Democracy coming to a TV near you(?)
Had a bit of banter with the good folks in the Advertising Dept. today about a news story we forwarded from Yahoo! News.

Broadcasters' woes could spell trouble for free TV - Yahoo! News

The article basically sketched out the demise of "free TV" from the American landscape, more or less. While you'd think that a PR group would find that a BAD thing for PR business (we'll get to that in a minute), we rather liked the concept from the consumer point of view.

Before you think, "How am I going to afford my TV if I have to PAY for everything on it ...?," take heart. Before things get to that point, we predict another "age" of American TV will emerge: a true Free Market structure -- emphasis being the uppercase "F" and "M." True, we'll be paying cable or satellite fees to get the programming, but coming days the power will move away from the service provider to the service consumer.

We think we'll soon be able to select cable TV programming "a la carte." No more of this "Standard Cable" or "Tier Two" or "Deluxe Level III," etc., as defined by the cable or service provider.

This will make Advertising and PR people MORE important because it'll break people down into more defined media consumers and we'll be in a position to recommend what "types" of people to buy (or influence) and more efficiently be able to target where they are with our client's messages (or news). Eventually someone will find a new use for "free" over-the-airwaves frequencies and the people with just their metal fillings will be able to pick up the broadcasts.

As Rod Serling used to say, "... imagine if you will ..." tomorrow's TV marketplace much like mobile phone plans are today: an a la carte menu of programming and bells and whistles that the consumer selects based on how they use the media. YOU would get to select what you/your family want -- and more importantly what you DON'T want. Have you ever considered all those stations that you click through en route to your desired or "favorite" station? By virtue of your monthly bill, you are paying for those unwatched "misfit" channels.

For this convenience (soon to be a "right") the providers will lock you into a contract for a specific period (but nothing approaching the bad old phone days of 1-to-3 years). Some sort of requirement will have to be instituted if nothing else to help standardize media buys (remember, this is still advertiser supported "free" TV). At this point, you would be yet paying for the service plus underwriting some of the programing.

There will probably be a minimum channel selection you'll have to make to justify running a cable line to you, and you might have to pay for installations and/or service calls.

For example, we'd select "sports": All ESPNs, or all Network sports feeds; or ideally just the sports we wanted -- say, golf, all season college and pro football and March Madness(tm), but no pro basketball, or baseball -- and sure as hell no soccer. Other people will get MMA + WWE + NASCAR, while still others will simply go with "all sports."

How about "the News"? Will it be Fox News, PBS Newshour, or one of the Networks? Does one keep CBS if for only "60 Minutes" and drop CNN (as viewers are today in droves?). MSNBC anyone? Anyone? Anyone?

We could see where the government might require consumers to receive the local channels or at least local news, plus the local city/municipal government channels, and probably C-Span. PBS would lobby hard to be included here too no doubt, but we think the large yellow Bird, a certain purple Dinosaur, a little blue Train and several rotund multicolored aliens could do much better on their own channel.

The world will see what the viewing public really thinks when consumers start paying for things and NOT paying for others. People will vote their preferences via their pocketbooks, which is real consumer power, real democracy and choice.

Mixing our metaphors, the cream will rise and the chaff will float away. If people really want to watch Bill Moyers or Bill O'Reilly, Tavis Smiley or Travis Tritt, perky Katie or doughty Diane, they'll have to select them for viewing. After all, people paid to see "The Sopranos" on HBO and the result was the best TV drama ever.

May the most popular programming win.
- posted by MediaObserver @ 2:20 PM