Live Internet Television

Business Week has published a very comprehensive look at the TV landscape — cable, network, online — and it’s an interesting read for anyone interested in this kind of thing.

For those who love TV but might not want to get into the weeds, here are a couple of trends that may not be so fun:

Blurring the line further between ads and programming

Programs will be tailored to audiences, and increasingly advertisers will show up in the programs instead of just the commercials.

There’s a good round up examples here, but one of the most obvious examples of they missed is The Apprentice/Celebrity Apprentice. Thanks to Mr. Trump and his producers, I have the original AND fictional Chicken of the Sea jingles running through my head days after the last episode, and I am aware of all the selling points of the darn stuff. And that’s just this week. Maybe next week’s blatant product promotion will replace this week’s in my consciousness?

Off-message tangent: I also learned that I really like Jesse James, that I pretty much detest Clint Black, that the show is hella frustrating (Why choose Clint Black as the Project Manager when you can manage the project effectively and use him write the jingle? Why did no-one give Jesse James credit for the great creative he consistently contributed, which was not taken up by the team?)

A Web-like experience with interactive ads and a next-generation remote

Cable companies are hard at work rushing to market with ways to integrate the social, user-driven, and integrated experience of the Web with their programming.

Beyond improving the viewing experience, the technology also will allow the cable companies to offer interactive commercials. For example, viewers will be able to request more information about a sponsor’s product and, at some point, even buy it through their televisions.

Naturally, for [this functionality] to reach its potential, the remote control will have to change, too. Despite a proliferation of buttons, remotes typically lack a keyboard, which would make searching for shows easier. Time Warner Cable is testing a prototype with a touchscreen. Built by Panasonic, the remote includes an iPhone-like keyboard that makes searching for programs more simple.

This direction is a way of moving into the future without jeopardizing the current business model which works just fine for cable companies (Expect a lot more legal and strategic wrangling by Cable distributors to keep cable content producers from putting their content online for free).

I’m not sold.

What we already know

One of the big questions looming over the cable industry is whether Americans will cancel their subscriptions. Some are cutting the cord to save money; more and more are watching shows online. In a recent survey by research firm GFK-Roper Consulting, 40% of respondents said they would consider canceling their pay-TV subscriptions.

The cable guys profess to be unfazed. Of course they would say that. But so far significant numbers of people aren’t ditching pay TV. “People love to complain about their cable bill,” says Craig Moffett, an analyst at Sanford C. Bernstein. “But it’s hard to find a better bargain in entertainment.”

Online video remains a minnow next to TV. The average viewer watches 151 hours of TV a month vs. three hours of video online, according to Nielsen. And for now the range of offerings online is paltry compared with what is available on cable. Hulu, for example, doesn’t offer recent-run movies, live sports, or many of the most popular shows on cable. That helps explain why 1.7 million people signed up for cable, satellite, and phone TV last year.

Subscribers also have a powerful incentive to keep their pay TV. It’s called the triple play, wherein a customer pays about $29 a month each for basic cable, broadband, and phone. Cancel cable, and the price for the other two services can rise substantially.