Finding Forrester

This post is Part I of a series examining the TV executive viewpoint outlined in Doug’s last post. This series should make it clear that the reports and analysis he presented do not support the assertion that online use hasn’t changed all that much. Rather, it will reveal that the landscape has changed, is changing, and will continue to change.

I believe that the corporate broadcasting executive view (as presented by Doug) is out of step with Forrester, with Gartner, and with present reality. Cancellations drive apathy, not enthusiasm. Instead of winning viewers back they push them away.

Broadcast networks appear to be resistant toward realizing that the landscape has changed and instead have a tendency to cling to an antiquated position forged from the anvil of entrenched historical practice. I think they would be wise to continue to move away from the sand that still engulfs their view (think of a large bird that likes sand) and take advantage of the opportunities that exist in a new digital media age.

This view appears to be maintained:

1. Through the inaccurate analysis of reports not directly or centrally related to the position in question.

2. By filtering recent and unprecedented phenomena through a rigid mesh of incongruent historical categories.

This post primarily examines the Forrester report titled, “Social Technographics”. This report advises companies to adapt and change to this socially transformed world. Further, it encourages them to adopt a more coherent approach toward social computing.

It is interesting and pertinent to note that this initial report was later expanded into a book titled, “Groundswell: Winning in a World Transformed by Social Technologies” with a publish date of April 21, 2008.

Groundswell is described in part by one of the authors as, “a book about a very powerful trend that is happening right now, the trend of people connecting with and drawing power from each other online, and how that threatens corporations" (You can see this here).

In contrast, it appears that the corporate executive would have us believe that the book should be titled, “Status Quo: Doing Business in a World That Hasn’t Changed All That Much”.

Advertising Age, in an article dated June 2nd, 2008 gives background information about Charlene Li (the author of the Forrester report) which provides additional insight.

“‘Charlene is a pivotal force in helping marketers navigate tectonic disruptions heralded in by social media,’ says Max Kalehoff, VP-marketing at Clickable.

‘She has an uncanny ability to instill calm and real understanding of the threats and opportunities inherent in a world composed of savvy, connected consumers.’

Asked to grade how marketers are facing up to those changes, Ms. Li gives them a C.

‘They're treating it more like a marketing channel than a relationship-building opportunity,’ she says, adding that a big roadblock is corporate cultures that aren't built to handle the lack of control over brand or message or even product development in a consumer-controlled environment.

‘Marketers are horrible at getting close to customers,’ she says. ‘They say they want it, but they don't.’”

At the bedrock level, both the Forrester report and the subsequent book maintain that the landscape has changed and that businesses need to adapt.

Ms. Li gives such an excellent summation of the divide between a corporate culture that still pines for the way it used to be and the ever increasingly consumer-controlled environment.

And now the kicker.

Intrepid reader, you may want to strap on your seatbelt and brace yourself. The next stop is the Forrester report, “Consumer’s Behavior Online: A Deep Dive”.

Are you ready to dive in…?

Here is the summary:

“Forrester tracks more than 150 activities, diving deep into 38 common and emerging media, shopping, communications, entertainment, and social networking online activities. The results are sometimes surprising. For example, shopping is only an occasional activity; receiving photos via email is the fastest-growing activity; instant messaging use is growing only among younger consumers; and PC time has surpassed TV time, even among Gen Xers. But the real value of tracking online behavior is that it helps interactive marketers and tech product marketers identify and target the best consumer segments”.

Houston, hold the horses, I think we just discovered the true Forrester.

Wow! PC time has surpassed…? TV? How can this be? And this report is dated January 2007?

It must be that… that… aberrant youthful generation. But wait…
This is true… even among Gen Xers?! According to Forrester, it is (and they aren’t alone).

Stay tuned for the next post in this series… “Category Confusion: Gartner, the Federal Census Bureau, and You!”

Cancellation Fallout

I want to thank Doug for the great post and for joining this discussion. I appreciate the opportunity we have to interact with each other and with our readers.

Doug is correct when he states that this year’s network cancellations were not a result of the Writer’s strike. I believe that cancellations in general highlight the need for continued adaptation and change in this digital media age.

Previously broadcast networks decided when and what viewers could watch. Viewers were limited to the television set, and had a limited number of channels to choose from. Consequently, networks attracted a very large viewing base and advertisements were displayed for the majority of viewers.

This is no longer the case. Cable increased channel and content selection. VCR’s and later DVR’s allowed viewers to skip commercials. Personal computers, internet, youtube, myspace, torrent sites, and mobile devices all further diversified the market.

Suddenly, media consumers can choose what they watch, when they want to watch it, and can do so wherever they choose. The viewer is now free to spend their limited time on what interests them most. As a result, niche audiences and communities develop.

Ivan D. Askwith, in his excellent thesis Television 2.0: Reconceptualizing TV as an Engagement Medium writes,

“Time-shifting and location-shifting technologies make traditional assumptions about the television viewer impossible, since network executives no longer have the power to control when, where, or how audiences consume their programming. Competition for audience attention is more intense than ever, as television shows compete not only with each other, but also with video games, DVDs, and the near-infinite supply of information and entertainment options accessible on the internet.

Thus, if the television industry hopes to survive in a digital, Internet-enabled era, the existing models and practices that govern the television business will require some dramatic change. Even more important, if television executives hope to effect meaningful change, the industry will have to accept that everyone – executives, advertisers, and audiences alike – needs to rethink not only the role of the television business, but the nature of television itself.”

Increased competition in this digital media age necessitates adaptation. The broadcast networks do see this need for change and are continuing to place more and more priority toward “engaging” their viewing audience. However, if the networks are seeking to engage viewers in active participation, I believe they need to rethink cancellations.

Doug is correct in stating that the primary reason networks give for deciding to cancel a show is “A lack of X where X equals advertising dollars or Nielsen stats”. I would further agree that the primary reason cancellations exist is related to underperformance. But I believe that this underperformance is on the part of the networks, not the canceled shows. Networks must perform better in order to remain competitive.

I believe that cancellations exist for at least three main reasons:

1. A failure to realize that it is much more difficult to draw the mass audience of the past.

2. A failure to expand and extend traditional content in a manner that actually brings about active participation and also increases the marketability of that content.

3. A failure to consider the fallout of cancellations in a digital media age (this is the primary topic of this post).

Content which attracts a loyal viewing base is a key opportunity for engagement as well as for advertisement. I believe that the cancellation of this content not only evidences the divide that exists, it actually increases that distance. Rather than networks winning viewers back, they push them further away.

As viewers participate and interact within a story they become immersed into that reality, and they identify with it. The viewer personally identifies with the experience and they have a stake in how the story plays out.

The deeper a viewer is immersed into a show, the more invested they become. The more invested they become, the more they will react negatively to the cancellation of their experience. At that point, it isn't just a show that is being canceled, it is part of their life.

Take for instance someone who immerses themselves into a video game. They spend hours investing themselves into the game and come to have a stake in what happens. They talk about the game with their friends, blog about it, and even make a video remix. They post the remix on youtube and receive primarily positive affirmation for their work.

The gamer loads up the game and eagerly jumps back into the action. After finishing a major subplot they are rewarded with a nice cut scene. Multiple story lines converge together, the plot deepens, and their enthusiasm builds. At this point, the screen fades to black and a message pops up. It reads,

“Sorry, due to factors related to underperformance, your game has been canceled.”

A second message takes its place,

“On the positive side, do you want to try this new game we just developed, but may not finish?”

A third message appears,

“Oh, and by the way, we really want to win you back. We know that there are other game companies who finish the games they start, but really, try out this new game that we might not finish.”

It becomes evident that cancellations have more fallout with active engagement.

This is a fundamental principle that I believe networks would do well to consider. Video game production companies finish and provide adequate closure for the games/stories they start. Cable networks also have a tendency to finish the stories they start. Broadcasting networks need to remember who they are now competing with and who they are competing for. The landscape has changed and they need to rethink cancellations.

On one end of the spectrum is cancellation fallout, at the other end is something I refer to as network loyalty ROI (Return on Investment).

Network loyalty ROI is the idea that active participation and network loyalty will create and foster commitment from viewers. If convergence leads to immersion and product identification and the viewer knows that the network is committed to finish the stories it starts, networks won't have to promote their shows, their viewers will do it for them (Oh, the irony). :)

Network loyalty and commitment to viewers will inevitably lead to profit loss for some shows, no doubt about it. I believe that the networks that will succeed, are those that can provide a long term approach to account for these short term losses and be absolutely committed to finish the stories they start.

This year's cancellations provide a great opportunity for a network to invest in network loyalty ROI. A network could bring back one of the shows they decided to cancel or a network could save one of the canceled shows. My picks are October Road and Moonlight.

Engage the viewers by expanding the media and perhaps even, take a loss in the short term. What you gain is reputation, commitment, loyalty, and fans. This would also draw viewers from other networks. Viewers who want to get behind a company that listens, is committed to its viewers, and is committed to finish out and provide adequate closure to the shows they start.

When networks engage viewers in active participation, loyalty and commitment go hand in hand. Brand/network loyalty will be key. Otherwise, viewers are left with an Ovaltine commercial!

Cancellation fallout and network loyalty ROI are polar opposites. One pushes people away, the other draws them in. Viewers now choose what, when, and where they watch content, will they choose your network or will they go somewhere else (Video game, books, youtube, myspace, Gemini Division, etc., etc., etc.)?

P.S.
Thank you all for the comments. This interaction adds an amount of depth that blog posts alone simply cannot bring about. Engaging in conversation involves us all in the process of bringing about change. As you share your opinions, your insight, and your feelings you are an active participant engaged in a larger community. Whether the reader is a network executive, a writer, a producer, a CEO of an ad company, or a viewer it is our hope that by engaging in this discussion together we can improve our media experience.

Looking Beyond The Box

First I would like to thank Tim for asking me to join in contributing to this blog; with that being said let’s quit dipping that toe in the water and jump in the darn pool.

Favorite TV shows are being canceled, negating the emotional bond built with beloved characters and leaving holes in weekday evenings. These gaping voids are then replaced with banal filler.  Fury over these cancellations has filled fan blog and forum alike and the plaintive cries of “Why!” echo through cyberspace for the good and bad of Prime Time.

Let’s be honest: who really understands the truth of cancellation?  Spend some time reading trade blogs and publications and you’ll find as many reasons as there are shows.  Basically it all relates to underperformance.   A lack of X where X equals advertising dollars or Nielsen stats.

Some shows, like Jericho, Moonlight, and October Road have developed a significant fan base over their limited runs.  Others, like Canterbury’s Law, Chuck, Life, or Men in Trees, didn’t have a chance to really get off the ground before being scrapped for the 2007-2008 Season.  Jericho specifically speaks directly to non-cable networks being out of touch with viewers, especially after the peanuts incident.  At least Chuck and Life will be back for the 2008-2009 season…we hope.

Why are shows with dedicated fans numbering in the millions being removed from the air for pilots that drive as much enthusiasm as a root canal?

The American Auto Industry had a lesson pounded into them in the late 90s: Adapt or lose the market.  If you think I’m incorrect I’d invite you to run down to your local Oldsmobile dealer and check out their 2008 line.”  Broadcast television, or The Big Four [and the CW], are learning that lesson now, but slowly.  I disagree with Tim in this being a case of the Writer’s Strike killing off our favorite shows: it is convergence.  Let me quantify that I loathe buzz-speak so we're not going to path walk a root cause analysis illustrating the paradigm shift between traditional and new entertainment technologies driven by a lack of synergy....blech.

Tim is correct in his postulate that October Road would be well suited for webisode life; but that doesn’t speak directly to how distributors gain ROI [return on investment] for funding these shows.

Using the aforementioned Electric Farm Entertainment property Afterworld as discussed by creator and executive producer Brent V. Friedman, we can see that even the bleeding edge is not without potential profit loss.  All advances usually have limited return on investment at inception, no matter what industry example is used: “Swiffer” didn’t take off until almost a year after product release and that puppy is now one of Proctor and Gamble's major revenue drivers. 

Convergence speaks to a coalescence of tools used to bring entertainment to viewers which drives potential revenue gain.  Anyone who has spent some time talking to oldsters raised in the Golden Days of Radio or has seen A Christmas Story should understand the basic concept of convergence. 

For those who haven’t seen this classic film: Ralphie eagerly awaits Little Orphan Annie’s secret decoding ring message to arrive in his mailbox.  Once the ring has been received he can barely contain himself as he sits through the next Little Orphan Annie radio episode waiting for the “secret decoder message”.  As the announcer reads the encrypted message our protagonist is quivering in excitement only to learn it’s an Ovaltine commercial:  The message reads, “Be sure to drink your Ovaltine.”

First, disbelief, then dark anger cloud Ralphie’s face as he realizes that his secret decoder ring is nothing more than an advertising gimmick.  Having awaited similar items ordered from cereal boxes the disappointment shown in the film rang true to my childhood memories…one of many the things that makes this film a must see. You may be asking yourself, “where is the point?” 

Ralphie’s enthusiasm for that simple plastic decoder ring speaks volumes about the viewer’s emotional need to be a part of the story, no matter how small in part.  We have seen excellent illustrations of this as the internet made Alternate Reality Gaming [ARG] prevalent in the mid-nineties through today. Combined with ARG, viral marketing has become an invaluable tool when combined with television and film properties. So much so that it was a prevalent topic at the 2008 O’Reilly Conference.  Elan Lee’s (Fourth Wall Studios) presentation, “Designing Magnets: Connecting with Audiences in the Wired Age” illustrated this with his “Push, Pull, and Charge, magnet theory.  [Unfortunately no online transcript of that talk exists, so no link folks.]

Combined with viral marketing, ARG has successfully promoted everything from Halo 3 to Year Zero from Trent Reznor’s Nine Inch Nails.  Traditional broadcasting has been slow off the mark in leveraging this new toolset to drive viewer participation and increase the marketability of properties.

One example of the impact of non-utilization is the CBS show Moonlight.  With the prolific amount of vampire ARG games Moonlight had the potential to vault to the Buffy or Angel of this decade yet CBS dropped the ball.  With no additional viral or ARG Moonlight has been taken off the schedule. Not to compare Moonlight directly with anything by Joss Whedon.  Whedon’s television vehicles are usually fan drivers, with the exception of Firefly.  An excellent show with a very loyal fan-base Firefly experienced the same lack of programming care from Sci-Fi that Moonlight received from CBS.

With that being stated we need to quantify that ARG/Viral isn’t a magic bullet.  Most organizations don’t dedicate adequate resources to the online experience which leads to failure. An excellent example of this is the CBS Jericho ARG launched in January of 2008.  Poor design and limited scope left more than the most dedicated fans with too-little-too-late. Bad Robot productions, has done a better job with the combination of entertainment, alternate reality, and viral with Cloverfield and Lost.  NBC Universal’s Heroes series also has a fairly convergent web/reality combination.

Electric Farms blew them out of the water with the ARG for the Webbie-nominated property Afterworld, which combined both real world and ARG as supplements to the daily webisodes.  Clicking through an AW site could lead you to either an ARG information set…or a real world website that was a red herring complimenting the overall storyline of the series.  It was pure genius that drove fans crazy…in a good way.

Modern entertainment requires active participation.  With 500 channels, 100 HD channels, a DVR, and the Web, formulaic sit-and-watch shows aren’t cutting it.  To truly drive return on investment shows have to be supplemented by additional content, be it ARG or real world, and be liquid in scalability.

Non-traditional forms of distribution allow for direct partnering with advertisers and more integrated communication with viewers.  Why just watch when you can participate.  Electric Farm Entertainment’s Afterworld demonstrated a uniqueness in that fan interactions were combined in to the story and ARG lines; something that causes all shows to thrive.  If networks are unable to adapt to the technology and synergy of multi-platform and scalable properties they will continue to lose market share.  In addition, if the Big Four [and the CW] continue to ignore viewers wishes, those viewers will migrate to media outlets that provide both entertainment and active participation instead of the customary couch-potato viewing Prime Time television drives today.

Recently I attended a conference where the Keynote Speaker illustrated the disconnect between ‘corporate think’ and the consumer that applies perfectly to the current environment.  Paraphrasing an excellent lesson, “We thought we knew what the consumer wanted so we stopped listening… [as a result] our market share plummeted in areas we had led the industry in for over twenty years.  Truly a case of believing we knew what was best for the consumer instead of using active listening”.



Networks have to look beyond the box, literally.  Television is now more than something that sits in your living room and it’s a prime time for change.

A New Road

The latest writers’ strike has led many viewers to become further disillusioned with primetime networks and with network programming in general. Then came the cancellations. Many popular shows were cut short. Moonlight, October Road, Men in Trees, Jericho, Blood Ties. The list goes on. There are only so many primetime slots and only so many types of shows that draw the immense viewer base that networks desire. This limiting structure results in cancellations that are not good for the networks, for viewers, or for ad agencies...

Consequently, viewers are turning away from primetime networks and moving toward alternate media sources like Netflix, youtube, and other web based distribution methods. Ratings are down and fewer commercials are being watched on primetime television due to the influence of DVRs. Viewers are looking for original, quality content and are tiring of reality shows. More than ever they are looking for loyalty and desire that networks finish out the shows they start.

While this is a negative picture, I believe that networks can become more competitive, increase viewer satisfaction, and optimize ad effectiveness by adapting new practices in line with the digital media age that we live in. Networks can achieve this by expanding existing media and creating new content for web and mobile distribution. These shows could be produced in such a way that their distribution could be expanded from web/mobile to primetime distribution or vice versa based on popularity.

Pilots for new series could be produced for web/mobile distribution and then ported to primetime television if they proved popular enough. If these shows did not fare well by primetime standards they could then be switched back to web/mobile distribution.

October Road would make a good test case for extending the distribution of an existing content. This is a show that encourages social community and has a loyal fan base. It has brought people to the internet that otherwise wouldn’t be there. It draws a certain audience and keeps them. It is authentic, immersive, moving, and has attracted millions of viewers despite poor marketing and inconsistent product placement.

A third season of October Road could be developed and released on the web and to mobile devices in daily “minisodes.” These minisodes would be limited to about four minutes in length. Brent Friedman of Electric Farm Entertainment (EFE is pioneering the production of media content for web/mobile delivery) estimates that this is the approximate maximum based on current bandwidth technology and availability. Brent further mentions that as bandwidth technology and availability expand, this number would increase (Interview with Brent Friedman - Part III).

October Road is particularly well suited for this process because its episodes break down extremely well into 4 minute segments. These segments could be watched in daily doses or altogether at the end of the week.

This delivery method would allow for more precise and effective ad placement. It would help ad companies target specific people groups and help them to know more precisely who is watching their commercials. It further would allow them to craft commercials in such a way that they do not interrupt the viewer’s experience.

October Road was co-produced by one of the big advertisers (GroupM) and their interests appear to align nicely with web/mobile based distribution. For more information on this, see the article from cnn, "Walk softly and carry a big checkbook".

All of these factors make October Road an ideal candidate for this type of expansion.

Shows expanded or created in this manner would become residual advertising properties, lending themselves toward repeat viewing. These shows could then later be syndicated to other territories or to other networks.

Getting back to the larger picture, network programming currently emphasizes popularity. As a result, original content often ends up being stymied, creativity is often squelched, and tv ends up becoming saturated with “reality” shows and unoriginal remakes.

Web/mobile based delivery and scaling of media has the potential to account for those limitations in a new and very exciting manner. It allows the creation of unprecedented original media content. This would not do away with primetime programming, but instead promises to enhance and complement it. Networks should be accountable to deliver the goods to their viewers and should have a mechanism in place for doing so. Everyone wins. New stories can be told...in their totality!