Price Digital Signage Payoff-What's A Challenge For TV May Be A Boon For Digital Signage Networks
I had dinner the other evening with some friends from New England. The couple splits its time between a home in the southern part of New Hampshire during the winter and a scenic farm in northern Vermont during the summer. In the past, I've had opportunities to visit both places and travel with them between their homes.
As dinner progressed, the conversation turned to the Old Man of the Mountain, a natural rock formation on the New Hampshire landscape that serves as a symbol adorning state highway signs and license plates. I'd stopped on several occasions at Franconia Notch State Park to view the Old Man from a distance.
Digital Television
In May 2003, erosion, wind and weather finally took their toll on the Old Man, when in an instant the rocks gave way and slid down the the landmarkmountain and into history. At dinner, I asked in passing about the event and my friends told me a few things I had never known about the landmark.
The Old Man of the Mountain had existed in a tenuous state for years, my friends said. In an effort to preserve the landmark, the state had wrapped chains and cables around portions of the face to keep it in place. Plastic was strategically placed in an effort to prevent rain from penetrating crevices, freezing, expanding and making the face more unstable. Volunteer quarryman even regularly inspected the landmark and did their best to maintain its integrity. However, despite everyone's best efforts, the Old Man of the Mountain collapsed in a heap May 3, 2003.
As my friends discussed the Old Man and the efforts to preserve it, I couldn't help but think about the similarities between the fallen-away landmark and TV, commercials and digital signage.
As a mass medium, television is the undisputed champion, but I see signs of erosion, unstable features and steps at preservation that ultimately are likely to prove futile. TV is in a state of transition, and the medium as it's been known for the past 60 years or so is undergoing radical changes.
Sure there's the transition from analog to digital that the government has mandated for February 2009, but that's not what I'm talking about. I'm referring to a transition being forced upon the medium that's about as welcome as the rain and snow were to the Old Man.
Since it's inception as a commercial medium, television in this country has been linear.Programs have a set starting time and known finish – for the most part. In between show segments are commercial breaks; and in between shows are more commercials. Networks and stations have relied on this structure to build program lineups, audiences and desired demographics that advertisers wish to reach.
However, with the roll out of digital video recorders over the past few years, viewers-not network programmers-are in charge of when a show gets watched. Worst of all for the marketers and the networks, viewers can use the same recorder to "zap" or zip by commercials. Each time a viewer does not know, it's like another drop of rainwater penetrating to crack in the Old Man's face, wearing away the underlying soil and rock holding the structure in place.
Add to that the growingavailability of video-on-demand from cable and satellite TV operators, TV network Web sites that make popular shows like "Lost" and "Grey's Anatomy" available on-demand streaming via broadband connection, and the countless shows, movies and events available for download via file sharing, and it's easy to see the cracks are growing and the edifice is nearing to shift.
To be sure, the networks rolling out the chains, wrapping up their franchise tight to hold the status quo. Shows like "American Idol" garner huge ratings and encourage viewers to buck the trend by asking them VOD to call in and vote for their favorite performers live. But that strategy raises some interesting questions, like how can it be applied broadly, and doesn't it just feeds the desire of viewers for interactivecontrol over the content they view?
Technology and interactivity are only two of the elements eroding the status quo. The other is demographics. Closely tied to technology and interactivity to be sure, the highly sought after younger demographic is fluent in technology. From text messaging to gaming, online chats to music downloads, younger audiences are immersed in the stuff. Unfortunately for television networks and their advertisers, this group also appears to be less interested in television than older viewers.
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