Ad Revenue Will Start Slipping Away From The TV Industry Sooner Than It Thinks

TV Is Losing Viewers And Will Soon Lose Advertisers - Business Insider (click for full article)

Ad Revenue Will Start Slipping Away From The TV Industry Sooner Than It Thinks


"Lots of recent discussion on TV and Hollywood.

Ari Emmanuel accuses Google (again) of aiding and abetting pirates. Henry Blodget writes a nice piece on the changing TV viewing habits of consumers. Dan Frommer says those changing habits won't really affect the MSOs and Networks anytime soon. And Jeremie Allaire seems to claim that Apple's next move in TV will be to emulate TiVo's (largely failed) box/cable-card strategy (but correctly points out the disruptive power of AirPlay).

Oh, and Sean Parker launched version one of AirTime.

I wanted to add a few points to the discussion about the pressures on the TV industry. First, some basic observations:"

 

It could be that networks first opted for cheap reality shows since it meant more left over for them (look at how much the cut of the Seinfeld cast or the various 'Friends' and it's not too hard to see why).

The 'reality' shows may have been huge hits when they were a novelty and program developers got a bit lazy and all began chasing after the next Survivor - anything with has-been celebrities who have no concept of what a 'residual' is.
Only HBO seemed to be left for any half-way decent idea of an actual production.

Somewhere along the way more and more regular viewers switched off.

Convergence has been expected for well over 20 years now. If these executives haven't by now figured out a way to adapt perhaps they should retire or find another line of work, but at any rate the rose-colored glasses need to come off and maybe they need to begin figuring out what people actually want to watch.

 

I totally agree with you as it seems like all the new shows coming on tv now is all reality crap. Big production shows tend to get the axe before they have a chance to grow an audience. Also shows with evolving humor and inside jokes like Community are told to keep it simple since the funders of the show don't get the humor. I wish they would go back to 13 episodes per season instead of trying to get 20 plus episodes in a season as it was a lot easier then to have good shows that don't labor along.