiers that won’t permit fast uploads.

Don’t get me wrong, citizens reap great benefits from the Interent and we will
see vast improvements over what we had before. We’ll even be permitted to
produce in the margins. But it’s obvious to me that the days of the internet
as citizen’s media production haven are numbered.

The full post is here: [http://themoderatevoice.com/26956/the-days-of-the-
internet-a...](http://themoderatevoice.com/26956/the-days-of-the-internet-as-
haven-for-citizen-production-are-numbered/)

------
tokenadult
I especially liked pg's statement "But it was connecting to other people that
got everyone else: that's what made even grandmas and 14 year old girls want
computers."

The power of point-to-point cannot be overestimated. Indeed it had great
impact in getting people to sign up for Internet access and connect a computer
to the Internet in the first place. I discovered online interaction in 1992,
when I attended a conference about homeschooling in Washington state and saw a
demonstration of the Prodigy online service there. I made sure to connect a
modem to my computer (remember dial-up?) and soon entered into interesting
conversations with people all over the country about a common topic of
interest. None of the content I was reading was produced by professionals--it
was all parents talking to other parents. My online interaction completely
displaced TV from my life, and soon greatly reduced the number of postal
letters I sent to friends, because I could reach most of my best friends
online anyway.

Sometime a while later in the 1990s, I saw an analysis in an industry magazine
about whether the main application of the Internet would be broadcasting of
professionally produced content or point-to-point communication. That analysis
pointed out that at that time the revenues of the Baby Bell companies were
MANY times greater than the revenues of all the movie and TV production
companies. Point-to-point is where the revenue streams are. Broadcasting
doesn't draw in as much money, because it doesn't appeal to as many audience
members in as many ways.

My use of television now consists just about entirely of watching the local TV
news and one network news program broadcast to my home with my children. We
don't watch any dramas, and only occasionally watch Saturday Night Live's
opening segment. (We don't subscribe to cable and live in an area with an
unwatchable digital signal, so we resort to just one analog broadcast signal
at the moment.) TV is expendable in our house. Internet-connected computer use
is indispensable.

------
dkarl
"Hacker News" is showing its entrepreneurial, money-focused side in this
discussion. You have to be obsessed with business models to be convinced that
television is "losing" to the internet, just like you had to be obsessed with
business models to believe that the internet was "killing music" a few years
ago. Everybody still watches television and uses it as a cultural reference
point when relating to other people. Despite the flourishing variety of
internet-native art forms, people still turn to television for a regular fix
of programming. The appetite for television programming is just another entry
on the long list of things that the internet, which "changes everything,"
isn't actually changing.

You can pass hours of time on YouTube, but the content, while passably
stimulating, just doesn't bear repeating. You can't crack your friends up by
making some sly reference to it a month from now. Unless, that is, you're
watching something that is well-written, well-produced, and well-acted. And in
that case, you'll probably call it "television" to distinguish it from random
thirty-second clips of some guy farting at his cat (America's Funniest Home
Videos notwithstanding.)

When music moved from live venues to vinyl, it was still called music. When it
moved from vinyl to cassettes to CDs, it was still called music. Now it's on
the internet, and it's called... music! Television programming has been called
"television" or "TV" for over half a century. I bet people will still call it
"television." We think about it as "television versus the computer," but the
younger generation thinks, "Why is it so hard to find television on the
internet? I want to watch TV on my computer, not on the TV." That isn't
contradictory at all. That's just the way the words are used. If you pick the
right meaning of "TV," then TV might die, but it isn't interesting unless you
stand to make or lose money on it. The TV that most people care about has a
long life ahead of it.

------
steveplace
Mark Cuban has a counterpoint:

[http://blogmaverick.com/2009/01/27/the-great-internet-
video-...](http://blogmaverick.com/2009/01/27/the-great-internet-video-lie/)

Not that I agree with him, but it's nice to have discourse.

------
axod
I don't think you can lump all TV together. I think a more accurate title
would be "Why TV Lost in the US" And one of the reasons would undoubtedly be
the awful quality of most US programming.

------
arincrumley
Bravo, This is such a good article. As a filmmaker myself,
(foureyedmonsters.com) what I'm very interested in is partnering with
exhibitors with a universal license that makes managing re-distribution very
simple. I would love to put a more advanced creative commons license on a film
that would then allow TV brodcasters and other digital exhibitors to put ads
on it, sell it, project it at events or even distribute for free but always
sending 50 percent of gross revenue back to my piece of contents royalty
collecting agent. I imagine a world with lots of very small production
companies all using these up and coming standardized licenses and then a
social web that just passes that content where ever it needs to go translating
and even re-editing as it moves through the swarm.

I've co-founded a research and development project to function as a think tank
designing this future model.

For content creators there is a big focus around compensating the creation of
culture. If society considers culture to be a valuable thing, then that
culture will earn it's value back. In other words, we won't see inflated
monetary compensation to content creators, but there will be compensation that
supports them making more. That is if anyone cares about the things they make.
And that's I suppose why we call this democracy.

------
Chaigneau
There is little flaw in the essay - it has forgotten about humans and human
nature e.g. I am very young I go out to play - on rainy days and when my
friends are away I watch kids TV (available pretty much all day)...Time moves
on...I am a young care-free teen and I have face-book, computers, etc. and
rip-off music and video and watch TV on the Internet, I have social networking
and on-line games and have XBox and PS3 and Wii all over the place....Then
reality dawns slowly but surely...I am a young adult and I have to get a job
because Dad lost all his money in the recession and he wont give me endless
bundles of cash anymore or cover my bills...I use the WWW to find one...If I
am lucky (having studied and not "googled off" at school) I get one and I have
to work hard BUT I suddenly have MY OWN money and I enjoy that and I go out,
join the tennis club, local gym, go to bars and clubs...Lo and behold I find a
soulmate and after much vexing (or not) we move in together..I work; she
works, we get home and we cook and boy are we tired and we cannot be bothered
to fire up the computer and go to Face-book, Google, Find, Search, Look, Hunt
on the WWW (anyhow did that in the office)... What a long day its been; We sit
down in the living room and switch on the TV and RELAX...

------
wensing
_TV is premised on such long sessions (unlike Google, which prides itself on
sending users on their way quickly) that anything that takes up their time is
competing with it._

We've received a steady stream of feedback regarding Stormpulse.com from
people who are abandoning TV coverage of hurricanes (yes, even that of The
Weather Channel) in favor of our site. We're also happy to be the owners of
Stormpulse.tv.

------
iuguy
A decade ago, I would've bought satellite TV, heck even 5 years ago. Since the
original Xbox was hacked and broadband became commonplace, I have watched less
and less TV. I watch anything I want to on my AppleTV. Youtube, iTunes and
Boxee are an incredibly disruptive combination. Our TV has an FTA digital
tuner built in, which died two months ago. We haven't replaced it, we just
watch TV even less. When the switchover happens we probably won't bother at
all.

For me, Boxee is the most disruptive offering I've seen and it's precisely a
combination of the social and Internet-based elements that makes me try to
convince everyone I know to use it. I don't see Boxee killing TV, but like
XBMC before it, it's one hell of a disruptive concept.

I also agree that some sort of set top box combining telephony, TV, Radio and
Internet will displace regular TV. Cable and telephony companies have already
been moving towards this with 'triple play' offerings.

I on the other hand have had this kind of integration since 2003 with MythTV.

------
rm999
"Facebook killed TV"

Can someone explain that line to me? I don't see facebook mentioned anywhere
else.

I generally consider myself pretty on top of ways to watch TV on my computer
(I've been doing the RSS bit torrent thing pretty much since it's been
possible), but I have never seen any common thread between facebook and tv.
"Internet killed TV" I can agree with.

~~~
froo
The connection is that the internet really took off when people realised you
could use it to connect with each other in new and interesting ways.

YouTube, Facebook, Myspace etc are among the most visited sites and are all
about connecting with each other.

Among the younger crowd, people spend more time online than they do infront of
their TV.

So, While Facebook itself didn't kill TV, the assertion that social activities
online killed TV is becoming increasingly true, especially as more content
producers start distributing their stuff online.

Paul just put it in a broad manner (although not 100% accurate, but close
enough).

~~~
rm999
Facebook and youtube/hulu/pirated TV shows are worlds apart to me. Facebook is
something you actively take part in, you contribute to. This has almost
nothing in common with the passive entertainment of TV that people enjoy. I
didn't cancel my cable connection because facebook, AIM, or any other social
connecting mechanism came around; it's because I found I could spend my
passive hours (read: not typing things) on a computer instead of a TV.

~~~
adbachman
It has nothing to do with the nature of the activity. Graham's point is that
the social networks provided the last stimulus needed (over the last 30 years)
to get computers into daily use in almost every household in the first world.

You didn't cancel your cable, but you likely spent more time in front of the
computer after picking up AIM and FB than before. This signal indicates the
front edge of a trend. This is visionary stuff, not hindsight.

~~~
rm999
Ah, I see - thanks for the explanation.

------
HeyLaughingBoy
I wonder why this isn't happening faster.

I mean, I'm not a big YouTube fan: I normally get linked there to
metalworking/machining videos but once there I stay for a long time. YouTube
is really sticky. This kind of stuff is candy for me and linked with well
_targeted_ ads, the provider can make money. I know that if I'm watching some
guy in a basement show how he built a CNC lathe, I wouldn't mind even really
obvious product placement or a short 10-15 second commercial _about machining_
before the video starts.

There are many, many talented people out there who could be making their own
videos and profiting from it. Is the problem just lack of sponsorship or a
good advertising model?

There has to be business opportunity here. Maybe a site that video artists can
go to with samples of their work looking to be matched with suitable sponsors.

------
mol2103
Tv usage is up more than ever and continues to grow every year. I don't think
TV has lost at all yet. And I don't agree that networks are grudgingly putting
content online. Hulu is an object of much affection in the video viewing
world, so much so that it warranted Super Bowl ad space.

------
chimimimusic
Selling a file or piece of plastic is dead. A one to many broadcast model is
dead. Embrace piracy of content. Creating a different value add for the
consumer that enhances the user experience while concurrently building
community will create a loyal following (which equals higher ad rev). Quality
of content is not really the issue. It's all about the story you are
telling(LonelyGirl15). Ask Speilberg, Lucas or Scorcese...they will tell you
the same thing.

Ultimately it is about content that is relevant to the affinity group that
supports it. The toolset or technology that supports it will become secondary
over time.

------
seshagiric
Two things in support of PG's case:

1\. In the HD flame wars (Blue ray Vs HD-DVD), Blue ray has emerged the
winner, but may not actually so. It seems that people would rather stream/
download HD stuff over the internet. As of today, this is easier on the PC
than the TV.

2\. Growth of HTPC: If your only complaint on PG's article is about the
monitor size/ quality this fixes it. You can now connect your TV to the
computer, and the PC will fetch content from internet, record your shows
automatically and also enable you manage your digital content. Networked home
entertainment is the thing of the future.

------
vaksel
To compete with TV you need to provide the couch potato experience, I don't
think TV will ever lose its current position, instead what will happen is the
TV will just bring the web based content to the living room.

~~~
sketerpot
If it does that, then it's essentially a computer in the shape of a TV.

------
kajecounterhack
Actually, I recently read an article about how people have been watching more
TV while also increasing how much time they spend online. There are as many
TVs as people per household in the US. I don't think the two will ever
converge. I mean think about it -- people are buying fewer desktops and more
netbooks now. Netbooks and the cloud are the future of "computing" as we know
it. TVs will just get bigger, and they'll be things we use at home. So... the
two will coexist peacefully as always.

Though, Paul has a point. Computers can serve the function of TVs.

~~~
coglethorpe
He said "Facebook killed TV," but I often check Facebook on my laptop while
watching TV. Netbooks and PDAs take it a step further - letting us multi-task
our slack time.

~~~
axod
Most people I know do as well. I think the article has many such flaws.

------
ecommercematt
There is more than one dinosaur in the room.

I predict that internet enabled computers (of some form - I'll borrow pg's
footnote #3) will also be the dominant delivery medium for radio and telephone
service.

------
lacker
Maybe TV lost, but Hulu is owned by NBC and Fox, and Hulu seems to be doing a
pretty good job. So perhaps the TV networks are a bit more on top of this
transition than the music companies were.

------
rayvega
pg- small typo:

 _They thought they'd be able to dictate they way shows reached audiences._

\-->

 _They thought they'd be able to dictate the way shows reached audiences._

~~~
pg
Fixed; thanks.

~~~
gcheong
An even smaller one:

[3] Or a phone that is actually computer.

\-->

[3] Or a phone that is actually a computer.

------
aditya
People may still watch things they call "TV shows," but they'll watch them
mostly on computers.

Is that really true? Source?

(Uhh. I have no idea how to quote things correctly. :)

~~~
sachinag
Frankly, they're doing it now. As it is, the cable/satellite box is a
computer. IPTV makes the packets conform to what we think of as "internet
traffic". And there's OTA television to mobile phones in Japan. Boxee is
nothing more than a purpose-specific browser.

~~~
mblakele
Your tv may already be a computer, as well. Recent Samsungs run embedded
linux, for example.

------
dood
TV is stuggling to accept the inevitable transition/metamorphosis into a TV-
computer hybrid. Neither won or lost, they will simply converge.

People like sharing big-screen audio-visual entertainment in shared spaces.
People like shows and movies and games and sharing. People will have a large-
screen device called a TV in their living room for the conceivable future.

The _broadcast model_ will soon be obselete, but the TV itself will not die
any time soon.

------
christofd
The big budgets in TV production I presume are the result of formed habits,
similar to getting used to driving a gas-guzzling GMC T-Rex SUV. I have
trouble imagining companies like Pepsi handing over their ad budget to
Internet guys. But sooner or later exactly this will happen. Just like the
Obama campaign was not managed by a large advertising company but by dedicated
Web guys, who understand "social" communication involving real people
(grassroots).

------
radu_floricica
I wonder how people would react if one of the big boys would just put up a
torrent tracker with TV shows, with commercials.

On one hand, commercials would be skippable. But then, increasingly, so are on
TV. Would commercial-free torrents appear on pirate bay? I doubt it, no real
incentive. Would people really skip them consistently? Some yes, some
wouldn't. If the commercial is short and reasonably interesting, why bother to
fast forward every time?

~~~
trezor
Here's my guess:

Just like people make custom, amateur soft-subs these days for both pirate and
legit DVDs, a file-format for reprogrammable program time-lines would be
invented pretty quickly basically editing out the ads runtime.

I'm not going to say I could make it in five minutes, but it should be pretty
trivial to implement a plugin for this kind of thing. Heck, base it on
Avisynth and on the Win32-platform you already have 99% of the groundwork done
for you.

These custom time-lines would probably be indexed, by show, season and
episode, with direct links to the legal torrent all at one place.

And I doubt anyone would be able to argue that files denoting time-lines could
in any way be illegal.

~~~
samlittlewood
eg: <http://www.mplayerhq.hu/DOCS/HTML/en/edl.html>

------
ilanamoss
I already watch all my "TV" online, and I tell my TV addicted friends that
they will too, in the near future. I would never go back to broadcast
television - instead of thinking "I wonder what's on tonight?" it's "Hmmm,
what do I feel like watching right now?"

BTW - I'm 50 yrs old, and I worked in television, including production, from
1989-2003. Now I work online, at home, when I want...

------
scalablebrain
"TV" simply explains the device by which video media is communicated. It's a
relic from a time when there was no other way to get such media in the home.
The Internet IS TV just as much as TV is the internet. The one who is able to
reach the end-consumer will win, and in these days when information is all
over the place, the landscape is getting more and more competitive.

------
d0mine
Internet increases connectivity therefore long tail becomes even shorter than
TV's one. netflix' data should confirm it.

The general idea of the essay is false now (TV hours > internet's one).

IMing or twittering on iPhone is not the same as watching a TV program
simultaneously with millions of other people.

~~~
madh
_IMing or twittering on iPhone is not the same as watching a TV program
simultaneously with millions of other people._

There is something here with the simultaneous viewing concept, or maybe we can
call it collective experience. There is something amazing about sharing in an
experience with millions of people at the same time. For instance, election
night, 9/11, the Super Bowl, or even finding out who shot JR. Granted we do
this today through many mediums (e.g. Twitter during the inauguration), which
only serve to augment to core TV experience.

------
CraigMeade
More people in the US watched more hours of TV last year than any year before.
Indeed, every year a new record is set for hours of TV watched. Nielsen's 2008
figures show 151 hours of TV per month, 3 hours of online video and 4 hours on
mobile phone and other devices. So exactly what are we discussing here?

------
rodrigo
I find irritating at least the signal/noise ratio of tv and radio shows, im
spoiled by being able to proactively choose what im going to hear or watch
(via podcasts, reading on the web,etc) instead of pasively watching tv. So,
afaik, tv and radio have been dead for a couple of years.

------
dlk142
You forgot to mention the $! How are these internet companies going to make
money buy producing shows and letting the audience watch it for free? All the
advertisers have not shifted their budgets online because they can get greater
reach on TV and it is less expensive for them!

------
herdrick
PG, where's the etherpad stream? (There's probably an ironic reality TV show
joke I'm missing here.)

~~~
pg
Sorry, I wrote this one in vi. I was in the middle of writing it when Jessica
had George. When I restarted working on it recently, I didn't bother importing
it into Etherpad because I thought it was already nearly done. (Wrong there,
as usual.)

------
beremich
Although strategically it has lost, in my opinion the "strategically" means
"will lose quite surely". There are quite many countries where it has still
many years before it, in particular because it is a cheaper entertaining and
will remain for some years.

------
miked
As entertainment moves online, shows will no longer be constrained by the
30/60 minute time frame. This should help remove filler and/or add additional
useful content. This, in turn, should drive an overall increase in quality, at
least at the margin.

~~~
kerrynitz
Films aren't constrained in length technically, but they all end up about the
same length - probably related to how long one can sit passively for. What
really drives the 30/60 minute timeframe? Is it medium or culture? Does
shifting online really change that? A medium can change quite quickly, but
culture changes far slower.

------
leej
I respect points he made but it was Media Metrix or something like that has
reported that hours watched has reached a new all time high.

Another contradictory point is there is IPTV. TV stations can deliver
customized programmes with this.

------
BerislavLopac
Is there a video equivalent of last.fm? With a place where people could share
their watchlists, and a good source of video material (whether based on
Bittorrent or iTunes, or both), we could easily forget TV broadcasting in a
few years.

------
avnerbraverman
These arguments are even more true for books, where production costs amount to
a laptop and the time spent. Yet, we do not see so many novelists
circumventing the traditional publishers and publishing on their own.

------
DrusstheLegend
I can't believe nobody has mentioned pornography. Low production costs, varied
format, and internet delivery. This displacement of TV shows has already been
proven as a successful business model.

------
inc
The Internet will enable metavision, a complete replacement for cable
companies and broadcast networks ... where you can watch and interact with
multiple live channels simultaneously.

------
ecommercematt
Since we have a new medium, are there new monetization methods available
beyond subscriptions and/or advertising?

The dinosaurs are only scared of their profit disappearing.

------
swann
<http://camorra.org/swann/?p=230>

------
paraschopra
PG, is your site down? I cannot access the article.

------
kdborg
Word-of-mouth took on a new form.

------
aquamarie
why would telivision lose? from:11yrs old samantha gadbois

