Aaron Huslage

Sit down at your TV and turn it on. Welcome to one of the most engrained behavioral activities of modern life. It’s also totally obsolete. There is no technical reason to channel surf anymore. Your TV likely has a set-top box that also happens to be a very capable computer. All that power is being wasted on displaying poor quality “guide” data that is patched on top of a linear channel stream filled with content you don’t want to watch. Explain the efficiency of this system. The interaction model is completely useless in this modern age. There is not a single technical reason, aside from lame excuses like “the infrastructure is already there” or “people already know how to make this work”, to keep the current system in place.

The original reasons for TV Channels were technical in nature. Analog signals had to be broadcast in one linear stream over the air on a particular frequency and guardbands had to be placed around those frequencies to make sure one channel didn’t interfere with the other. With the advent of digital distribution and transmission technologies (ATSC, DVB, Digital Cable and Digital Satellite, and others) these frequency limitations have been taken care of. Modern transmission and distribution systems have more in common with computer networks (either wired or wireless) than they do with traditional analog systems. We now stream huge amounts of data around the air and through our cable and telephone systems every day. Companies have built the largest one-way data network ever built.

When you think of it that way, this network has a ton of possibility for innovation. No longer is a TV station able to broadcast only one stream of video and audio, but now they can send out multiple streams at differing bandwidths and for different purposes. No longer are cable systems only able to give you 99 channels of programming, but 500+ with video-on-demand and raw IP networking on top of that. DSL and PON lines to your house send in not only data but TV. All of the purpose-built cable head-end equipment from behemoths like Motorola and Scientific Atlanta is quickly becoming obsolete. We don’t need to constantly stream 500 2mbit/second TV channels 24 hours a day. This one size fits all model is completely useless to most consumers.

So the technology exists to better utilize the over-the-air spectrum we have available along with the huge bandwidth available on telco and cable lines. The rise of TiVo and DVRs proves that people watch TV shows and not channels. They are happy to find a show they like, sit down and watch it without having to go page-by-page through a huge list of junk they don’t care about.

Consumers are also happier if they can watch what they want, when they want it. They don’t want to operate on some faceless network’s schedule, they have busy lives and can only watch when they have time. Timeshifting is important. The availability of many shows from various Internet sources, both legal and not so legal, has made timeshifting easier even though it has drastically lowered the quality bar. Bittorrent counts as one of the most popular ways to download TV and movies and that says a lot about what many consumers want.

Another indicator that TV channels are outmoded is the rapid decline in revenue that the networks have seen over the past few years. People simply aren’t watching channels for long enough every day to make it worthwhile to advertisers. The current system of revenue is based on what networks call Dayparts. This system assumes that by chaining together programs in creative ways on the schedule, a viewer will be less likely to surf and thus become a better target for advertising. The traditional argument by larger broadcast networks for the failure of this model is that people have more choices and are fleeing to cable to get what they want. I think this argument may have held true 10 years ago, but now I think the reason is that technology is starting to catch up with how the viewer wants to watch TV. The viewer simply doesn’t care about the TV network they are watching. It’s not even close to the first thing they think about when choosing what to watch. They care about the program, and now they have the ability to shift things around to meet their time and preferences better. A consumer never even thinks about sitting on one channel for hours on end, but they do assign value to the brand of that channel and what it represents in terms of programming style and editorial value.

I’ve established that the current TV channel system is not cutting it. Consumers want to be able to watch what they want, when they want it with a minimum of fuss. The DVR has gone a long way to fixing this problem, but the EPG and linear distribution mechanism still get in the way.

Let’s think about what it would be like if the user was presented with an ontology instead of a list of channels with programs. The user could search genres, topics, user generated tags, transcripts, descriptions or titles for the programs that interest them. They could watch a small preview of the show and then if they like it, watch the whole thing. Each show would have a branding associated with it that would replace the current channel. This brand would be the network that produced or distributed the show. The program would still have advertisements, but they would be sold more like Internet ads (by impression, click-through or action). At the end of the program, or if the user got tired of watching, they could choose to switch to something else or continue on with similar programs from that network. If the consumer just wants to sit down and watch programs, they can go into a more casual mode that uses their stored preferences, ratings and viewing history to dynamically generate a channel or set of them that is just right.

This interaction model could be very powerful if properly researched and tested. My hunch is that many people would be more than happy to throw out their existing set-top in order to watch this. This is more than just video-on-demand or network DVR, it is a sea change in how people use television. It turns TV into a better platform. It allows for new business models, expanded revenue and high quality distribution with better bandwidth efficiency and higher consumer conversion.

This is technically possible to accomplish now. A sample system could be set up in fairly short order by simply recording the programming of the channels on the air now, leaving in the commercials and promos. It would be a platform to develop the system with real consumers and real advertisers. Networks would still retain their branding and promotion methods, which will remain important to the viewer.

TV needs a kick in the rear end. The business models are horribly broken and now the technology exists to make things better. Consumers are ready and the networks are ready.