[Josh] Earlier this year the UPN and The WB collapsed into the CW. Now the Journal is reporting that NBC will abandon high-priced dramas and comedies in the 8:00 hour and concentrate on lower-cost shows like "Deal Or No Deal."
What's going on here? In a weak market, the weakest get picked off. The weakest networks this year were UPN, WB, and NBC.
Is this the end of broadcast television? No. But if you look a the pyramid below, you can see what's happening. The top of the pyramid is getting narrower -- fewer big audience hits. And the bottom is getting broader -- more videos on YouTube and its brethren. The real problem happens next -- in this big morass, how do you find what you're looking for? And how much of the bottom is fed off copyrighted snippets from the top?
Would love your comments, as always.
I think that despite the proliferation of the longtail, there is still quite a few ways that television can benefit from utilizing the distribution power of the internet to promote short head content.
If you use YouTube as a classic example, it's interesting to note that the Colbert report makes the most popular page almost every single day. In part this is because it appeals to the demographic, but it's also in part because so many people see the show already and want to share their favorite parts. While the long tail is a threat to those with the most concentrated power at the top, I think that there are many programs that will benefit tremendously, if they can move past the walled garden approach.
One way that I think that we could see this happen would be for a channel like CNBC, which receives limited viewership to start cutting up their programing into segments and letting the financial bloggers embed them in their site.
While the general public really isn't all that intersted in seeing Wall St. unfold during the day, if you happened to own a small company and the CEO was on, you would be very interested in seeing that clip. By contributing to the clip culture, CNBC could expand their reach beyond financial professionals and by leveraging the bloggers, they could gain a significant new distribution channel for their programming. If someone did see commentary on Apple or Google, they might be even more incentivized to tune into the programming live or at the very least may be willing to sit through a lucrative pre-roll ad, if the subject matter appealed to the niche they were most interested in.
While NBC, CBS and ABC may end up facing challenges over viewers moving online, I think that if they can figure out how to better target the longtail, then they could see significant gains in viewship as a result. It's sad to see high quality television replaced by such garbage as Deal or No Deal, but perhaps the days of the megahit top shows are coming to an end and it will really be the shows in the middle of the pyramid that benefit the most as a result.
Posted by: Davis Freeberg | October 20, 2006 at 03:57 PM