Live Internet Television

Is Neilsen putting on another happy face? Image courtesy of One Super Bargain

Genius! Research that pleases everyone! Neilsen has gotten very good at this.

Via MediaPost:

In a finding that appears to defy some conventional industry thinking, new research released by Nielsen Co. indicates the so-called phenomenon of “cord-cutting” — people who replace a portion of their TV viewing with online video streaming — is real, but it also cuts both ways. Since Nielsen began simultaneously tracking TV viewing and online video usage in its national TV ratings sample earlier this year, it has found that nearly as many people have shifted some share of viewing away from online video, as have shifted toward it.

…

In fact, the overall takeaway of the Nielsen analysis should help quell the anxieties of the TV industry that online video is an imminent threat — or by that same token — and significant immediate opportunity for programmers seeking to extend their presence online.

This is an especially suspicious “takeaway,” since online video IS cutting into traditional TV in real ways that are creating real anxiety. The significant immediate opportunity is also creating anxiety as programmers try to find ways to monetize and control their properties online.

So far, we haven’t seen a lot of creativity, bravery, or innovation in a very exciting field.

According to PaidContent.org, The Wall Street Journal is planning some new ways of delivering content. And they sound like the future of cable TV.

Micropayments: Pay-as-you go billing. A small fee per article, premium rates for specialist content. What WSJ is really offering is a way for people to pay less than $100/year for WSJ content if they consume it at a limited rate.

Cable companies, long slandered for charging consumers for shows they don’t watch, are no doubt looking at the viability of this kind of model in combination with monetizing online offerings. Should someone who likes to watch shows like “House Hunters” or ongoing programming on CSPAN have to pay $3-$60/month for the full cable lineup? (How much longer will people tolerate this model? CNet)

ReadWriteWeb points out that Google and Apple have already entered micropayment terrain for commercial video content:

So what about charging small amounts for high quality, downloadable versions of commercial content on YouTube as a way to bring in money? Sure, Google already tried that with Google Video, and shut that service down citing an “effort to improve all Google services.” But Apple has had a lot of success selling TV shows and movies (they sold a million of them in the first 20 days, and move tens of millions of video downloads per year through iTunes), so the model is sustainable.

All-device, all-platform online access for subscribers to the traditional format. Once a consumer pays for content, they should be able to read/watch it wherever and whenever they want. That is the new standard.

CNet reports that Comcast has plans in the works to meet this standard (for a price!):

What is known is that Comcast expects to offer the service free of charge to its existing cable TV customers. In a recent interview with PC World, Karin Gilford, the Comcast Interactive executive in charge of the cable provider’s Fancast video site, said with a user name and password, subscribers will be able to access any standard or premium cable content that their cable subscription entitles them to watch.

The service will let users watch TV on their laptops or computers, and eventually it might even be available on cell phones. What will make the service different from other online video sites, such as Hulu.com or TV.com (which is owned by CBS, publisher of CNET News), is that it will feature premium cable content from sources like HBO, ESPN, and CNN. This content has largely been off-limits to free online video aggregators.

These new models are not limited to content — Microsoft is developing its products to conform to online delivery and new monetization models.

While consumers have enjoyed Web-based applications such as e-mail for several years, there’s a growing business movement toward the Web. In addition to using the Internet as a primary way to interact with customers, corporate technology managers are running more of their applications online — “cloud computing,” as it’s called — to save money and be flexible.

As every industry struggles to keep ahold of profitability as their users move online and expect more flexible service models, strategists are watching each other closely and keeping an open mind.

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.

Great discussion about the Hulu-Disney deal over at NewTeeVee. Liz Gannes and  Chris Albrecht do a fabulous job of teasing apart the interesting issues.

The bottom line is that wrangling over control of content is not going to stop anytime soon, and that — despite strong earnings in this difficult climate — cable companies are working hard to find a an evolution path that keeps them in the game.

Comcast and other cable companies are seeing their core paid distribution businesses get more and more threatened by Hulu, as it starts to fully become the TV receiver for the Internet age. Will the cable companies head to court, like in the UK, where broadcasters’ joint venture Project Kangaroo was deemed to be anti-competitive? You can be sure the giant is no longer sleeping.

Thanks to Seattle TechFlash, I now know about i-Booze (very entertaining) and forgive me for insufficient solidarity with a fellow startup, but I do not see a future there. Remember back before the dot com bust, when everyone was going to be a 20-something millionaire thanks to an innovative internet site?

I do, and i-Booze is giving me flashbacks. I got the impression TechFlash might share my skepticism, though i-Booze says they differentiate from past bombs by selling only craveable items.

“I-Booze only sells products that people want immediately, which people are addicted to, which people are craving, and which people will pay that extra delivery surcharge to get right away,” explains [i-Booze's Karim] Varela.

At its core, Varela describes i-Booze as an online convenience store. In addition to six packs of beer and bottles of wine, i-Booze sells soda pop, lighters, rolling papers and the herb salvia. In the next two or three months, he hopes to add ice cream, snacks and condoms.