Tuesday 13 March 2012

Youtube, Mashable, The death of TV and Henry Ford's horse


This is Pete Cashmore of mashable.com which he founded in 2005 at 19, in Aberdeen. If the online rumours are true, he's likely to be selling to CNN for 200 million US dollars this week. If.


Mashable started as a blog, like this.
But the interesting bit is that it's CNN.


Because what we're seeing is the massive change in TV and potentially its death (as we know it) due to online and social media. What's happening is that the audience has shifted and terrestrial traditonal TV broadcasters have seen their audiences depart.


The growth of broadcasters iplayers signify the high level of viewers preferring to watch online and not, as they'll tell you, the popularity of their broadcasts.
That view that it's an example of popularity, is the fundamental mistake of the decade. I've seen data produced by traditional broadcasters that actually shows TV viewing is increasing. It's not, viewing through iplayers is because it's all we've got just for the minute.


The growth of Netflix (reported to have 229,000 Irish viewers after a 4 month launch) signifies that viewers are saying yes to a service that's ONLY available on Smartphones + Tablets. You can't get Netflix through traditional TV. Just think about that? a quarter of a million people think it's okay to buy a video service that they can't see on TV.



And you will never buy another TV again - you'll buy an internet ready TV - now think why?


Equally Jeff Bezo's Amazonian Love Film is doing the same. And live streaming brings events to you as they happen which a broadcaster can't do because of their scheduling.


So what are broadcasters doing about it?


Well not unlike Newspaper publishers, they're simply reposting their content online which is exactly the wrong thing to do - as Newspapers have discovered (see my other post here "difficult times"). Lessons have not been learnt.


UK Channel 4s launch this week of online service '4seven' is at least an attempt to do something different and more Social Media savy.


But they're all missing the point.
And forgive me, it's not that I'm against traditional broadcasters, having spent a life making TV commercials, it's just that I think they need to think to preserve themselves.






YouTube is the winner here and with 4 billion hits a day (as per The Sunday Times), its rollout of 100 pro-channels will be the winner. Originally started in 2005 as a sharing site for home videos, some still think it is. Dancing babies and office spoofs. Not any more.


Bought by Google in 2006 for 1.65 billion USD, it understands that the web is distribution. I remember that acquisition being ridiculed at the time....


Youtube uses niche interests overlooked by traditional TV.


One of the stations is a news channel from WSJ (print becoming TV?) and a music channel by Vice Magazine. Another is the legend Charlie McDonnell (Charlieissocoollike) set up in 2007 with some videos getting 200m dowloads and he's generated enough through advertising to buy himself a house.


Wifi at home enables us to view this kind of Television and not the stuff that broadcasters try to push to us at a time that suits them. It spells the end and a new era of broadcasting.


Broadcasters need to stop and think. Doing just what they've been doing but simply doing it online, will not be enough. Imagination and innovation by definition, requires you to think completely new.


When they asked Henry Ford should he not have researched the need for his invention he laughed. "No", he said, "they'd just have told me to build a better horse".

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