Television in the Age of Web Video

This Friday Chris Anderson of Long Tail fame moderated a panel at Wired's Next Fest on "Television in the Age of Web Video." The panelists:

Bill Campbell, President, Discovery Communications
Jennifer Felkin, Director, Google Video
Larry Kramer, President, CBS Digital
Judy McGrath, Chairman and CEO, MTV Networks
Jeff Zucker, CEO, NBC Universal Television

The panel was most interesting for the view it gave of these Executives as they struggled with what really is a whole new animal. You can see them navigating the issues right on stage - for example, when Jennifer was asked whether Online Video was a substitute for television, she of course responded 'no.' She thinks it 'wets the viewers appetite' for telelvision. Given who she is sitting on the panel with and her position in the dance this is what you would expect her to say. Unfortunately if she were being honest, she would say that 'yes, there are only so many free hours in the day, and why watch television, which remains primarily a linear medium when you can go online and watch anything you want at any time - and by the way it's all on Google. And we want to own all of your time for our advertisers.' Not to put words in anyone's mouth, but of course its a substitute. And if it's not 100% a substitute yet due to quality comparisons, it will be soon when your internet plugs directly into your TV.

They talked about what caused this sudden explosion of online video content a year ago and Jennifer pointed to the various Web 2.0 features such as comments and 'Send to a Friend' buttons that gave it all a viral nature. Chris Anderson put forward his own belief that it resulted from the release of a newer Flash player that made uploading and sharing video content extremely easy.

Official acknowledgement of the arrival of web video has come, as the 11th Annual Webby Awards announce a new entry category for Online Film & Video:

"As the Oscars honor film and video content first viewed in theatres, and the Emmys honor film and video programming primarily viewed on television, The Webbys is the first award show in the world to honor original film and video programming that is specifically created for and premiered on the Internet."

Always nice to have a reminder that we are witnessing history in the making.

While the panelists were primarily rosey eyed about their prospects of maintaining eyeballs on their sites and as Judy McGrath said to 'following the viewer,' to adapt and give them what they want - to leverage the interactivity by building Web 2.0 worlds around their Television brands (eg. Laguna Beach etc.) - I think over time they are going to see an erosion of viewers. There is too much interesting stuff in the 'Long Tail' and the quality of distribution available to every producer is improving too quickly (via companies like Brightcove etc.) for Laguna Beach to hold the masses much longer.