Jessell at large

Give Us A Break: No More New Media

Admit it, you're about as interested in implementing the latest mobile app as you on in the Franklin American Mortgage Music City Bowl. When it comes to new media, we don’t have time to distinguish the winners from the losers. So, we do nothing. Or, we end up doing the wrong thing, squandering precious time and resources. This is precisely why we need a breather — a three-year breather — so we can figure out one thing before being forced to move on to the next.
TVNewsCheck,

Today, I am calling for a three-year moratorium on new media.

Starting Jan. 1, no individual or company may conceive, research, develop, improve, work on, tinker with or otherwise conjure up any program, device or service aimed at disseminating information of any kind to the general public.

Story continues after the ad

With all we’ve got now, from AM to Zillow, we can go for three years without any more and we’ll all be happier.

Let’s be clear: This is a global deal. I don’t want some smart guys or gals in India or China trying to get ahead while the rest of us are on our new-media sabbaticals.

The reason for this unprecedented initiative is clear. There is already too much stuff out there. It’s overwhelming. We’ve got a vast oversupply of dotcoms, widgets and apps. How can you possibly make sense of it all, let alone build a viable business upon it?

We want to keep up with the latest, but it’s simply not possible. The new media world moves too fast. We don’t have time to distinguish the winners from the losers. So, we end up doing nothing. Or, we end up doing the wrong thing, squandering precious time and resources.

Every time we figure out one Facebook or Twitter, another Groupon or Netflix pops up to be understood, exploited, copied or ignored.

Well, when I was a wee lad, there used to be just two “platforms” in electronic media: the TV set and the radio. You created programs for one or the other, sold some time and then went home.

Now, to keep pace, you have to tailor your content not only for the desktop and Web browsers, but also for what seems to be an endless parade of netbooks, smartphones, tablets, BlackBerries, game consoles, VOD services and Internet-enabled TVs. Oh, by the way, do you want that in 3D? With or without glasses?

Wade Beavers, CEO of DoApp, a company that writes apps that allow content providers to jump on the new platforms (really operating systems), says that right now there are five that broadcasters need to be on  — Android, iPhone, iPad, Blackberry and Microsoft — and possibly a sixth if HP’s WebOS gets any traction.

And don’t think that you can create the app and you’re done. According to Beavers, apps have to be continually tweaked to sync up with changes in the platforms and the peculiarities of the many devices that run on them.

Internet-connected TVs and set tops are another matter. To be on Apple TV, Google TV, Roku and others, you need even more apps. And let’s not forget about YouTube and iTunes.

A world of no standards may be great for innovation, buts it’s hell on program producers.

We ran a story last September about how the weather data/graphics vendors and their broadcast customers are scrambling to create services for the proliferating platforms. In it, Tim DeFazio, the GM at Withers’ WDTV Clarksburg, W.Va., spoke for a lot of his peers.

DeFazio said he was providing AccuWeather’s three-screen CinemaLive service because he felt it was important to extend the station brand onto the new platforms, but he also admitted he was uncertain about the prospects.

“I think we are flying blind here,” he said. “Are we expecting to make a lot of money out of this?  No. But I think we will pick up some revenue. But for me to tell you how much, I’d be lying to you if I said I knew.”

At the TVB conference in New York that same month, Shelly Palmer, who tracks the new media world as well as anybody I know, scolded traditional media executives as he moderated a panel for not investing more time in understanding the new media.

The attitude he gets from traditional media execs is “IBG-YGB” — that is, “I’ll be gone, you’ll be gone” before any of us really has to deal with the new media.

He begged the execs to personally get involved with the new media.

Well, Shelly, they might if they could. But if they actually tried to grasp the new media, they wouldn’t have much time for the old media. They have stations to run and that’s not as easy as it used to be, what with the new media shattering audiences into a million pieces.

One of Shelly’s TVB panelists, Gordon Borrell, was a bit more helpful. Borrell, who tracks local online and mobile spending, said that the executives have to pick their fights. “Be wise about the one you select and wise about the ones you’re trimming back.”

Borrell was less helpful when he touted his latest research that finds that advertising on mobile apps will explode over the next five years, growing from $305 million to $8 billion. Such research only raises the anxiety level of traditional media folk. It makes them fear they are going to be missing out if they don’t move fast.

Continued on page 2…
Edit Article

Tags

Comments (5) -

William Nickname posted a year ago
|
We, as an industry, have to adopt more of the mindset of the IT and Internet behemoths that succeed in these areas - as Michael C. Gilbert puts it, "Fail Faster." The answer to all of this overload is to roll WITH it, not try to buck it. But, to do that, the companies that we work for and manage must be willing to Fail Faster - that is, be willing to roll out an idea, put 110% effort behind it, recognize, quickly, whether it's going to work or not, and if not, give it the hook and move on. In one way, we've been doing this for years - cancelling new shows after "n" episdoes when it becomes clear that they're going to be dogs. What's happened in recent years, however, with a number of our ever more calcified, corporate, Wall Street appeasing companies is that we hold on to new ideas for far, far too long when they don't work. We spend too much time putting time, effort, energy and money in to things that aren't working, constantly applying CPR long after the patient id dead. Its time that we embrace the philosophy that's made companies like Google and Apple and Facebook kings - work hard, fail fast, keep moving.
Harry Jessell posted a year ago
|
You're correct, of course. The broadcasters' only real choice is to "roll with it." But we can dream. A moratorium would be nice.
Terry Heaton posted a year ago
|
Hilarious, Harry. Thanks for the holiday cheer.
Herbert Miller posted a year ago
|
Amen Harry.
Bullmoose Nickname posted a year ago
|
Harry tells it as it is! Right on, Harry! Let's take a deep breath.

Today's Top Stories

Classifieds

The Market

Symbol Last Change (%)
Nasdaq 2933.17 -15.40 (-0.52%)
NYSE 8094.39 +0.00 (+0.00)
S&P 500 1357.66 -4.55 (-0.33%)
Updated 02/22 7:53p ET Quotes delayed at least 20 mins.
Source: Financial Content

Ratings

Overnights, adults 18-49 for February 21, 2012
  • 1.
    2.9/8
  • 2.
    2.8/7
  • 3.
    2.1/5
  • 4.
    1.7/4
  • 5.
    1.4/4
  • 6.
    0.5/1
Source: Nielsen
Reviews
Opinions
Features
  • Hank Stuever

    Clinton, a four-hour PBS American Experience documentary, is an honest but sometimes tediously predictable exercise in the further Wikipedia-ing and storage-packing of those years. Whether intentional or subliminal, the film conveys the obvious and completely mortal recognition of time's inevitable passage, but not much else.

  • David Knowles

    Nancy Buriski's HBO documentary The Loving Story chronicles the lives of Richard and Mildred Loving, the interracial couple whose court case brought down the last remaining miscegenation laws in the United States. The Loving Story is a perfect time capsule that illuminates the racist past of our country with a uniquely personal and poignant emphasis. It's a film that will continue to be enjoyed whether viewed on Valentine's Day, during Black History Month or any other time of year.

  • Neil Genzlinger

    Smash, NBC’s series about backstage Broadway, comes with New York and Hollywood names off screen (Steven Spielberg, Therese Rebeck) and on (Debra Messing and Brian d’Arcy James). Given that pedigree, you’re expecting to be bowled over by the pilot, but it ends up feeling like a collage of devices from the zillions of previous backstage plays, musicals and movies. However, be patient — Smash gets better as it goes along and by Episode 3 it shows signs of becoming an addictive pleasure along the lines of this season’s Revenge.

  • Lori Rackl

    Pop some Dramamine before watching ABC's new horror series, The River, because the shaky camera work is more likely to make you seasick than scared. You can, however, skip the sleeping pill. The River's two-hour premiere should suffice. Billed as a thriller, the show tries hard to be terrifying and eerie in a Paranormal Activity kind of way. It ends up being hokey and, even worse, boring.

  • Robert Lloyd

    Keegan-Michael Key and Jordan Peele, veterans of Fox's sketch comedy MADtv, have a new series of their own, Comedy Central's Key & Peele. It is a genial, at times almost genteel, half-hour in which the pair's obvious niceness shines through even their more pugnacious characters. (Key's version of road rage is to shout, "Selfish!") In a roundabout way, that's the point. The sketches are consistently smart and smartly acted and flow easily from ordinary premises to weird conclusions.

This advertisement will close automatically in  second(s). You will see this ad no more than once a day. Skip ad