Future of Television

I think that the future for television networks and their demographics is slowly fading into something new in this digital age. Television shows will develop a new kind of format and relationships with the networks that will act as place-holders and time fillers. Because of the decrease of commercial viewing and the increase of product placement it becomes harder and harder for the networks and TV stations to make money needed to carry out their television shows. I think that the scripted sitcom shows will eventually be founded only on OnDemand. This way the viewer will have to pay a small fee in order to view their show and allow the show to make some of the money that they had spend on each episode since they will not be receiving the revenue from the advertisers. Sitcoms whether it be thirty minutes or sixty are pricy for networks to produce and with the shift of everything becoming digital it is very likely that they will fade away from their regular viewing ways. Hulu and other TV show viewing sites will increase with their popularity for those who do not want to pay the fee of it OnDemand.

News, talk shows, and reality shows will stay because of one main reason they are inexpensive to produce. Also no one is going to pay OnDemand to watch their news because who wants news from two days ago? I do believe that the way news is presented and formatted will change to give viewers a less in depth look at what is going on in the world because by the time that this changes the Internet will be at full speed; with the Internet being the primary way of reading full stories of what is happening around the world. Talk shows and reality shows are also inexpensive because the sets are usually not elaborate and they do not have to pay reality stars, and the talk show guests.

Eventually I think that as the Internet has become so extremely popular I think that cell phones will eventually become just as popular. Right now people are already using it to check emails, upload applications, and even watch television shows but in the near future this will be the first place people will turn to in order to watch all of their shows and news.

So in the next five to ten years when everything I have just said has come true you can thank me for providing you with this insightful look in to the digital entertainment era.

Children's Shows Rules and Regulations

I never realized how strict networks have to be about airing children's television shows until a speaker from the FCC, Federal Communications Commission, came and talked to my Television Stations Management class last week. He informed us about all of the rules and regulations that networks have to follow in order to keep themselves out of trouble. Some of the rules that they have to follow is that they can not have that many minutes of breaks and have to have bumpers before the show comes back on saying, now back to the show. They also can not have a character from the show selling a product in a commercial because the kids will not know how do distinguish between the show they are watching and a commercial. Finally, they can not have an Internet website in a commercial because it encourages the kids to go on to the Internet when their parents may not be around.

Thinking back to when I was little watching the shows on the Disney Channel I would always remember them announcing to their young audience “now back to the show” and we would all come running back into the room. Too bad they do not do that today, but I guess the invention of the DVR has replaced the need for networks to announce this to the audience. The need to keep kids so protective from the media has increased through out the years as more and more ways of accessing media related products has become available to little kids.

If the networks do not follow the rules of the FCC there are many fines that they will be faces with that do not seem to be worth the money. These little kids are so impressionable that any little thing that could confuse their perception of something they are watching on TV can jeopardize their network.

Jumpin on the Bandwagon

I feel like I have jumped on the bandwagon once again by joining yet another social networking site. This new sight that has entered my life is Twitter, and I’m now addicted. I told myself that I was not going to join any other sites that require me to make up a password and username, I think I have a running total of 6 different ones that I keep alternating. The thing that I like about Twitter is the fact that the users pages are clean and simple; there you can not upload photo albums, give people stickers, or take quizzes to see what kind of drink you are. It’s straight and to the point. At first I was hesitant because I did not want just anyone to click to my page and decide to follow me, but when I realized that you can control your privacy I was ready to join.

I created it this past weekend, and thought it was fun putting down my status of what I was doing, and where I was going, but now being back at school this week I noticed that I have one not been on to change my status as much, and two when I do what am I going to put down..I’m on my way to class or stuck in the library? It does not seem to be as interesting as the things I do on the weekend but I guess I’ll eventually get in to the whole Twitterness. I actually think of it as a mini blog where I can just go to quickly jot down my thoughts.

Even though I do not go on it that much now I think once my friends, and I become true Twitters it’ll be helpful to quickly find out what my friends are doing, and save myself from going over my limit for text messaging. 

Widget Review

For all of you who have a hard time keeping up with your favorite TV shows I’ve found the widget for you. It’s called TV Forecast and it is found on the Mac OS X Dashboard, not only does this widget allow you to keep track of all of your favorite television shows but it shows you the next air date for each shows, which is extremely helpful for the shows that are not aired every week. It will also provide a countdown until the next time the show airs, the episode title ad even a link to buy previous episodes from the iTunes store. But don’t worry you PC lovers because this application is not only created for Mac’s but it is available for PC computers as well. Computer users are not the only ones who get to experience the TV Forecast, but those with the iPhone do as well.

This widget is found under the Movies and Television category along with many other widgets pertaining to movies and television. A review titled Track Your TV Shows lists the Pro’s and Con’s for this widget. It lists the Pro’s as being,

“an attractive interface, easy to use, and iTunes store links to past episodes”

Some of the Con’s are,

“frequently breaks, limited features in iPhone application for the price, it does not intergrate with iCal”

Most of the time I think what is the purpose of some of these widgets but this one makes perfect sense why it is created and provide a type of organization for their users. The iTunes store also is able to make money by having the ability to easily access the television show through the click of the mouse to their store online.

Some more Con’s that I read in an article titled Review TV Forecast 101 for iPhone stated,

“it is not a TV guide, and it is only available for current television series”

So for all of you who want to watch your past time television shows you are out of luck. The way that this widget functions is you have to type in the television show that you are looking for, and choose your time zone. Then you have the ability to choose from a list of functions for your TV Forecast; they include TV shows that are TBA, perform time zone correction, refresh forecast automatically, and link to the iTunes Store.

I have even downloaded this widget to be on my dashboard so whenever I want to find out what shows are new or on that week I just click F12 and I am immediately able to have that given to me.

Jason Clarke wrote up a review for the Download Squad website and stated that,

“this interface is simple, clean and uses minimum space while it gives you maximum application”

The reviews for this widget seem to have greater Pro’s than Con’s. I think that if an application is as simple to use as it is functional than it is no question as to if you should use it or not. The perk of not missing another one of your favorite television shows is one major plus that made me want to download this widget.

Advertising Age: MediaWorks

To all of my followers I think that you will be excited to hear about my discovery of a widget that will keep you that much more informed about what is going on in the advertising world. You probably are thinking why would I think Advertising Age would be something that I am excited about and think would be beneficial, when the blogs I write about are based on television demographics. Well, the reason why I think this widget is so valuable is because advertisers are all of the networks main source of revenue, and having the stories available at a moments notice will help to expand your knowledge about the advertising world as well.

The large role that advertisers play with television is so significant that with out them the stations would not be here today. Advertising Age has widgets that provide an emphasis on different advertising topics, and the one that I choose has an emphasis on MediaWorks. The articles that they have on advertising in the media will allow for a better understanding of how different television networks function. The way that it is set up will be easy for those of you who do not have the time to sit down and read a long article, the short clips give you a sense of if the article is to your liking or not.

I’ve learned that having knowledge of all aspects that are related to television demographics will put you one step ahead of everyone else. It gives you an advantage when you are talking about demographics to incorporate the information of other fields of research as well.

Widgetbox

Until this semester the word widget seemed to be a foreign word, and then once I found out what it was I felt that it would be no use to me. After finding out that this mini-web application can also be added to my blog or social network site to provide me with quick information related to a particular subject has changed my world. To me this device is shockingly interesting since I did not realize that it would actually have use to me. Not only did I not know about widgets, but I did not realize that they had sites specifically dedicated to widgets. The widget that I found is located on the Widgetbox website. This site has hundreds of widgets to choose from and categorizes them in to specific tags such as “family”, “games”, “movies” and “sports”, or you can type in any topic into the “Find Widgets” box. Having so many widgets on this site is not as over-whelming as it may seem since they also categorize it into “Hottest Widgets”, “Featured Widgets”, “New Widgets”, and “All Time Favorites”. Finding widgets is not the only thing you can do on this site, you can even create your own widget! This simple format lays out the entire process as to how to create your very own widget.

After exploring around on this widgetbox site I found a widget that is helpful to not only me but to everyone else who finds my topic on television demographics interesting. The name of it is called Advertising Age, with an emphasis on MediaWorks. The word advertising may seem like it does not have anything to with television demographics but in fact it does. The television networks rely a vast amount of their revenue on the participation of different advertisers. This widget covers the latest media news, analysis and data, and is focused on educating media planners, buyers and owners. The advertising is all types that include magazine, broadcast, print, television, and marketing.

The step-by-step process of how this application works is to first click on the Advertising Age widget application. It will take you to a page where you can post a comment or read comments about the application. You are able to choose from a number of different color backgrounds for the widget, and read a summary on what the application is about. It also shows you what other widgets you might be interested in as well. Once you explore through this page you click on the green “Get Widget” button, and it will take you to a page with just the widget where you follow the directions on how to add the widget to your Facebook, MySpace, Blogger or any other application that you want your new widget to be accessable at. In order to add it to your blog or webpage it provides you with a code to paste on to your page. The only problem that I experienced is trying to get it onto your Facebook page. I tried several times and I could not get it to show up on my page. Fortunatley Widgetbox does a great job at providing a “Help” link to click on along with “About”, and “Share”.

This widget is great because I will be able to see and read about up to minute news on how advertising is changing in this digital world. This is also something that will help my viewers become more knowledgeable about this changing industry.

TV Demo Literary Review

I have found so many interesting and informative sources on my topic of television and demographics. I have been fortunate enough to have had the opportunity to listen to speakers from Fox and CBS speak on their networks television show strategies, and have found many other academic sources as well. I find it so enthralling to see how much the television industry is changing everyday.

The speakers have given me a first hand experience of what they are really facing everyday. The speaker from Fox provided the audience with a print out of the statistics of their Tuesday ratings compared to the other networks. The information is broken down into gender, and ages to allow for me to have a better understanding of the exact demographics that are watching the most of the certain shows. American Idol proves to be the dominant show in amongst all of the shows and ages at the eight o’clock hour, but seems to be an acception to the fact that the 18 to 34 year olds are the key marketers.

The 18 to 34 demographics are extremely important to networks because the advertisers are always willing to pay premium. They think that the younger demographic are easier to target in their attempt develop them in to loyal and lifelong customers. They are more experimental to buy the products and take advantage of all of the sites that pertain to the shows.

It seems like more today than ever before is demographics the topic of concern with the different networks. The growth of technology and media and allowed for this topic to constantly be in the eye of the networks. The young demographic seems to be constantly on the go which keeps the networks on their toes to continuously improve their marketing strategies.

An example of a show that is aimed at the 18 to 34 year olds is “Gossip Girl” this show takes advantage of each type of growing new media. The product placement that the advertisers use through out the show and cross promotion of different ways you can access the show is an example of the new media in effect. The online sites allows for people to interact with the show on a personal level by playing games and shopping for clothes seen in previous episodes. The amount of time that 18 to 34 year olds spend on the internet helps to increase the CW network’s ratings with the show.

Even though it does make sense that those 50 and older in the baby boomers generation would be the key demographic because of their stable lives and steady income. They are the risky ones that the networks dread to see as a larger demographic for one of their shows. They are unwilling to engage in the exciting new media and are seen as being too safe, by watching their shows the same way every week in front of the television at that specific time. They are also less willing to multi-task while they are watching the shows, which can hinder the networks strategy for them to take full control of their resources.

The world of television demographics is constantly changing as new media is being explored, so the question as to why the 18 to 34 year olds are so important, despite the baby boomers more steady income and life style is a question that will soon be unfolded.