Further evidence VOD is a bad UX
Cory Bergman August 17th, 2008
NBC’s “total audience” numbers for the Olympics (latest here in .pdf) give a little insight into the bad user experience (UX) that plagues cable VOD. It’s also interesting when applied to all the local content that’s appearing on VOD these days. So far, VOD is making up .1 percent or less of the unique universe of Olympics viewers, compared to 7-8 percent for the web, according to NBC. Of course, more people have access to the internet than cable VOD, but that shouldn’t account for such a dramatic difference. I, for one, didn’t know the Olympics were available on Comcast VOD until I saw the NBC press releases and started surfing around.
Ah, click “Top Picks” and “Beijing Olympics.” You’d think Comcast would at the very least make it a top-level menu item for the duration of the games. Nope. The same was true over on Charter VOD. “It should be the best VOD experience; instead it could medal in confusing,” writes Staci Kramer on PaidContent. As I’ve written before, the cable companies need to start producing VOD like the web or risk getting written out of the on-demand equation by experiences like Hulu.
Cable companies, especially Comcast, are aggressively ramping up their local VOD offerings. A quick perusal of Seattle’s local video includes local restaurant reviews, high school sports, pet adoptions, weekend events, auto classifieds, video dating… quite a selection. But so far the consumption levels are low for the same reason as the Olympics: people don’t know it exists in the first place. But it could become a competitive threat to local TV very quickly once cable companies fix the VOD user experience.
4 Comments Add your own
1. Randall | August 17th, 2008 at 1:03 pm
I’ve shown my father, age 70, 3 times how to use VOD on his cable system but he never remembers and when I access it, it takes way too long to get to something I want. The cable co’s need to do some basic research into the interactive experience or - read some online tips. Start with the “one click” rule and put a big red button on the remote for people to find it.
2. Andrea | August 18th, 2008 at 5:59 am
I agree that VOD is practically hidden. I had such a bad experience with Cablevision’s service–it was so slow, literally it would take 30-60 seconds just to load each page and I would occasionally have to reboot the box–that I gave up. I haven’t even checked out Time Warner’s offerings and I’ve been a subscriber for 2.5 years. I have too many other choices for programming and entertainment to be bothered.
3. Gunner | August 18th, 2008 at 9:00 am
I am a regular VOD user and a Comcast Customer. By-and-large I’d have to say I’m very satisfied with it. I watch CSI and Numbers on VOD, even though I have a TIVO (I watch them in HD and my TIVO is not HD compatible). I also watch a ton of the free movies.
One drawback, though, the CBS VOD shows are free and the NBC ones are on a pay-per-view basis.
4. Anonymous | August 21st, 2008 at 5:47 pm
You’re still wasting your time with me. I watched Xanadu on laserdisc again last night.
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