Will MySpace Disrupt Television?

newsblaze writes "In the Media space, the internet has been threatening to be a highly disruptive technology for some time now. So far it has done quite a number on newspapers, who still don't understand the internet. There are a lot of people who like to have the paper in their hands, though, so newspapers are holding on. Television has no such ties to a physical medium. When Murdoch bought Myspace, I wondered how long it would be before he either found something to do with it — or gave up. Now it seems Murdoch has found a way to leverage his position, and put a massive squeeze on television. How far can he take this — and what will be the result?"

Re:There's nothing worth watching on TV.

[camperslo]

Heavy amounts of advertising is certainly a major force in driving people away from traditional tv.
I believe the tv rules were similar to radio. IIRC, years ago at license renenwal time stations would commit to a certain amount of public affairs programming and a maximum hourly number of minutes of advertising.
The advertising cap didn't apply two weeks of the year. Typically stations would run more during the December holiday period, and in election years right before an election.

It didn't really occur to me until just now, but I think the dropping of those regulations is likely to be a major reason for the Christmas advertising season ramping up so early now (basically at Thanksgiving).

Besides too many regular ads being very disruptive of any kind of programming with complex content, I think those lengthy "infomercials", which were not allowed before, are also doing quite a bit to alienate viewers.

Watching over-the air tv, I now record just a handful of things to watch when I want to, and the rest of the time I'm not tuned in. The days of having a tv on in the background, or sitting through a show I don't really care for to catch another later, are gone. I'll no-longer accept planning my time around a broadcast schedule. Using a PVR I may be ahead of the curve a bit, but it seems likely most are either headed the same directly, or have already left for pay services.

With digital tv ramping up, if broadcasters were smart, they'd be putting on some worthwhile content all the time treating time like valuable bandwidth. With the ability to handle multiple program channels over one transmitter and in one licensed channel they have the potential to bring people back to broadcast tv.
Those making programming decisions seem like total idiots. Even the shows I like often don't have very many shows per season compared with many years ago.

With computers as PVRs (using something like Eye-TV on a Mac), one can edit out the commercials without tooo much effort. If the commercials are poorly done and there are too many, people will be more likely to take the time to remove them.

So far I'd say that using a PVR has actually increased my seeing commercials on shows I like. Between watching some ads live (often while recording), stopping and viewing - and even saving some - while editing, and catching some in episodes I otherwise would have missed, I think I'm seeing more of the ads that might interest me than in the past. I at least skim past all of them, some I would have certainly skipped by wandering out of the room previously.

If net based content can't be recorded automatically (or at least viewed on demand), is loaded with ads, and doesn't compete with SD and HD TV quality, it'd be even worse than regular tv. If I can't save it DRM-free, and remove ads if I want to, I doubt I'll be watching.

My Space

[proadventurer]

The more people who use myspace or watch TV, the less people in my space - the outdoors. Thanks Murdoch, I hope you make some money!

Re:TV is dead

[Scrameustache]

The biggest hurdle in "internet tv" is that ubiquitous "Black Box" that consumer electronics manufacturers have been searching for decades to decades to find. The 360 and the PS3 are the first iteration in what will be the future. The 360 is offering essentially basic cable to 360 owners this fall and I am certain that the PS3 will have something similar, especially since Sony owns a huge catalogue of films.

Which is probably why all the gamers are keeping store shelves clear of Wii boxes and allowing those consoles to gather some dust before a sports fan feels the need to kill time between seasons with electronic reenactments of his adored teams and buys the necessary hardware for that purpose. They aren't actually game consoles, they're media hubs that happen to play games.

Murdoch Disrupts Everything

[MrSteveSD]

I don't know about the impact of MySpace, but the biggest disruption of established media has been with the news. People are no longer confined to just a few news channels and papers owned by just a handful of people. Things that were possible before, such as D-Notices (where the UK media are blocked from reporting something by the government) are now quite ineffective. However, Murdoch and the big outlets do have a big web presence and we should avoid them like the plague.

Using the UK Freedom of Information act, it has recently emerged that Tony Blair had 3 telephone conversations with Rupert Murdoch in the 10 days leading up to the invasion of Iraq. No doubt he wanted to know how much support he would get. War sells papers and increases viewing figures, so it would not have been a good business decision for Murdoch to oppose the war. Do you really want to sit there passively consuming Rupert Murdoch's political views, channelled though different newsreaders and outlets? We should be avoiding Murdoch's empire as much as possible. It's not healthy for so much of the media to be owned by so few people. Fortunately the net makes it easy to hunt around and find more independent outlets.

If anyone is interested, the FOI request was made by Lord Avebury and it took him a long time to get the information released.