Learn media consumption from iTunes

Steve Safran May 3rd, 2007

(This column originally appeared in the May 2, 2007 edition of the AR&D Media 2.0 Intel report.)

The number three most-purchased music video at the iTunes store as of this writing is a Ford commercial.

A newspaper is producing local news video in HD.

The top podcasts are from NPR and PBS, not from jokers and teens with microphones and laptops.

People love history, current affairs and non-fiction. They’re not just drawn to pap.

Spend some time poking around the iTunes store and you’ll learn an awful lot about the way people consume media. And what you will learn will challenge many of the notions you have about what people want.

We talk about how people hate advertising. TiVo is the end of TV advertising. The model of advertising is gone. Wrong. People love advertising - when it’s entertaining. Right now, the ad for Ford that features American Idol contestants singing “Crazy Little Thing Called Love” is the #3 music video download on iTunes. People are paying $1.99 for an ad. The money is going to charity, but there’s no way this video becomes #3 unless it’s entertaining - which it is. And it paves the way for “non-charity” paid music videos. And, charity or not, this is an advertisement for Ford and American Idol.

TV people routinely turn their noses up at the quality of video that newspapers generate for the web. (Remember how newspapers used to look down on TV sites for daring to generate print content?) The Washington Post, with its 33 video cameras now on the streets, is putting out videos in High-Definition. The free video podcasts are terrific local news stories, done as nat-sound pieces. The story about a 17-year-old composer is as rich and well-shot as anything you’ll see produced by a TV station. And it’s in HD, shot on a small camera.

Mass entertainment talks down to people. Let’s face it. But when given a choice about what they want, this audience makes some highbrow choices. Of the top 10 podcasts, 7 are from public radio, PBS, CNN, or in one case - an instructional podcast in learning Spanish. And in the audiobooks section, you don’t find the kind of entertainment Hollywood thinks we want. 14 of the top 15 audiobooks are non-fiction. People want to hear about Einstein. They want to hear from the Dalai Lama and George Tenet. They’re interested in the teachings of Abraham and in Stephen Colbert.

All of this represents the very wonder of giving people choice. We’re no longer trapped by the lowest common denominator. We’re free to produce high-quality content and lots of it. The demand is clearly there - you can see it on iTunes. The audience wants choice. The choice of whether to provide it is up to you.