A few days ago, Time Warner and Comcast announced the concept of “TV Everywhere.” The goals of this program are as follows:
- Bring more TV content, more easily to more people across platforms.
- Video subscribers can watch programming from their favorite TV networks online for no additional charge.
- Video subscribers can access this content using any broadband connection.
- Programmers should make their best and highest-rated programming available online.
- Both networks and video distributors should provide high-quality, consumer-friendly sites for viewing broadband content with easy authentication.
- A new process should be created to measure ratings for online viewing. The goal should be to extend the current viewer measurement system to include advertiser ratings for TV content viewed on all platforms.
- TV Everywhere is open and non-exclusive; cable, satellite or telco video distributors can enter into similar agreements with other programmers.
There has been a lot of skepticism about this plan. But, if executed correctly, this could really work. As has been discussed in the past, producing content is not free. In the digital world, incremental content distribution is fairly inexpensive. So, if a consumer is paying for television programming, they’re subsiding the up-front cost and media companies are dealing with minimal incremental cost.
Often times, authentication becomes a frustrating task for consumers, so the authentication process has to be extremely simply. Another critical factor is geographical limitations. Currently, content produced in one country is not available in another due to licensing reasons.
Measuring online content views is still a challenging task for businesses. Example: Yesterday’s Michael Jackson memorial counted household TV views and online views separately. If you start digging into the numbers, there isn’t a reliable estimate for online viewing. In order to accomplish this, all content providers have to agree to one format, and level the advertising playing field.
Lastly, all content, regardless of it’s popularity should be made available online.
