Feature: TV on your time

photos by Pete Madia and Hannah Milstein layout by Jay Huerbin

Jeffrey… photos by Pete Madia and Hannah Milstein layout by Jay Huerbin

Jeffrey Brinkhus, a sophomore computer engineering major at Pitt, enjoys keeping up with the complicated storylines of “Lost” and “24.” Because of his demanding course load, he can’t always find the time to watch his shows when they air on network television, but he can catch the shows at his convenience when the networks post them online.

High-speed Internet connections are becoming increasingly available to a public hungry for bandwidth. With this trend, television networks are finding the Internet as a more and more attractive option.

For the viewers, this means better access to their favorite shows whenever they find the time to watch. All one needs is a somewhat up-to-date Internet connection and the willingness to click through a few short ads before the program plays.

Yet this trend of Internet television has raised some concerns. What are the motivations of the networks? Will they make more money, or is this just a fad that will ultimately fizzle? Will cable-based network programming degenerate, become less entertaining and start to play second string to its online counterparts?

In recent telephone interviews, two television experts provided insight into the future of Internet-cable marketing and its impacts on the old-time networks.

Robert Bianco, former television critic for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, is currently a television critic for USA Today. According to Bianco, panic about the future of cable networks is somewhat unfounded, as websites can’t draw in the revenue to completely replace network programming.

“The problem with the Internet is it’s available for free,” he said.

Younger audiences, Bianco pointed out, are harder to reach by traditional methods. The networks must address this while attempting to keep their products friendly to all viewer groups.

“Diffusing audiences isn’t a great idea,” Bianco said. The networks’ online activities are devoted primarily to college students and young adults, as those who work 9 to 5 rarely partake in the viewing of long videos online.

Bianco cited a phenomenon observed at USA. Today. The newspaper’s online readership spikes during the hours of 9 a.m. and 5 p.m.

“Those people at work do not watch long videos,” Bianco said. But they do tend to read the news – something their bosses are less likely to catch them at.

One main motivation for the networks to go online, therefore, is the opportunity to bring content to a group of young people whom Bianco calls “difficult to reach.”

Rob Owen, current television editor at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, explained an additional motivation behind Internet-media delivery. According to Owen, the networks are attempting to adapt, in many ways, to the takeover of control by the viewers. Modern television viewers aren’t satisfied to simply take what the networks are giving at the time the networks see fit. They have TiVo’s, recorders and, of course, the Internet.

“It is a tumultuous time,” Owen said, adding that for networks, moving to the Internet is not necessarily a “1-to-1 tradeoff.” Networks need the revenue from their TV advertising to support their Internet ventures.

Owen described previous attempts on the part of TV networks to reach difficult viewer populations. BitTorrent communities, for example, have done some forward-thinking work with CBS. As TorrentFreak.com reported in June 2007, CBS linked to torrent files, giving viewers the ability to download content through the popular file-sharing protocol.

This is all well and good. But is it a fad? The networks must make money for the pattern to hold their interest.

Owen said that once the networks decided to reach college students as an audience, they had to figure out a way to make money off of it.

Even though the Internet is ever-present in modern society, it still seems to draw fewer people when compared to network television. Bianco cited that while 30 million people may tune in for “American Idol” when it airs on television, “100,000 [viewers] on the Web is great,” comparatively.

According to Bianco, network television still has prestige, reach and money. Yet Brinkhus said the advertising accompanying shows online gets through to him more so than television advertising.

“[It] actually forces me to pay attention to the commercials more because I have to click when they’re over to continue watching the show, as opposed to TV where you just mute it and walk away for five minutes,” Brinkhus said.

Even if he is right, and Internet advertising commands more attention than that on television, whatever increased ad revenue occurs may be offset by a reduction in DVD sales, Brinkhus speculated.

“I know ‘Lost’ seasons 1, 2, 3 are all on ABC.com, so why would anyone go out and buy the six-DVD set?” he asked.

What does Brinkhus find attractive about watching primetime shows online?

“I’m either in class or working on something at whatever time [a show] is on, and I would like to watch it at my convenience as opposed to when the networks say I should,” he said.

This seems to play directly into the motivations of networks trying to reach dispersed viewer populations, including busy college students.

The final concern for Internet publishing is its effect on the network cable from which it derives. If the networks can force people like Brinkhus to watch advertising – thus making it somewhat valuable – and successfully reach their target audiences, couldn’t the network’s cable lineup suffer? Neither Bianco nor Owen thinks this is a problem.

After all, as Bianco put it, “If you have seen ‘Lost’ on an HDTV, that’s the way you want to see it.” Customers will continue to want the clarity over convenience.

As a result, according to Bianco, the opposite of the “doomsday” scenario will happen: “Fictional shows will be better-looking, smarter and faster-paced,” as the demand for shows as complicated as “Lost” drives the networks’ decisions. The main change Owen predicts is more Internet-only content.

Although Brinkhus seems to agree, he does offer a slightly newer perspective. As the owner of an HDTV on a campus whose television hookup is decidedly analog, Brinkhus notes that “the non-HD signal that comes in through Pitt