They were discussing the topic of the future of TV on the online news today, as the Banff World TV Festival is going to discuss the future of television. I weighed in:"On the topic of advertising, the problem is quite straight forward. There are more choices for the advertising dollar now than ever before. So where a goods or services provider only had radio, print and TV advertising space to buy before, enter the web and mobile phone into the fray.
As more people flock online for their entertainment, advertisers find it harder to justify spending their dollars on the old, traditional mediums. This is why Canadian networks find themselves in the situation they are in, where they want the signal distributor (cable) to pony up their profits to make up for the disappearing dollars from advertising revenue. It's only going to get worse. The only demographic truly keeping TV afloat is the 50 year old plus crowd. The younger generation is quickly moving to whatever medium offers them more choices, more flexibility and more relevant content. Consider this: YouTube has seen more content added in two months than if the 3 major TV networks had released new content every day of every week, non-stop since 1948. Think about that for a moment.
TV's only hope for survival in the next decade is to offer their audience something the online and mobile services cannot. That's getting harder to do with each passing year."
1 comment:
I have noticed a dramatic change in the sponsors on one of my favorite network news programs. They are largely sponsored by the big pharmacies and it gets worse on the weekends. What next? Little blue pill advertisements? R
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