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Wired article: "The Fast-Forward, On-Demand, Network-Smashing Future of Television"
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Posted by: dmdeane

I haven't seen this posted yet, after doing a search, so here goes; the article is five web pages long so I won't try to post all of it:

http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/11.10/tv.html

quote:
Issue 11.10 - October 2003 Pg 1 of 5 >>
Print, email, or fax
this article for free.

The Fast-Forward, On-Demand, Network-Smashing Future of Television

What happens when digital video recorders give viewers control of the TV schedule, the content, and the ads? The whole world is watching.

By Frank Rose

PLUS:
Just-in-Time Prime Time
TiVo’s Turning Point
It all started with the VCR. In 1975, when Sony introduced the notion of "time shift," as cofounder Akio Morita dubbed it, television was a staid and profitable business controlled by three national broadcast networks. All in the Family, the number-one show, was watched in 30 percent of American homes. Cable was something you got for better reception. The big question facing the industry was whether Happy Days would propel ABC to the top. (It did.)

This year's top series, CSI, was on in just 16 percent of households. The three broadcast networks are now six, most of them struggling to make a profit. More than 300 additional channels are available through digital cable and satellite. And time-shifting has progressed to the point that millions of viewers rely not on a VCR but on a digital video recorder, which makes it easy to find anything on those hundreds of channels and watch it anytime while fast-forwarding through the ads. The revolution that started in analog is now exploding in digital, and suddenly everything about television is up for grabs - the way we watch it and the ads that pay for it, the kinds of programs we get and the future of the networks that carry them.

The DVR, pioneered in the late '90s by TiVo, is the linchpin. It's taking hold at the same time that digital compression - which multiplies tenfold the number of signals a slice of bandwidth can carry - is enabling cable and satellite providers to pump out channels targeted to narrowly defined audiences. Throw in electronic programming guides - search functions that essentially let you Google your TV - and the implications for Hollywood are, as one exec puts it, "cataclysmic." Technology is empowering the couch potato. The fundamental premise of traditional broadcasting is its ability to control the viewer - to deliver tens of millions of eyeballs to advertisers and to direct those eyeballs from prime time all the way to late night. That control has been eroding ever since the advent of the VCR, but now it's being blasted away entirely.

As is usually the case, the revolution has not proceeded as forecast. Digital broadcasting is still stalled, and high-definition TV along with it. Although TiVo engendered panic in the industry after it appeared, it's proved a hard sell with consumers as a stand-alone device (see "TiVo's Turning Point," page 5). Forrester discovered last year that 70 percent of consumers didn't even know what a DVR was.

Around the same time, satellite companies started building DVRs into their set-top boxes - and sales finally started to take off. In the growing competition between cable and satellite, DVRs have become bait to lure subscribers. When cable providers started pushing video-on-demand, satellite companies - unable to deliver on-demand service - countered with DVRs. They've become so popular that cable operators like Time Warner and Comcast are now offering the systems as well. In the past year, the number of DVR-equipped households has more than doubled to 4 million. Forrester projects that in three years, 27 percent of US homes will have DVRs and one-third will have video-on-demand. Either way, control shifts from the networks to the viewer.

Posted by: Nightfall

Wow, long story.

I have had my Tivo for only a week so don't flame me or anything. I am just uncovering the power of this great tool and I use it everyday to watch television. No longer do I schedule my time around the TV schedule. I find this great because I like to watch TV, but I missed the shows that mattered to me most. Now, I watch all the shows I love to watch and it works out great. Commercial 30-second skip is also my friend. :)

Is Tivo in trouble from competition? You bet it is. Tivo will have to continue to evolve. HMO is just one step. Sharing programs between the Tivos in your house is something I wish I could do on my Diretivo system (HINT HINT Directv!). In any case, the improvements have to keep coming and Tivo isn't sitting in neutral. I don't see them dying in the near future.

Posted by: RMBittner

quote:
Originally posted by dmdeane
I haven't seen this posted yet, after doing a search, so here goes; the article is five web pages long so I won't try to post all of it:

Actually, posting all of it -- even a third of it -- would be copyright infringement.

As someone who makes his living selling his words -- and battling infringement of his copyrights -- I'd love to see folks rely *solely* on links in situations like this.

Bob

Posted by: dmdeane

quote:
Originally posted by RMBittner
Actually, posting all of it -- even a third of it -- would be copyright infringement.

As someone who makes his living selling his words -- and battling infringement of his copyrights -- I'd love to see folks rely *solely* on links in situations like this.

Bob

Oh, dear God. Give it a rest.

It's this mentality that ruined colleges and universities that used to be able to make "fair use" photocopies of scholarly articles so that we could all have our own copy, rather than have 120 students all share the same copy of an obscure book or article from the "reserved" section of the school library. Thanks to the attack-dog lawyers who started to be sicked on universities during the 1980's, we lost this convenience, and in turn the intellectual "property" owners got....absolutely nothing, since this wasn't a commercial use to begin with, but rather a scholarly use.

The logical end of this trend is a situation where public libraries are banned and no one can read or watch anything without paying for the priviledge. Everything will be privately owned, and we will have no common culture or public domain. Might as well "privatize" the English language, right down to every "is", "and" and "the".

It's fair use to post news stories for discussion. I posted the damn link to the article. No one's copyrights are being violated.

Posted by: freddyf

My favorite paragraph was:

quote:
Marty Yudkovitz argues that DVRs - make that TiVo - can help television programmers as well as advertisers. "Programmers want to know not only who's watching, but where they came from and where they're going," he says. TiVo can tell them what the patterns are. It can also program a message to appear touting, say, next week's guest star on Will & Grace while you're watching an earlier episode. "It's a very powerful place to be," he maintains.

So, to those crying about how the networks put the animated ads over the shows, Tivo would like to do the same.

Posted by: d_anders

Per the copyright discussion,

If given the time, one is best to write an abstract of the article, and then post a link to the full one.

I understand the argument for fair use, etc., and for classrooms, etc., when paper copies are needed, I can understand the argument.

However, given the hypertext nature of the web and this forum, a simple abstract (and state it as such) and link the full article is more than sufficient. I've seen posted articles on here before where people have changed wording and text or cut whole paragraphs (thus, changing possible context)...

Posted by: Frylock

d_anders, you have got to be kidding me... I appreciate it when people post the link to the article, and the whole article. Why do I want to read their abstract of it? I'd rather read the whole article, an article mind you I might not have otherwise read. What is the author losing by having this article posted here, while being referenced? Absolutely nothing. What are they gaining? Exposure for their writing. Isn't that the whole point?

Posted by: willardcpa

If you click the link and look to the far right you see "Print, email, or fax
this article for free." So isn't this their way of "releasing" folks from the copyright issue? I mean they are setting up a conduit to make copies and dessimate the article, so they must not have the document strictly copyrighted.

Posted by: Krellis

quote:
Originally posted by willardcpa
If you click the link and look to the far right you see "Print, email, or fax
this article for free." So isn't this their way of "releasing" folks from the copyright issue? I mean they are setting up a conduit to make copies and dessimate the article, so they must not have the document strictly copyrighted.

No. If anything that's a limited release, for those specific uses. It doesn't mean you can go around re-posting it. Sending it to a specific person via fax or e-mail, or printing it, are very different uses than a verbatim re-posting.

And this conversation is WAY off-topic for these boards, we should really keep the discussion to TiVo. The content of the article, not the legalities and not of it being posted the way it was.

Posted by: RMBittner

quote:
Originally posted by dmdeane
Oh, dear God. Give it a rest.

Hmm. I didn't post this to start an argument. In fact, I was *thanking* you for posting a link and *not* violating copyright.

Bob

Posted by: jsmeeker

quote:
Originally posted by Krellis
And this conversation is WAY off-topic for these boards, we should really keep the discussion to TiVo. The content of the article, not the legalities and not of it being posted the way it was.

That's what the Happy Hour is for. :)

Posted by: mattack

quote:
Originally posted by dmdeane
It's fair use to post news stories for discussion. I posted the damn link to the article. No one's copyrights are being violated.

Your legal basis for saying that is what?

Based upon other legal reviews, and the law itself, it is "fair use" to quote PORTIONS of a work for review and commentary.

It's not fair use to copy an entire article. Why not JUST post the link and make people go read the original article themselves?

(BTW, I too thought that the "email, fax" mention at the beginning might be an out -- but then they specifically did NOT say you could repost it on other web sites.)

Posted by: Jeeters

Boy, this article was excellent discussion fodder, but unfortunately it crashed and burned in the hell of copyright debate.