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It seems that cable companies are finally getting tired of competing with all the free TV shows that are streaming over the Internet. According to an article in AdAge.com, Time Warner Cable’s CEO Glenn Britt said that they do care when TV networks put their full-length content online and essentially bypass cable TV.

This is a fight that’s been a long time coming. Hollywood studios and networks are finally realizing that they want to reach the most number of people as possible and not be constrained by traditional broadcast TV models. For example HBO has hosted many full-length shows online, as have ABC (Desperate Housewives, Lost), NBC (Hereos) and others.

Studios are embracing this new “Hollywood 2.0″ mentality that they want wider options for their content, and different mediums rather than trying to keep everyone tuned into their TV sets. In fact, a Time Warner cable spokesperson said they are prepared to withhold some subscriber revenue from the networks.

“Our point of view is that there is a segment of our audience that is living more primarily online than they are living on other platforms,” said Erik Flannigan, exec VP-digital media of MTV Networks’ Entertainment Group. “As some of our actions have made clear, the consumer will have many places they want to consume content. As long as we’re putting forth that experience and getting the lion’s share of the advertising, everybody wins.”

I don’t think that it will come to that, however. Cable companies are scared, and are trying to say and do anything to make people understand that they feel threatened by the Internet. Broadcast TV is being threatened–by DVRs, Internet delivery and even DVDs. But any major change to the established broadcast cable TV systems won’t happen for many years.

Some cable providers, like Comcast, have embraced the Internet and have developed web properties (like FanCast.com). It seems that other TV providers will have to learn how to adapt in the face of the growing Internet menace.

[tags] FanCast, Comcast, Advertising, AdAge, Ad Age, Cable TV, cable [/tags]

You’ve probably seen it by now.

What looks like a commercial for a new TV show or movie, turns out to be a commercial for a line of HDTV sets from LG called Scarlet. (Check out the video below if you haven’t seen it already.)

It seems like it was a successful campaign, in that it garnered lots of press attention including a red-carpet fake premiere with (fake) celebrities and lots of mentions on the Internet.

However, I’m more interested in the fact that this is one of the first TVs that are branded. And it’s about time. Everything else around us has branded names. Think of cars (Toyota Avalon, Ford Taurus), MP3 players (iPod, Zune), cell phones (LG’s Chocolate, Motorola’s Razr or the iPhone)–heck even condoms have brand names (Trojan, Magnum). So it’s about time that TV sets are becoming brands that consumers can identify.

LG’s Scarlet line of sets don’t really push the bar as far as new or advanced features, it just has a good brand name. And the back of the TV is red, too. So it doesn’t take much beyond lots of advertising dollars, an online viral marketing campaign, and a new product to begin promoting a new brand.

Why aren’t other TV set manufacturer’s doing this? I mean, Sony, which came up with Walkman, and Vaio, should have a good TV brand. Panasonic does have the Viera line of TV sets, but it reminds me too much of Good Morning America’s Meredith Viera to really have a brand impact with me.

Having a name like Scarlet, also makes it easy for consumers to find reviews and prices on the Internet. You don’t have to remember that the Scarlet is product number AZTX-4208, for example. (I just made that up.) Just Google “Scarlet” and TV and up comes results to help you shop and compare.

Brands. It’s what people want. People share with others what brand their new cell phone is. And consumer electronic manufacturers should realize that people want to show off their new HDTVs also. And let’s include DVRs also. Tivo has done pretty well as the top brand of DVRs, but distinguishing different product lines is kind of tricky. Tivo’s Series 2, or Series 3 DVRs are boring names. Why not the Tivo Magum? Or um, something like that.

[tags] Tivo, LG, Scarlet, branding, advertising, HDTV, TV [/tags]

DVRs are still a novelty to many people and it’s always interesting to see new users learn about DVR etiquette. At the Wall Street Journal, Jason Fry wrote about discovering the classic DVR faux pas: Revealing Facts About TV Shows Without Asking If They Recorded It. Fry says he revealed the final play of an exciting March Madness game to a friend. Oops!

He says he is discovering that not everyone is tuning into TV like they used to. “Today my TV is not your TV, and you can never assume the same people are watching the same thing at the same time or in the same way,” he writes.

No, TV is personal just like computers. Or cell phones. Or iPods.

But personal TV gets difficult to manage when there is more than 1 person watching. Do the kids watch their shows? Do you watch The latest UFC fight? Or let your wife tune into “Masterpiece” to catch the Jane Austen movies? Or perhaps sit together and watch “American Idol”?

The answer is whole home DVR, where every TV has its own DVR. Or at least access to the central DVR sitting in the living room.

According to a survey from BIGresearch, people often multi-task during commercial TV breaks.

Channel surfing is the the most popular activity during TV commercials with 41.2% doing so followed by talking with others in the room or by phone (33.5%), and mentally tuning out ads (30.2%).

Interestingly just 5.5% said they regularly fully pay attention to commercials. That’s got to hurt any advertisers out there. And the survey didn’t even take into account DVR users, who may routinely skip through commercials. Wonder how many of us DVR users usually pay attention to commercials. I sometimes catch an interesting snippet of a commercial and rewind to watch one. But that does not happen very often. The ad must look very engaging or weird for me to think it’s worthy to watch.

What happens when there are no commercials? How do people with DVRs multi-task when they skip commercials? Most likely they have to create their own breaks (bathroom, phone calls, smoking, laundry, cooking, etc.) whenever they can. As an avid skipper of commercials, I can go hours without taking a break from watching TV.

And when is a good time to stop? During actual commercial breaks or do you just pause it whenever? I do both.

The survey also found that eating is the number one activity people do while using media followed by doing housework, doing laundry, cooking and talking on phone. Now that’s all media like radio, TV and Internet.

[tags] DVR, advertising, survey, research [/tags]

A report from Deloitte & Touche says that 38% of Americans are watching TV shows online. A previous study conducted just 8 months ago found that 23% watched shows on the Internet.

About 54 percent said they are creating their own online content such as photos, videos or music. Most of these are for others to see. In fact, 32 percent said they consider themselves to be “broadcasters” of their own media.

Additionally:

• 54 percent socialize via social networking sites, chat rooms or message boards,
• 36 percent said they use their cell phones as entertainment devices. Just eight months ago, 24% said they did so meaning that usage has grown over 50 percent. Most are using digital cameras, text messaging, and games on their phones.
• 45 percent are creating online content like Web sites, music, videos and blogs
• 20 percent view videos on their cell phones daily or almost daily
• 45 percent maintain a profile on a social networking site.
• 85 percent still find TV advertising to have the most impact on their buying

[Press release here]

[tags] research, analysis, Deloitte & Touche, TV, advertising, mobile, mobile media, social networking,  content creators [/tags]

The New York Times has a story about how Tivo is finally making in-roads with advertisers, after many were initially mad at the company since it allowed viewers to fast-forward through ads.

In recent years, Tivo has been moving away from being a technology company that had to deal with hardware and subscriptions into a media/ratings company that is dealing with services.

How has it made this change?

• Creating a DVR Ratings Service. Its recently unveiled Stop|Watch service allows advertisers to track “second by second” movements by DVR viewers. This gives a more accurate count of who’s watching ads, how many people skip ads, most popular Season Pass shows and other top-rated shows. Tivo says its DVR ratings service has a larger panel than Nielsen’s (20,00 vs. 3,000).  NBC recently became a subscriber.

• Partnering with Advertisers. Rather than becoming enemies with advertisers, Tivo has grown into a media partner, giving them new ways to promote their products to their users.

• Creating New, Effective and Creative Ad Solutions. Because Tivo breaks new ground, it must also change how it advertises. As such it has created numerous new advertising buys including:

1. End of Show Text Ads. When a show ends, viewers are shown a short one line ad about a new show that they might want to watch. Or some other product that comes with a pre-downloaded video that viewers can watch for more information.
2. Thumbs Up/Record From Commercial. If you happen to watch (or fast forward through) commercials, you can see a thumbs up icon pasted on top of the screen. This allows viewers to hit their Thumbs Up button on their Tivo remote and record a show that’s being advertised.
3. Featured on Now Playing Screen. Sometimes ads appear just on the Now Playing menu, which is the menu that users go when they want to view their pre-recorded TV shows. A text ad sits on the bottom of the menu. If a viewer clicks on it, they are taken to an action screen with more information and possible a video/commercial to watch.

The Times story also said that things are looking up for Tivo in other ways. The lawsuit against EchoStar is progressing in Tivo’s favor, which may add substantial revenue if it finally gets the $90 million it was awarded (but is still in appeal).

Which means Tivo my soon be in a better place financially:

According to Tony Wible, an analyst with Citigroup, television networks now “have to embrace DVR advertising, and TiVo is a leader there.” He added that “the NBC deal adds a lot of credibility to that business, which I think could be as big or bigger as the current DVR business today.” He predicted that TiVo could start to break even in its quarterly earnings within a year.

It’s no surprise. Time shifting is for the young. A study by the Nielsen company found that younger adult TV viewers are 2.5 times more likely to timeshift than older viewers.

In fact, 50% of older viewers said would “do nothing or wait for reruns” for shows they missed. Do nothing? Do they not care about the latest Lost or Heroes episodes?

And think about it. Reruns? How often do you keep track of reruns and when they might come back on the air? Nobody likes reruns, unless you happen to miss an episode? And unless you’re some sort of fanatic (or a younger TV viewer) you’ll probably be OK with missing a show.

In fact, reruns are dying. They’re being replaced by DVRs, iTunes/iPods, Start Over on-demand features on cable and streaming via the Internet.

It’s almost as if the TV networks don’t really care about repeats, since they are putting recently aired shows on the Internet for free. Or by paid download via iTunes (or even NetFlix, which is where I go to catch up on Heroes).

Anyway, younger viewers are more hip to technology, have more time to waste hunting down their favorite shows and have grown up with online TV viewing.

The study also found that 50% went to ABC.com more than any other TV site when looking for catching up on shows. NBC.com and CBS.com were next.

Bonus: Nielsen’s PDF of the Study Results.

With the growing number of people using DVRs–about 20% in the U.S.–it’s not surprising that advertisers are worried that TV viewers won’t watch their ads. In the last few years, advertisers have dreamt up a number of different tactics in order to entice viewers into watching, rather than fast forwarding, their ads. For example:

Superimposed Ads. Tivo started a campaign where they would paste a superimposed ad over an ad that was being fast-forwarded. The result was that you could clearly see the superimposed text ad, while fast forwarding through all the action. Tivo subscribers, however, reacted negatively to this, probably because they felt they were paying Tivo a monthly fee for avoiding advertising and having TV their way. After trying this in early January 2007, Tivo has stopped this practice. But who knows it may come back.

One Static Image. Some advertisers are targeting fast-forwarding DVR users directly by airing commercials that feature just one static image for 30 seconds. Fox did this in 2006 by creating an ad that just had the show logo on the screen (for fast forwarders) as well as people talking in the background (for those who actually watch commercials).

Subliminal Ads. Okay, they’re not really subliminal commercials (that went out in the 70’s allegedly) but they’re ads that flash really quick messages, that only fast forwarders can view. Viewed at normal speed, the images flash very quickly and don’t interrupt the commercial. Viewed while fast forwarding and the commercial is supposed to evoke curiosity and make viewers pay attention.

On-Screen Animated Ads. Many TV networks avoid any tricks during the commercial breaks and do them during a show. Networks do screen animations for future shows while a show is in progress. Sure it’s annoying and distracting, but I think this works the best of all because it catches viewers when they have their full attention–during the actual program.

Hybrid Ads or Content Wraps. These ads look like the show you’re watching, such the name content wraps. But they’re just clever ads. In a recent Mythbusters show there was a short content wrap showing an animated character asking another whether it was true that Guinness beer only had 125 calories. Another character verified this “myth” and a voice over came on saying it was “brought to you by Guinness”. Yes, this is awkward for both viewers and the actors/characters. It’s somewhat dishonest, in that you think you’re watching the show and you’re suddenly in the middle of a sales pitch. It’s a shocking moment that manages to break the spell and magic of TV viewing.

View the Guinness/Mythbuster clip here:

Best Week Ever did one a few weeks ago. It was a commercial for–Uh, I don’t even remember!–that featured some of the Best Week Ever performers/comedians and appeared right before the show went to the commercial break. It was effective to me because I love the show and the comedians and thought this was part of the show, not another lame commercials. But ultimately it was ineffective in getting me to remember what they were advertising.

Interestingly, viewers that saw the Guinness ad on Mythbusters remembered the Guinness brand 41% more often than a traditional Guinness ad. A research company called IAG did an evaluation of 1,000 hybrid ads and found that they generated a 30% higher brand recall than traditional ads for the same product.

In fact reality shows are one of the top places where you can find in-show product tie-ins. Shows like America’s Next Top Model, Top Chef, Survivor frequently feature products during the show–like hair care products, new frozen food dishes and cars. These advertisers not only get plus during the show, but also have buys for 30-second spots.

In fact, IAG said the highest-scoring hybrid ad was during America’s Next Top Model, which featured Herbal Essences hair product, with over 40% of people were able to recall the name of the brand compared to 28% viewing the regular ad.

Experts say ads of these types will grow especially as the usage of DVRs increase.

A Reuters story says that TV viewership will grow faster than Internet video through 2012. Consulting company Bain and Co. said that viewers in the U.S. viewers will spend nearly two more hours per week watching television on average will spend fueled mostly by VOD and DVR usage.

Meanwhile, Internet use at home will rise by “less than half an hour per week.”

David Sanderson, a consultant at Bain said that this is sobering for TV networks since they’re spending lots of money on Internet initiatives, like Hulu, NBC Direct and TheDaiyShow.com, for example. He noted that there are technology and capacity constraints right now, as well as revenue models, when it comes to Internet video.

According to a new survey, over 80 percent of media and entertainment executives said that broadcast and Internet video content owners should employ tracking, monitoring and measurement of their content. More surprisingly, 55% said they would favor eliminating digital rights management and using watermarking technologies.

Get rid of DRM? Hollywood and media execs? Is it possible that media execs hate DRM as much as consumers? Yes, because execs are people too. They are stymied by iTunes DRM as much as anyone is.

At the same time, they’re working for content owners that need to protect their assets otherwise they don’t get paid and lose their jobs. Earlier this year even Steve Jobs admitted recently that DRM had to go. Additionally, the head of Yahoo Music agreed it would be best if DRM were gone.

Bonus Tidbit: One interesting results. Just 40% of entertainment exec said they supported Viacom’s $1 billion lawsuit against YouTube/Google.

[Via Hollywood Reporter]

[tags] Hollywood, TV, networks, Internet video, YouTube, DRM, Steve Jobs [/tags]