F.C.C. Weighs Treating Video Sites Like Cable Companies - Brian Stelter via NYTimes.com

The FCC is likely to let the genii out of th bottle, and redefine who is a Multichannel Video Programming Distributor, or MVPDs, now effectively limited to the linear TV players like Comcast and DirecTV. If the rules are changed to include streaming video services like Hulu and YouTube, the landscape of TV will never be the same:

Brian Stelter via NYTimes.com

Major distributors like Comcast and Time Warner Cable want the definition of M.V.P.D. to remain rather narrow, to include only those who provide the transmission path for programming, like themselves.

Some broadcasters, however, want the definition to be broadened to include online video sites, because then the sites would be subject to the same rules as cable operators, called retransmission consent, and would have to pay fees for their station signals. A number of online TV start-ups, including the Barry Diller-backed Aereo, are trying to sidestep these rules.

Jack Perry of Syncbak, which helps stations simulcast their signals on the Web, said his company would be able to grow more rapidly if the F.C.C. adopted a “21st-century definition of M.V.P.D.’s.”

“The impact could be huge,” he said. Still other stakeholders, including trade groups that represent giants like Google, Microsoft, Amazon and Netflix, have said that the F.C.C. should take more time before deciding.

Yeah, some large players want to avoid paying fees for rebroadcasting, and to possibly limit the entrance of new start-ups.

And the cable and satellite operators want to freeze time, and delay the inevitable, which will turn those companies’ product into a single commodity: basically bringing the Internet to our homes, through which we will be able to access whatever streaming content we want from whatever sources we want: ‘over the top’ TV. Comcast and Time Warner Cable do not want to be competing directly with Apple, Amazon, and Google, but it is in the best interest of the average person is the FCC allows this change to happen.

The Walking Dead?

TV advertising is up, but it’s a Ponzi scheme, like the increased revenue in movie theaters: in both cases, they are losing viewers but charging more.

David Carr via NYTimes.com

According to estimates reported by Reuters, in the coming week the big four broadcast networks and the CW will book some $9 billion in advertising revenue, with the big four up 2 to 4 percent from last year. And cable networks, which surpassed broadcasters for the first time last year in total advertising booked during the upfronts, are expecting a payday of more than $9.6 billion, an increase of 4 to 6 percent.

Part of what keeps legacy television in the game is that it is the last refuge of mass and reach. For retailers who want to flag a sale or an entertainment company with a weekend movie opening, a commercial on a broadcast network or a highly rated cable station can still hammer a message into a lot of noggins. In this targeted age, it’s breathtakingly inefficient — you pay to reach everyone, even the millions not in the desired age group — but making a big television buy is a kind of comfort food, easy and familiar.

Yet by losing audience, networks and cable stations have been able to force advertisers to buy more commercials to reach the number of viewers that they want.

“They have an interesting business model predicated on losing viewers,” observed Brad Adgate, the senior vice president for research at Horizon Media. “It can’t last forever.”

At some point, the laws of both gravity and economics will begin to pull down the upfronts, and with them, the fundamentals of the television business. Jeff Gaspin, who used to head entertainment at NBC, told Bill Carter that he and his son recently decided to catch up on a particular series and so assembled episodes from a variety of sources — iTunes, Netflix and the DVR. They saw all the past episodes in time to watch the final one live on AMC but found that commercials interrupted their experience.

So what show demonstrated to the former television executive that the old way of watching television was losing relevance?

“The Walking Dead.”

OgilvyOne London: “As an ad agency, we’ll always be trying to lean forward” | Lean Back 2.0

OgilvyOne London: “As an ad agency, we’ll always be trying to lean forward” - Emma Gardner via Lean Back 2.0

Has OgilvyOne London seen any evidence of people “leaning back” when consuming ads or creative content on their iPad?

[OlgivyOne London Chief Executive Annette] KING: It’s interesting because we were having a debate between lean forward and lean back before we got on the call with you. There’s a time and a place for both. The Economist app is a good example of a ‘lean back and consume’ type of situation. As an ad agency, though, we’ll always be trying to lean forward. We’re always trying to get people to take part in the app and engage with the ad. By definition, it’s an immersive kind of approach.

We’re really interested in the dual screen experience right now. By dual screen, I mean sitting in front of the TV with a tablet. You might be watching one thing on the TV, but doing something else on your tablet. And we want to start connecting those two things. If Jamie Oliver is making a special truffle recipe on television, you can use your tablet to find out where truffles grow in the world, or how to make Jamie’s recipe. You can get people involved through the second screen.

I wonder about ‘always trying to lean forward’: isn’t there a place for ambient advertising? Ambient awareness of other people (through Twitter or other social tools) is a back of the mind sort of attention scheme: you know what people are up to based on their updates moving by while you are doing other things.

I conjecture that ambient advertising could be very effective on the second screen. Imagine that as I am watching a cooking show, and I’ve enabled a second screen gear applet on my tablet. As the chef’s use various kitchen tools, the gear applet streams pictures and descriptions of the gear: this knife, this sauce pan, this stove. You might think that this is a lean-forward set up — that I am dedicating foreground attention to the gear streaming by — and I might do that the first few times I use the app. However, as I habituate to the app, I will begin to treat it as a lean-back stream of information, so my perception of the products being featured is more additive or cumulative. It’s just as much about brand building as a call to action.

Yes, there will still be times when I want to buy that particular knife, right now. But in general I think it will lead to a collection of brand associations built over time, so that when I get to the point when I want to buy a new knife, a few brands are in my head, and I choose between them at the store, or online.

If there is one thing that advertisers can do, though, to make lean-forward intimacy with products more likely on the second screen, it would be to make it easy to share product information and images with other people: wire it deeply into the social dimension of TV.

(For more on Social TV and The Second Screen, download the free Work Talk special report on that subject, here.)

DVRs and Streaming Prompt a Shift in the Top-Rated TV Shows - Bill Carter and Brian Stelter via NYTimes.com

We are living in a time-shifted world — at least on TV — and networks are now counting DVR data in calculating what are the most popular shows. But advertisers are still not willing to pay for anything after the first three days:

DVRs and Streaming Prompt a Shift in the Top-Rated TV Shows - Bill Carter and Brian Stelter via NYTimes.com

Total popularity does not perfectly correlate with profitability, however, since the networks all agree to sell ad time based on a metric called “C3.” It measures the average viewing of the commercials within a show within three days of the first broadcast, so it excludes people who wait to watch Wednesday’s “Modern Family” until Sunday or Monday.

Still, advertisers are paying, happily so, for the three days that are counted.

“We do like viewing in the playback mode,” said Tim Spengler, the global chief executive of the media-buying firm Magna Global. “We’re finding that the viewers are more attentive. They are less distracted. They have picked a time when they have the opportunity for more engagement than they would have if their kids were bugging them or they had three things to do at once.”

Mr. Spengler said many advertisers, like fast food restaurants, movie companies and some retailers, do not want to pay for ads beyond three days because what they have offered might be out of date. But, he said, other advertisers recognize there is “some value” to the four additional days of viewing that are not counted by C3 — even among fast-forwarders, because they do see glimpses of messages here and there.

The networks would eventually like to sell ad time based on seven days of viewership, but most viewership happens in the three-day window; Paul Lee, the president of ABC Entertainment, said ABC is able to “capture about 93 percent” of the value of the “Modern Family” audience with the C3 ratings.

Ultimately, the long tail for shows — and ads — will stretch out past three days, and advertisers will be paying for what they get, although DVR data might prove to be less important than second screen data, since an ad going by on the TV has no impact on someone who is actively typing in a chat about the game he is watching.

DailyTech - Source: Apple to Enter TV Display Business Late This Year

According to source Apple plans to “blow Netflix and all those other guys away” by bundling Apple TV iTunes inside physical television sets. According to the source Apple is teaming up with a major supplier (our guess would be Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. (SEO:005930)), to provide the physical televisions, which will be rebranded as Apple television sets.

Looks like my hypothesis about Apple entering the TV market (see A Real Apple TV?) is becoming more likely, or at least more rumored.