Anymore I have a very hard time sitting down and watching television. Not because I do not like to sit and watch the tube, but because so much of what is on is just flat out bad. The writing, the character development, etc. is just poor. What I like to watch is not on when I want to watch it.
Enter wireless broadband connectivity and a laptop. Aaahhhhh relief.
Recent research pointed out that those that spend any significant time at all on video based sites like YouTube spend considerably less time watching television. Not really a shocking find, but interesting none the less.
Back to Grey's Anatomy. My lovely wife Beth likes to watch that show. I like to end my day relaxing with her, but I despise that show. Herein lies the problem. That is until I hooked up the wireless broadband in the house. Now she can watch that crappy show and I can get on the laptop and get work done, surf the web and actually find content that I enjoy. Maybe create a new post to this old blog. If Beth was not into that show the TV would probably be off and we would both be laughing at some clip that I found online.
The moral of this long story is this - research or no research, with wireless broadband I can get what I want, where I want when I want. It is that straight forward. Any company that wants to sell me something listen up. I am spending increasingly less time in front of the tube and more time online. I like interacting with content and people when I am online. Does this mean quit your TV spots? No, but it does suggest you might want to start understanding how you can diversify your media budget to accommodate tomorrow's audience. It means fundementally the way we communicate and engage with communication is changing. My behavior is driving the change based on content that I like to gather, watch and interact with. It is approaching critical mass and is the future. Media companies you can keep creating "Grey's Anatomy", keep writing more bizarre plot lines that are so ridiculous that they mirror 1970's psychodelic b-movies except everyone is in scrubs, keep adding more suggestive scenes, murder, sex, hot chicks and hunky guys (this seems to be the standard network formula for getting attempting to get a bigger audience) but you will still keep losing your audience.
People, even if they like your shows, will continue to gravitate to a model that allows them to do things on their schedule, without interruptions, that gives them the chance to become a participant. Relevancy and timeliness are more paramount now than ever before. Freedom should not be discounted in this country - even as it relates to consuming media.
I will end here. In the next couple of posts I will start getting into some basic step by step approaches to creating future-focused communication. There are so many opportunities with new media it can be overwhelming. But if we all understand a few basic ground rules, it becomes easer to figure out what can work for you.
2 comments:
I recently discovered an app called "Democracy" by http://participatoryculture.org/ and I must say that I watch video now more on my MacBookPro than on television.
So much so that I went and bought a nice TV Dinner table... not for TV Dinners, but for my laptop! :)
Sounds cool Doug. I will check it out. Thanks for visiting.
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