Capria TV

ABI Research released some highlights of its recent research on HDTV adoption and the viewing habits of Americans. While 41% of Americans have HDTV’s, only about half of those HDTV receive any sort of an HD signal. While it might not be too surprising that only one out of Americans can view HDTV in all its glory, it’s shocking that another one out of five think they are watching HD when they are just watching a blown up SD image.

Lay the blame at the feet of the cable companies. I’ve been to several living rooms where what’s sold as HD looks indistinguishable from an up-converted standard definition DVD. This isn’t something I want to be pondering at 2:00 AM as we’re perfecting the look of my next HD production. 

Anyone making a living in video would do well to read this special report on the future of advertising by the Project for Excellence in Journalism. It succinctly explains how television advertising rates continue to rise even as viewership declines dramatically. Even before the writers strike threw an anvil to an industry trying to tread water, the numbers were telling:

For the first 11 weeks of the 2007-08 television season, prior to the effects of the fall 2007 Writers Guild of America strike, Nielsen data show viewer declines for the crucial 18-to-49 age group of 19.4% for NBC, 16.7% for CBS, 10.5% for ABC and 28.6% for CW. Only Fox improved, with a 3.4% gain.

The trend is clear. Broadcast television is fading. Audiences are gathering information and getting entertained elsewhere. With broadband penetration now over 50% in the US, web video may be at a long-awaited inflection point.

Quarterlife is a series about those people you couldn’t stand in college and didn’t care what happened to them afterwards. As Friends proved, that can be a successful formula. What makes Quarterlife interesting is that the series, originally rejected by ABC, began its life on the web. What makes it really interesting is that it wasn’t terribly successful—many episodes drew only 100,000 or so viewers. 

As a consumer device, Apple TV is a typical first generation technology endeavor. Basically Apple took the iPod formula and applied it to IPTV—create a basic, no frills piece of hardware in an elegant wrapper, but give it a best in class UI.

This approach worked for the iPod because an easy to use MP3 player had an easily understandable value proposition to consumers. People wanted these devices, but the market was doing a terrible job meeting those needs. The iPod swooped in and took control of the market.

There’s not a lot of pent up demand for an IPTV device because

1. No one knows what IPTV is.


2. Very few people want another set top box (STB) clutter their living rooms.


3. Video on demand (VOD) and pay per view (PPV) are doing a solid job of filling Apple TV’s niche.


4. There’s always NetFlix.

Mike Curtis did a nice review on the latest Apple TV update, and linked to some interesting information on Apple TV as a consumer device. No need to recap that. Instead, let’s look at what Apple TV’s success or failure means to independent content creators.

IPTV can be the great equalizer for independents. It has the potential to distribution affordable for even the smallest players. Unfortunately the iTunes store is not independent-friendly. Apple’s been unwilling to adopt the Amazon and Yahoo! models of renting space to retailers. If you’re not big media, you’re not welcome in iTunes—unless you’re willing to give your content away. That means adopting an ad-based model, and that means more work for the independent producer.

Enter the Open Television Network

The recently launched Open Television Network takes care of all the e-commerce infrastructure, so independents can sell content for download. Once an Open Television account has been created, to the user, it’s just like buying through iTunes. Very elegant.

The content owner supplies his or her own storage, gets a listing in the Open Television index, and is free to market independently. To date it’s the most open, elegant, and affordable means of delivering IPTV content available to content owners. Open Television takes a very reasonable 15% cut of sales. Try getting a deal like that with a traditional distributor.

Whether Open Television becomes the dominant platform or not, it has opened up IPTV to the independent.