Google: Traditional TV is pretty close to dead
Michael Gay July 17th, 2007
At a conference dedicated to Internet TV, Google’s head of TV technology warned that broadcast TV is dying. Vincent Bureau then softened the attack. “On the surface, television as we know it looks dead. But the future of television is actually pretty bright,” said Bureau according to The Register. Google goes on to say that audience fragmentation is good, ad skipping is a “Godsend”, and new on-air talent should be culled from the Web. The last line of this tongue-in-cheek article is pretty funny:
“To sum up, the web’s biggest name thinks the web can help television. Go figure.”
If you get a chance, it’s a good read. If anyone can find a transcript of the actual speech, let us know in comments.
14 Comments Add your own
1. ! | July 17th, 2007 at 9:19 pm
traditional broadcast may be dying but it’s after midnight here and i am enjoying the stream of the 6pm news out of hawaii.
2. Joe | July 17th, 2007 at 9:44 pm
Yup… smaller and blurier! Sweet!
3. JoeMo | July 18th, 2007 at 5:00 am
I don’t think “traditional” television is dying, I think the public is just fed up with high cable bills, crappy service and cookie cutter reality tv shows, none of which are all that real. I have 250+ channels and I only watch about 10 of them on a regular basis; I mean seriously, who needs a knitting channel anyways?
4. grandma 'Mo' | July 18th, 2007 at 5:29 am
no sweater for you this christmas!
coal in your stocking too!!!
sob.
5. Hussman | July 18th, 2007 at 6:27 am
I got an idea… how about the big 4 (or 6) repurpose some of their cable offerings and offer them as digital channels for affiliates. BLAM! 10 *free* channels right there.
6. Lurker | July 18th, 2007 at 8:23 am
If people would quit hiring these Googleheads for speeches, then maybe they’d stop spouting nonsense.
Uh… Target your content and your advertising and because a Google Search wouldn’t be an audience measure by itself, buy Adwords, so they can treat it like AOL did their keywords in the 90s and that’ll help Google become a portal… er… almost a monopoly… ah…maintain their dominance. (Yeah, that’s the ticket)
7. tdc | July 18th, 2007 at 8:30 am
“spouting nonsense”. ?
that’s a relative term- see the story below where “a study found” broadband users actually watch more network tv.
right.
8. Lurker | July 18th, 2007 at 9:09 am
tdc - I said “nonsense” because I’m not seeing anything in the article that hasn’t already been known.
As someone earlier said, they were watching Hawaii television via the web, but it’s still television and its primary market is still Hawaii; “West Wing” stayed on for so long because it had high income viewers and before them, “Frasier” may have held that distinction; Sears product-placements and targets ads during Ty Pennington, etc. etc. etc.
With hundreds of channels and video-on-demand, there’s a multitude of ways to reach a targeted niche audience and that’s pretty much common knowledge. It didn’t take a Google executive to tell anyone, nor was he needed to say that advertisers should try to make ads that people won’t skip (something that’s been around for over a decade) and his Adwords plug really was just that and nothing more. If anything, how would “Google, keyword moon & stars” really differ from “for more of The Apprentice, go to Yahoo.com”?
9. Lurker | July 18th, 2007 at 9:14 am
Heck - If you want to take targeting ads to a niche audience all the way back, you could just look at PBS program sponsors. It isn’t really a new concept.
10. thedetroitchannel | July 18th, 2007 at 9:59 am
lurker, ! is my alter id (as are 50-some other place-based domain names depending on the subject matter of the comment).
therefore, it was ME that posted i was watching thehawaiichannel.com . which actually bolsters the googguy’s postulation that the “traditional” broadcast is dying and simultaneously the future is pretty bright; i have a longtime connection to the islands… as i do the windy city and south florida too. the “traditional” 60 mile radus that broadcasters fought so hard to protect is now wide open to “foreign” competition.
the only thing to hash out is to monetize my eyeballs… which we have just about fleshed out here several times over.
but i still watch a lot less “traditional” tv.
11. Lurker | July 18th, 2007 at 10:16 am
Detroit - I’m not sure we’re disagreeing about anything except a single word.
Yes. The landscape is changing and I also regularly watch out-of-market and network streams. My point was that from the article, I’m not seeing anything new.
12. tdc | July 18th, 2007 at 3:45 pm
fair enough.
13. jo_cstd | July 19th, 2007 at 2:28 am
I disagree.
TV is far from dead. The internet (IMHO) is more like a ’supplement’ to television. It can never replace it fully.
14. JoeMo | July 19th, 2007 at 5:57 am
@jo_cstd - depends, if you are talking about the medium in which modern day television is being delivered you are almost certainly wrong. Conceptually speaking television will be around for a long time, as long as lazy parents need cheap babysitters we will have television in some form (most likely IPTV in next few years).
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