Global Video On Demand (part 1)

GVOD (Global Video on Demand): Audience-Driven Television and the Industry's Next Phase


A two-part lecture series by Dr. Abigail De Kosnik, an assistant professor at the University of California, Berkeley, in the Berkeley Center for New Media and the Department of Theater, Dance and Performance Studies.

The guest first introduced a reference, Amanda Lotz, The Television Will Be Revolutionized (NYU Press, 2007).
http://www.amazon.com/Television-Will-be-Revolutionized/dp/0814752209/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1237768716&sr=8-1

Dr. Abigail De Kosnik described the 3 phases of television:

• Network Era (Early 1950s - Mid 1980s)
• Multichannel Transition (Mid 1980s - Mid 2000s)
• Post Network Era (Mid 2000s - present)

Network Era is the phase of national broadcast televisions, such as ABC, NBC and CBS in the US. It's free to the audience and programs are paid by commercials.

Multichannel Transition is characterized by the improvement in technologies, such as the introduction of VCRs (video cassette recorders), remote controls, emerges of channels on cable / satellite TVs, examples are CNN, HBO, MTV, ESPN and a lot more.

Post Network Era can be described as 40% of Millennials (age 12-25) use 5 to 8 technologies such as laptop, cell phone, i pod along with conventional TV, sometime simultaneously at anytime of the day. However, 40% bloomers (age 45-64) stay with watching TV every evening only. However, for Millennails, TV viewing time has not dimished, despite expansion in time spent using the internet. *Base on a 2006 study cited by Anne Sweeney, President of Disney-ANC Television.

"The world as we knew it is over." Les Moonves, President of CBS Network (2003). Click the photo on the top of page.

New technologies let viewers choose among programs produced in any decade, produced by professional and amateurs, watch programs on demand, view programs on TV sets, computer screen or portable devices. Viewers are actively making selections, instead of passively waiting for whatever coming on next.

The additional mode of viewed television programs had moved from Broadcast to Broadband. The rise of YouTube and other online portals distribute new kinds of contents. Surprisingly, download availablity has not cannibilized the broadcast audience; there has been no audience loss in broadcating since advent of internet TV.

It is an interesting phenomenon, although Hong Kong has not quite fully developed the multichannel phase as in the US, subscription rate of cable TV is relatively low. The Post Network Era has arrived as we speak. As viewers are effectively using multiple devices to consume TV programming and spend more time viewing them. I am curious how much time would be reserved say for exercise or reading for the average Millennials.

And how does watching TV relate to "interactivity"? Since technologies allowed viewers to actively select what they are going to see in their limited time, audiences are accustomed to the increasing sense / power of control. Media in the form of publishing, such as broadcast TV or newspaper, are becoming venerable to obsoleteness. There are changes needed to be made.

How Television may evolve in the future? Would a culturally different city such as Hong Kong be different than the US? What revenues will the new Television bring and the difficulties faced by the television industry? Stay tuned for part 2...