Posts Tagged ‘TV’

If the first rule of real-estate is “location,” the second must be “must actually exist.” But ignoring that second rule, here’s a list of fictional cable towns we’d seriously consider if we were moving.

Second screens are taking over our living rooms, changing our TV experience, and revolutionizing how we engage with content. So this week’s #broaddata jumps into the numbers and checks to see if there’s any serious statistical support for these new TV viewing trends.

On February 18th USA Today published an article written by Michael Wolff called “Cable is Taking the Fast Train to Oblivion.” The article forecasts a future of the cable TV industry that almost directly opposes reality.

Big screens, wide screens, ultra-mega-super-high-definitions screens. Touch screens, smart screens, 100 inch laser screens (laser screens?!). I’m sure it comes as no surprise that so much of what we’re seeing at CES is a newer, faster, brighter, bigger screen that enhances the home TV, computer, and movie experience.

With the heavy coverage of the Democratic Convention in Denver, I’ve read a few stories that talk about how viewership of the event is off. For example, there is a chart in the Washington Post today entitled “TV Ratings Drop.” But they mean “network television ratings,” by which they mean ABC, NBC, CBS.  But that’s completely the wrong metric.  In addition to the Big Three and PBS, you can watch convention coverage on C-SPAN, CNN, Fox News, MSNBC, and even BET and TV One.

It’s worth revisiting a topic that never goes off the radar: Concern about content. Everybody can agree that cable transformed the television landscape by vastly expanding viewing choices, but not every viewing option is to everybody’s taste.

Remember the PC versus TV debates of years ago? Even back then, I thought the correct answer was “both.” But the differences between the two devices blur more every year and they both end up being a box connected to a monitor that displays content.

Here’s the cornerstone question raised at a Monday panel session on home-media technology: Is Wall Street Journal digital-technology guru Kara Swisher the embodiment of the future, or what a statistician would call an aberration?