David A. Windham

Digital TV

CBS News site / Advertising Age Article

60 minutes aired a piece on Netflix and now I’m streaming it on my website and watching it again on my tv straight from CBS.com The CEO of Netflix revealed their subscription download service premier in January and was most likely there to drum up support. CBS recently partnered with youtube and here’s an article on how they attribute it to an upswing in their ratings. The show elluded to the industry trend of providing movies online and its effect on even the recently spawned Netflix. The tv industry is gearing up for these changes in a manner like we’ve seen here in local markets, where the news cast are running four hours of primetime. PBS.org provides all of their premium show for free downloads. The current issue of Wired magazine features an insightful article that wonders were that 70 billion in television advertising revenue will go. I can say this…. 90% of the time, my television screen and home stereo is under the control of my computer now. I watch what I want, when i want to. They even release the nightly news programs online now with a couple hour delay. The embedded video on webpages can be viewed on my tv. The windows media player sucks for large format, but another great feature is that quicktime, real player and windows media automatically default to full screen on my television while playing on the laptop. anyhow.. any media can be viewed on my tv that is embedded into the pages. While simultaneously reading the pages on my laptop. Sony is selling Location these location free consoles that much like the slingbox will allow you to access your cable connection from any broadband connection. So much like the popularity of the TIVO, why watch commercials and other crap.. just watch what you want, when you want, where you want and run your home tv and stereo as a remote monitor for your computer all for $199.. they’ll be a winner provided they’re Vista capable. So my whole point is that the media convergance of tv and the internet is already happening

Ad-supported video continues to gain momentum online. Google has teamed up with Viacom to provide video clips to websites that are part of Google’s AdSense Network. Viacom is the parent company to MTV, VH1, CBS and a number of other premium networks. The deal will be positioned as a revenue generator for Google, Viacom, and AdSense partners. All three will split revenues derived from the tie-in of advertising and content.
It will work like this: publishers (bloggers, big media, etc.) can elect to embed shows such as MTV’s “Laguna Beach” or Nickelodeon’s “SpongeBob Squarepants” on their own web pages in a manner similar to how YouTube supports embedded video. The clips themselves will contain advertising sold not by Google, but by the networks’ own ad sales teams. Those networks will share a portion of this revenue with Google, which will in turn share a portion of that revenue with the publishers themselves.
Another current article from Ad Age about the future of interactive tv. right here you can view all of the major networks programming notes including new broadband channels. American Advertising Federation WASHINGTON, D.C., November 14, 2006 – A study conducted for the American Advertising Federation (AAF) reveals that advertising leaders have more than embraced new media as part of successful advertising strategies. Most leading ad executives expect a significant portion of broadcast and cable TV ad dollars to shift to online video by 2010, with 33 percent predicting that switch will be between 10 and 19 percent. In addition, 2007 budgets for online advertising are expected to rise by an average of 42 percent over 2006. As to the challenge of integrating traditional with online media, broadcast TV is seen as offering the “most innovative” integration with online media, while magazines are seen as “most effective” for driving consumers online.

By act of Congress, conventional analog television is scheduled to shut down on February 17, 2009. From that day forward, all free, over-the-air broadcasting will be digital.