May 13, 2007
Net TV Gets Juiced
That viewers will spend long stretches watching shows online is a wake-up call to the networks. Business Week reports.
"NBC executives had two reservations about putting full-length episodes of their current lineup online... The first was that no one would watch. The second was that everyone would watch—and then stop watching TV.Conventional wisdom held that the computer was for clips, that people liked snacking on short clips. How else to explain the millions flocking to video-sharing site YouTube? But how many TV fans would bother to watch a 30-minute TV show on a small screen, especially especially when they have a TV at home?
Lots of them, apparently. Since last fall, when many networks began streaming full-length episodes of their prime-time shows online, Web surfers have shown a willingness to sit in front of the computer and watch TV-length programs. NBC has had 100 million streams of its shows since last fall. "Lots and lots of people are doing this, and they are sitting through entire episodes," says George Kliavkoff, NBC Universal's chief digital officer.
Network executives and analysts agree that the desire to "time shift," to watch prime-time programming at other times of day, is driving the consumption of full-length TV dinners, rather than two-minute clips.
Many viewers use the Internet as a convenient way to catch up on favorite shows they have missed or try out shows that they never were around to see before.
... Right now, many networks are largely saving their current prime-time shows for their own online sites, or refusing to air them online at all, and giving services such as Joost shows from the archives. However, if Joost proves popular, they're likely to release more from the store."
And while they (Big Media and Joost) wrangle of the above, viewers who want (commercial free) full length copies of the latest and hottest TV shows are already viewing them in droves on rogue video sharing sites .
The Permanent Link to this page is: http://www.textually.org/tv/archives/2007/05/015903.htm
Post a comment
Thanks for signing in, . Now you can comment. (sign out)
(If you haven't left a comment here before, you may need to be approved by the site owner before your comment will appear. Until then, it won't appear on the entry. Thanks for waiting.)