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Mark Gibbs

Can you go cold turkey with TV?

By Mark Gibbs on Wed, 11/23/05 - 11:54pm.

Could you live without your TV programs? I ask because it appears that the media owners, AKA the entertainment industry, are warming up to another round of trying to control what we do with the content they so kindly let us see.

An interesting article on Ars Technica, "Entertainment industry voicing threats against free portable content ", discusses how Hollywood has got its kinickers in a twist over TiVo's enabling TiVoToGo to transfer recorded shows to the PSP and video iPod.

Here's the issue: Let's say that the entertainment companies get their way and wind up enforcing serious constraints on how we can use their content -- that is to say, far more restrictive than we have today.

Would you be willing to boycott their shows? Could you go cold turkey and stop watching TV?

I wonder if consumers will just roll over and accept restrictions because we are truly a nation of lazy-assed couch potatoes or will we collectively show our disgust at the greed and arrogance of the entertainment companies and show them that we, the consumers, are more than just sheep to be fed whatever junk they care to give us on whatever terms they please.

I worry that we won't stand up and that worry is founded on the existence of a single channel: Fox. I recommend viewing the documentary "Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch's War on Journalism" which will show you that the impact of Fox's style of journalism has shaped how America thinks of news which, in turn, has a huge impact on how America thinks of entertainment.

My point? We apparently don't care as a society that we are being blatantly manipulated when it comes to the news. So, I fear, why would we care about entertainemnt? Sigh. 

TV Viewers Will Never Boycott

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By Scott Stanton (not verified) on Mon, 11/28/2005 - 6:51pm.

You don't just have to look at Fox for your answer - look at just about any television programming and you will see that the average TV viewer doesn't care what he or she is watching. It is all good as long as they don't have to think....

Re: TV Viewers Will Never Boycott

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By mgibbs (not verified) on Tue, 11/29/2005 - 11:48am.

I agree, a traditional boycott is unlikely because if you're going to veg out then what better than Medical Incredibles or the evening news -- at least you can take a "comfort break" in the commercials.

Perhaps TiVo and DVRs in general represent the first wave of boycotting because they demonstrate the irrelevance of the delivery format as far as consumers are concerned. On the other hand we've already seen TV viewing figures decline, a phenomenon that is attributed to the impact of the Internet on consumers. Perhaps the change will just come slowly and the TV networks will struggle and wither until a major network rethinks its strategy and re-invents itself.

Entertainment?

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By Ron Bellomo (not verified) on Tue, 11/29/2005 - 3:33pm.

The TV set has progressively become simply an advertisement machine. The so-called "content" or "programs" are just a lure to get us to watch ads for hours on end.

I would think that the industry would be glad that people would be willing to carry their programming around with them on their iPods. More chances to sell!

Personally, I could easily give up TV. I have plenty of other things to occupy my mind and use my time more productively.

Re: Entertainment?

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By mgibbs (not verified) on Tue, 11/29/2005 - 7:03pm.

Ah, this is a very interesting topic. The caution with which TV networks used to deploy ads when they started was due to their nervousness of being different from each other and using a monetizing method that had no history. So they had to be careful because if your channel showed more ads than the other channels there was a chance that people would stop watching.

Over the intervening years the networks have all incrementally increased the amount of time dedicated to advertising and like the (untrue) tale of the frog in boiling water we didn't notice -- at least not enough to stop watching (or being boiled).

What's happened is that the networks have refined their understanding of what entertains us and as shows become more “watchable” we're willing to trade off increased advertising time for increased entertainment value.

I suspect there is a constant involved like this:

          
   Xmax > A/E > Xmin
          

Where A = advertising ratio (total advertsing time divided by the show's run time) and E = entertainment value (the amount of money spent producing a show divided by the estimated audience).

In other words, as long as the ratio of advertising to entertainment is less than or equal to the constant X (a dimensionless value) then the network will put on the show because people will watch.

Take a show like Fear Factor: A is maybe about 0.3 (10 minutes commercials to 30 minutes total run time) and E about 0.004 (NBC pays around $800K per show and I've seen an audience of 18 million per show quoted) so X equals 75. If you increase ads by 1 minute X= 82.5, by 2 minutes X= 90. Make the audience 14.5 million and X=60.4. I’d guess that “successful” shows have an Xmax of 90 and an Xmin of 60.

Perhaps I should throw in advertising revenue per show somewhere in the formula …

Entertainment?

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By Ron Bellomo (not verified) on Thu, 12/01/2005 - 6:05pm.

I agree with your analysis.

For me, as A/E becomes closer to Xmax, viewing becomes less enjoyable.

I think advertising trends and quantities vary by geographic location. In the area where I live (Roswell, NM) there are some programs that have 5 minutes of commercials for every 5 - 7 minutes of program.

I don't know how many cars and prescriptions drugs can be sold to the American public, but I guess the big marketing giants are working hard to find out!

Going off TV cold turkey - we already did

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By Bob Spooner (not verified) on Thu, 12/01/2005 - 11:29am.

Shortly after the _first_ gulf war, my wife and I looked at the content and attitudes that TV was bringing into our home and decided that we could do without it. While there were some good programs, the advertizements made it impossible to eliminate what we were trying to avoid. Our oldest daughter asked if we could take the savings from the cable cost and put it into our stereo, and when we agreed, our other childeren were in favor of it also. We got rid of TV and I found that when I arrived home after work, instead of being glued to the TV, our kids were either playing a game, reading, or doing homework. We also found that they got along with each other better with no TV.

Given up TV long ago

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By Michael (not verified) on Wed, 12/07/2005 - 1:22pm.

We gave up TV seven years ago when our first son was born. It wasn't difficult at all! After a couple of weeks of forcing ourselves to read a book or play cards, we stopped noticing that we weren't watching our favorite shows. Since then we've only turned it on for things like the Olympics (with the help of a friend's TIVO).

Now I have no idea how people make the time for TV. I get my news on rss feeds. We do watch movies occasionally, but most often just have the stereo going with music.

I will tell you all, not that many of you will believe me, that the time you give up watching the boob-tube will double your available free time. We gave up an average of 10 hours a week in TV viewing and now spend nearly 18 hours doing things that we never did before we gave up TV.

Of course, we didn't have kids then, but we have convinced other families to try doing without TV and they have had similar 'results'.

Who cares what the content is? If you want entertainment, watch movies or buy the TV series on DVD after it gets published. If you want sports, you're pretty well screwed, but there are options on the 'net without as much advertisement manipulation. Anything else is freely available anywhere. If you care so much about watching a show so you can talk about it at work the next day, make a pact with your co-workers not to watch any of the shows, then purchase the DVDs and watch them all back to back over the course of a couple of weeks rather than the whole TV season!

One more thing - nobody that I know who has stopped watching TV (for any reason) has started again! I guess once you clear your mind you realize that TV is only about selling you stuff you don't need!

Good choice - cold turkey!

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