https://www.wired.com/story/facebook-apple-and-google-will-hasten-the-next-era-of-tv
Facebook, Apple, and Google Will Hasten the Next Era of TV
Not long ago, everyone saw Hollywood and Silicon Valley as opposites. Hollywood
was cool, artistic, and uniquely adept at entertaining viewers. Silicon Valley
was the preserve of geeky engineers who could captivate the public with
gadgetry, but had no clue how to hit the human notes that made for
blockbusters. If you still buy those stereotypes, the news that Apple, Google,
and Facebook are all going to make multi-billion-dollar investments in
producing scripted video entertainment seems ludicrous—a folly launched by
frustrated nerd-dom.
But a simple glance at the list of the world’s most valuable corporations puts
the lie to that impression. The money has spoken: These three tech
companies—along with a fourth, Amazon, which has already successfully cracked
the code of producing original entertainment—are among the richest entities on
Earth. Meanwhile, another Silicon Valley company, Netflix, has overcome similar
mockeries to become one of the most successful entertainment producers on the
planet. The rush into scripted video by tech giants is going to accelerate an
evolution of entertainment that’s already underway. We’re already moving away
from the idea that drama is a 60-minute exercise with four bathroom breaks.
Internet-centric companies have already begun changing the rules with
binge-watching, flexible running times, fewer commercials, and crowd-sourced
content. The brainpower—and just plain power—of the most valued tech firms will
change things even more.
From where I sit, this is the beginning of the third era of video
entertainment—what we used to call “TV.” I am old enough to have grown up glued
to a screen offering only three alternatives, each of which was an all-powerful
national network that seemed permanently ensconced in the entertainment
stratosphere. (It was earth-shattering news when the FCC opened up the UHF
spectrum, which introduced a few funky alternative channels.) The programming
from those triplets was stultifyingly similar, driven by the need to serve a
mass audience. The arrangement might have produced, as famously charged, “a
vast wasteland”—but it also seemed immutable.
No one predicted that small systems built to provide signal transit to
communities with poor reception would topple that regime. But as cable
companies moved from rural to urban areas—dramatically expanding the number of
available channels and dropping the price to reach a wider public—a revolution
began. (It was also fueled by technological changes like the VHS recorder.)
Early in my career, I covered this transition, writing for magazines like
Video, Home Video, and Panorama, a short-lived publication started by the
then-all-powerful TV Guide. I wrote stories about the prospect of 100 channels
(!), the advent of advertising on cable networks, and the first “interactive”
cable network in Columbus, Ohio. In June 1981, I even did a big story for
Rolling Stone (“Gimme Access”), where I hung out with a weed-infused public
access show in Manhattan and visited Atlanta to check out what was then a risky
novelty—cable entrepreneur Ted Turner’s 24-hour news channel called CNN.
“They’re going to be wiped out!” Turner said of ABC, NBC, and CBS.
He was right. It didn’t happen overnight, but as more of the country got wired
for cable, broadcast television lost its dominance. What was formerly
unthinkable—like World Series games shown on cable channels—became routine.
Today, those three-letter networks are still around, but as brands, not
corporations. Each one of them has been bought out by entertainment
conglomerates made more powerful by Turner’s revolution. And their audiences
are dwindling.
That process, of course, is accelerating in the next era of video: the
internet. Just as the cable revolution overturned broadcast, the net is
destined to become the dominant mode of video, both in terms of transit and
programming. The cable industry is seemingly protected by its built-in local
monopolies, but as broadband connections proliferate—by now rendering the
copper cable connection almost obsolete—the only thing propping up the status
quo is a business arrangement that bundles channels together for a steep price.
As more people cut the cord—and as smaller bundles become more popular—we will
reach a tipping point that sees the collapse of cable.
That’s why the entrance of many of the remaining big tech companies really
matters. These powerful corporations—the true masters of our current
universe—are in the attention business, and they don’t necessarily hew to
Hollywood’s often unexamined practices. Just as HBO, born of the cable era,
changed programming with the idea of ad-free, movie-quality television,
internet-era Netflix has proven that new programming models (like binge
watching) can further upend viewing habits. The obsessively iterative internet
companies—motivated by a determination to bolster their respective business
models—will make an even bigger difference.
We will see the death of the kind of television programming that’s essentially
been around since the 1950s: sitcoms, anthology dramas, general interest
newsmagazines, and variety shows (whoops, already dead). Don’t be fooled that
right now the numbers for broadcast television still top even the most popular
offerings of HBO and Netflix. Their rigid formulas—with plotlines ebbing and
flowing to accommodate infuriating commercial interruptions, adhering to
standards based on minimizing offensiveness—have made them the walking dead.
Already the idea of “watching television” seems like an antediluvian pursuit.
The three companies entering the field will hasten the blow. Amazon’s path is
instructive: After establishing a respectable foothold with a clever but
traditional TV series, Alpha House, it embarked on a daring approach of
presenting innovative pilots to its viewers, who voted for the ones they liked
best. (Compare that to Yahoo’s pathetic entrance into the field, with timid
shows that barely would have made an impression on the lesser broadcast
networks.) Facebook’s knowledge of its audiences opens the possibility of
targeting specific communities. Yes, Apple’s initial offerings are derivative
yawners, such as a Shark Tank-ish reality show, but it’s reasonable to expect
that eventually the company will hire visionary executives to up its game. And
we can expect some fascinating experimentation from Google, which has already
created an internet-only model of video with YouTube. With their huge war
chests (Netflix’s recently stated intent to spend $7 billion on content next
year is a sign of the times), their investments may be enough to swamp the
traditional method of studio funding—and the tired rules that dictate what kind
of shows get made.
These things take time, of course. When I wrote my video revolution stories, I
didn’t expect that I’d still be addressing the issue over 30 years later.
Disruption is inevitable, but the truly significant changes occur across
decades. In the shorter term, the difference will emerge in who writes the
checks: While Hollywood producers will still take pitches, the green lights
will come from Menlo Park, Cupertino, Seattle, Mountain View, and other tech
outposts.
Longer term, the entertainment itself—along with the way we consume it and pay
for it—will drastically change, too. The fake, canned laughter that accompanied
so many shows of yore will fade into a bad memory. So, too, will the dismissive
laughs of Hollywood skeptics who think that Apple, Facebook, and Google are too
geeky to make a difference in the way we get our entertainment.