The future of whose TV?

November 15, 2006 by Jeff Jarvis

There’s a Future of Television conference going on in New York this week. I’m not going. It’s filled with executives from old TV. I’ll bet that the Video on the Net conference with the leaders from the new TV will be more interesting. I was actually surprised at this week’s conference that I didn’t see keynotes from Andrew Baron or Ze Frank. That’s the future of TV, folks.

  • http://brooklynkitchen.net/brooklyn-kitchen-blog.html Brooklyn Kitchen

    Andrew Baron is definitely over-hyped. Both he and Amanda have long produced an increasingly uninteresting body of work. Rocketboom’s sun has set. And now that Amanda has jumped ship to work for the corporations, you can expect an even greater watering-down of the schtick.

    Zefrank, by contrast, is under-hyped. Maybe his schtick just appeals to me more, but I don’t think he would be as willing to dilute his show by pandering to a greater audience. At least I hope not.

    What you don’t seem to think about, Mr. Jarvis, is that TV isn’t going to change much despite the platform on which you watch it. To motivate an sizable audience (such as the one TV currently commands) to watch your show you have to appeal to the lowest common denominator. I don’t see independent nichecasting as replacing the TV giants, but existing alongside it…at much smaller dollar amounts. TV will always be crap, but it’s the crap that makes the most money.

    Yes, TV will someday be delivered in a different way, expanding our options and giving us more choices…but you’ll still see the big media companies dominate the field, and even though they are Johnny-come-latelys, the have the resources to catch up in relatively short order. That’s why they bought Amanda.

  • Paw

    Jeff-

    Did you even bother to look at the list of speakers attending this conference before you decided it wasn’t hip enough for you? I count a total of two executives from “old TV” (Poltrack and Clasen). While many of the other speakers may be employed by “old TV”, their titles would indicate that they work in digital media, consulting, broadband, corporate strategy, consumer electronics and advertiser supplied content. Not a Moonves, Liquori, Zucker, Ostroff or McPherson to be found.

    It’s really too bad you think none of these individuals have anything relevant to say to you. In the aggregate, the companies represented in these panels have substantially greater resources at their disposal than the attendees at the previous Video on the Net conference you refer to. Though they may be behind the curve for now, my money’s on them to catch up and surpass the darlings of the net.

  • http://sabet.typepad.com Bijan Sabet

    hey, right on. i’m going to be on a panel re Mobile Tv and I’m not an old tv guy :-)

  • http://bizofshowbiz.com Gary Bourgeault (bizofshowbiz.com)

    The thought that just because old-media has a lot of money has nothing to do with whether they can compete in the new marketplace.

    All of them, for the most part, are still acting like old-media when all they do is offer what is currently on their networks and put it online, and think that’s a big move.

    The next thing they’re all doing is coming up with an online comedy channel. Just about all of them are simply copying one another again. HBO and AOL are the latest to come up with that. At least HBO is going to offer up original, short-form content, contrary to what most of the others are doing.

    Amanda may regret the day she signed on with the big media company, as other online ventures become increasingly more successful. Other than attaching her name to an old-media company, what has she gained from it in today’s changing media? She’s now part of something that’s diminishing, rather than part of something growing.

  • http://network2.tv Chris Brogan…

    Hello bees. *shake shake*

    I had a conversation last night with an executive from a big TV network with the words “Digital” and “Innovation” in his title. He was very polite, very friendly, and exceptionally open to the realization that while all the major networks are working towards developing something that looks like the new way media is being made, lots of these companies are still going at it with the previous point of view in place.

    When CNN stops segregating iReport from their standard news, when Discovery Channel realizes that its not just video-down-to-classrooms, but classrooms-up-to-Discovery, when massive TV networks realize that what makes Rocketboom and Ze Frank and Something to be Desired shows worth watching has nothing to do with cost and everything to do with content-over-ROI, then it might work out that way.

    Swell post, Mr. Jarvis.

    - Chris Brogan, Network2.

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  • http://www.goodnightburbank.com Hayden Black

    It seems to me that lines are being drawn in the sand, primarily by the devotees of the internet. Entertainment, in its purest form, is about engaging, communicating and talking to people. It does not matter how or where people find their entertainment, as long as they enjoy it when they do. We need to begin erasing these lines quickly as they seem to be the product of narrow minds and elitism. And the idea that TV should turn around tomorrow is absurd; it’s a monolithic entity that will take years to shift its paradigm.

    The internet is ultimately a fertile development ground; and it should not matter what other platforms the content shows up on. Traditional TV is already starting to look to the net for their next wave of creators and as heavy-going as that search might be, it will ultimately provide a plethora of new, unusual and different programming unlike anything US television has seen before.

    I see the current mix of web content providers infiltrating TV and Features over the next 5 years and ultimately proving to TV development execs that their stuffy ways of developing programs (sweetheart deals, focus groups, formulas, etc) are a thing of the past. Original, revolutionary and daring programming will win out – and EVERYONE benefits from that.

    Ironically, in my limited talks to some of the web video aggregators that currently exist, the original programming they’re looking to produce is what I call “G&A”. Geek-news and tits and ass. Cheap, formulaic and cliched. They’re as blinkered in their views as TV execs can be in theirs. It proves that the only thing that will win out in the end is true original vision because those websites will run dry the second their seed money ends.

    Miraculously, because the studios no longer have a monopoly on distribution, we can now find that original vision. Now people like myself and others are seizing that opportunity, the next thing to change will be the proliferation of new and original ideas that previously were consigned to the back of one’s computer.

    Both the internet and mainstream TV will find a way to co-exist in wonderful ways. Neither one of them is going anywhere so they will have to.

    And to the content providers; here’s to the most wonderful, creative time of our lives!