Looking At The Future Of Broadcasting

Media and TV have changed a lot in those last 2O years but we may think that this change is going to be even faster and more important in the 2O next years. Of course the new media (internet) and the new technologies linked to the internet have completely changed people’s habits. We should not focus on emerging technologies but on emerging cultural practices. So in a first part, we are going to focus on the consumer’s behavior shift, and then, we are going to get a clear vision of how the future of broadcasting devices is developing according to current movements. Finally, in a third part we are going to expose the following issue: what will the relevant challenge of this multimedia environment transformation be?

First, we want to focus on the consumers’ changing behavior concerning TV and so in this part, we are going to look at the consumers’ demands regarding TV and Medias.

First of all, we can notice that today (and in the future also), consumers know exactly what they want and what they don’t want. For example, they don’t want so many TV commercials; they are getting fed up with these commercials. Indeed, nowadays people mainly watch TV during their spare time in order to relax and get entertainment. As a consequence, TV commercials are perceived as something boring and intrusive which deprives the viewer of his relaxing and entertaining time. To crown it all the commercials are becoming less efficient than before because people feel bored with them and prefer switching programs or moving to on-demand viewing because there, the commercials are not so numerous.

Furthermore, consumers also want TV to become more and more convenient for them, they want and feel the need to have all the control on it and they don’t have time to waste on it. We can speak here about time, place, control, money and attention shifting.

Time shifting: people want television when it suits them. For instance, they want their programs to start at a convenient time for their schedules and not to adapt their schedules to the programs

Place shifting: people want television the way they want it and where they want it. They want to be able to watch television everywhere and on whatever screen they want (TV, computer, smartphone, tablet…)

Control shifting: people want to be able to share, talk back, influence. They want to share and express their opinion about what they have watched

Money shifting: people want to make a good deal, to have a real value for their money.

Attention shifting: people want real values for their attention.

Finally, consumers or viewers also want to have more and more choices and opportunities but with less and less time. So, in the future, TV will have to adapt to these new demands in order to seduce consumers.

So now, after having considered the shift in the consumer’s behaviors we can take a look at the technological changes that have occurred in the last decades, these changes are going to be more and more relevant over time.

There is no doubt, for instance concerning the importance of internet in the modern shift followed by media and consumers around broadcasting practices. After only two short decades, internet seems to be the most relevant media for a large part of the world. Indeed actual surveys show that internet took a growing part in people’s life; in 2002 internet was considered only by 20% as the essential media in their life instead of 33% in 2007; at the same time Radio has dropped from 26% to 17%. The technological improvements which have accompanied the revolution are numerous but they seem to be characterized by the same objective: to be more efficient to deliverer wherever or whenever the consumers want the information. In order to do so marketers and industrials put a lot of efforts to ease daily life; are we witnessing a technological convergence? Today, you can find in the same apparel TV program broadcasting, radio channel, and internet access to social network or newspaper apps. Thus you can decide, and be the only one who chooses what, when or where you’re gone be able to be expose.

However, nowadays, people are more likely to move around and be more active; consequently they are not obviously able to hold with the initial scheduling; so in order to counteract this time-shifting problem a lot of technologies enable the viewers to shift the viewing time thanks to simple acts. For example with the emergence of Pay-TV channel, or integrated recorder material the viewers don’t have any more time restraint. Maybe in a little time we can believe that we will be able to use both technologies conjointly with mobile devices.

In order to conclude this report we can focus on several main points and issues.

First, If we can say that, money seems to be “the sinews of war”; and this one between advertisers and content owners seem to be difficult. Indeed it started 60 years ago with the tremendous event of the birth of television. The advertisers quickly understood that it was a really efficient means to communicate with potential consumers. Nowadays they are still expecting good return on investment, so they expect their messages to reach the largest audience. But today the entry of the PayTV distribution is going to change things. Contents owners are going to be able to target the audience with accuracy that is to say to aim at providing the viewers with the programs they really want in exchange of their money. And it’s in this context that TV contents owners are going to be more and more powerful. In fact contents owners are going to be able to become greedy because a result of a survey conducted by Nielsen/AIG and according to Jason KIla shows that :”Hulu’s[a payTV distribution] video advertising service is roughly 2x as effective as traditional TV video advertising services. Our point of view since 2007 has been that if we become the most effective video advertising service, then we could earn higher advertising revenues”. As a consequence, we can easily think that in the future, broadcasting is going to be run by economic interests.

Moreover, one possible issue with pay TV or TV on demand would be that customers will be able to watch exactly what they want, and so, we may think that the majority of people may like to watch movies or series in order to have fun and relaxation. As a consequence we could notice an increase of the Dallasification phenomena on the TV market because people are usually more seduced by the American programs for entertainment. Moreover, at the same time, people would watch less cultural programs. This phenomenon could lead to the end of the public TV broadcasting service because people would neglect cultural programs in favor of entertainment programs. This, means, that PBS will no longer insure its educating duty and therefore its role would be questionable. So now, one question can be raised: how will PBS adapt itself to the future in order to stay visible and useful to the viewers? Does it also mean that we are drawn into a purely commercial and selfish society which is going to be interested only in entertainment and the current affairs that happen within its community?