Le New York Times a publié en ligne ce week-end un gros dossier consacré à la mutation de la télévision (« la TV transformée ») qui sera dans la version imprimée de lundi matin. Nous en avons résumé la douzaine d'articles qui le composent et sorti les principaux points:
"Social Media Takes Television Back in Time" (L'aube de la Social TV)
La fonction de lien social de la TV fonctionne encore. Les médias sociaux -- Twitter en premier lieu -- redonnent du lustre à la TV en direct regardée en même temps par des millions de personnes. Nous ne sommes pas tous des binge-watchers.
Extraits :
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" the power of social media to catch and hook an audience. (…) (Twitter) is deepening the program’s relationship with its audience.
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it increasingly unlikely that everyone else everywhere else was watching the same schlock at the same time. But that’s beginning to change.
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technology could transform television into something more than a one-way, disconnected, time-shifted experience. (…) Instead, largely because of social media, TV is becoming an interactive, communal experience. (...) The community of viewers will probably become more important as technology continues to alter TV
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(Twitter ) : In a coming feature that has been code-named Project Lightning, the short-messaging network plans to add several improvements for following along with live television
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(Snapchat) : everyone is watching pretty much the same thing at the same time.
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When you’re watching TV with Twitter, or you log on to Vine, Periscope, Snapchat or some other service, you don’t just hear others in the audience gasp. Now people react to one another’s gasps — and because the writers and producers of these shows are also looking at the audience reaction, the gasps can alter the show itself.
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For some “Scandal” devotees, Twitter has become a vital part of the show
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The increasing importance of live, communal experiences seems certain to affect the business of television
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(Netflix) : If we all start to get our TV in different ways, if we’re no longer chained to a set in the living room, it might follow that in the future we’ll all watch different things at different times. (…) But it’s possible that bingeing isn’t for everyone. (…) Most of us still prefer to watch big TV hits live.
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For HBO, which makes its money from subscription fees, the week-to-week online chatter feeds interest for new users. For networks that are funded by advertising, the case for live communal viewing is even stronger.
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TV is the cultural baseline — the thing in the background that commands attention, that sets the conversation. Now, on our phones and our computers, the conversation continues".
"With the TV Business in Upheaval, Targeted Ads Offer Hope" (Ma télé, mes pubs)
La TV devient un média de précision pour les annonceurs qui entendent pouvoir toucher précisément leurs cibles avec leurs produits sur n'importe quel écran. Vive les data ! Mais il y a un gros problème ! Les géants du web, Google et Facebook au premier chef, sont bien meilleurs en ce domaine.
Extraits :
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"Dollars follow eyeballs. This bedrock principle of media advertising is working against the television industry today, as new viewing patterns challenge old ways of doing business.
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“The traditional TV model is breaking apart,” said Laura Desmond, chief executive of Starcom MediaVest, one of the world’s largest ad-buying companies. “It’s both a crisis and a huge opportunity.”
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The TV market is fracturing and becoming less predictable, undermining the main appeal of traditional TV to advertisers: its ability to deliver mass-market audiences.
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Yet as TV embraces digital technology, it opens the door to targeting television ads as never before, much as is done with advertising on the web today.
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That helps explain the surge in digital video advertising on Google’s YouTube, Facebook and streaming services like Hulu, where the rules of Internet targeting apply. Those online video ads are only a tenth of the television ad market of $70 billion a year, but they are projected to grow 21 percent a year, according to Forrester Research. By contrast, advertising on cable and broadcast television is expected to inch ahead at 1 percent annually.
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The technology for digital TV is still in its early stages. The TV industry wants to be able to target ads to households and individuals, as on the web, but without losing control of its distribution network and business.
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For advertisers, this should mean more productive ads and the ability to scientifically test their effectiveness
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“TV will take on some of the characteristics of Internet advertising in terms of targeting and relying on data to predict who is behind the screen,” said James Nail, an analyst at Forrester Research. “But video sellers have greater power to dictate how the new technology rolls out.”
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“Premium content is scarce, and scarcity creates a huge difference between TV and the Internet,” said Scott Ferber, chief executive of Videology, an ad tech start-up.
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Google’s role, said Rany Ng, director of product management for video ads, is to “bring data-driven buying and automation to how television and video advertising is bought.”
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For advertisers, the long-term goal is to be able to reach ideal customers for their products, on any screen.
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The only three sure survivors, she said, are Disney, 21st Century Fox and Comcast NBCUniversal. Smaller players will most likely be bought up.The acquirers, Ms. Desmond said, may well include the Internet powerhouses, like Google and Facebook.
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Even those who insist the TV market is unique have their qualms. “It should be different,” Mr. Ferber of Videology said, “but these digital companies are so huge and so powerful, they are going to be hard to resist.”
"New Twists for the TV Plot, as Viewer Habits Change" (Rebondissements dans l'intrigue)
Face à une audience de plus en plus sophistiquée et impatiente, dont les manières de regarder la TV ont radicalement changé, les scénaristes des séries vivent dans la crainte d'être dépassés !
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"But as technology evolves, the concept of plot in television series has been evolving, too, and there have been growing pains. In this era, when the audience (particularly the younger audience) watches TV in many different ways — weekly, time-shifted or binged, and on a variety of platforms — viewers’ expectations have changed, and the medium has done all it can trying to keep up.
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In May, the critic Matt Zoller Seitz mused in Vulture about the plot-heaviness of 21st-century TV, explaining the phenomenon in part as “a reaction to increased viewer sophistication — and impatience.” He wrote: “TV writers live in constant low-level fear of being outguessed by fans, with reason. In the age of recaps and Facebook instant reactions and live-tweeting, everyone is a student of storytelling. They know the tropes and tricks because they’re a constant, often humorous topic of online chatter.”
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a certain level of narrative fatigue may be setting in, especially now that “Breaking Bad,” “Mad Men” and “Justified” have ended their long, satisfying runs.
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Binge-watchable series like “House of Cards,” “Bloodline” and “Daredevil” allow for dense plotting but discourage the tiresome guessing-game aspect of weekly TV viewing: The answers are there from the start, so nobody gets a gold star for calling them right."
"YouTube’s Young Viewers Are Becoming Its Creators" (De spectateur à créateur)
Grâce à YouTube, la nouvelle TV des jeunes, les téléspectateurs deviennent des créateurs. Et ça change beaucoup de choses !
Extraits :
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(young people) "They almost never turn on a television set or watch anything produced by a broadcast or cable network.
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The traditional television industry keeps trying to find ways to draw those young eyes, by littering their programs with social media hashtags and giving development deals to Twitter and YouTube users who have hundreds of thousands of followers. But viewers under 18 are not seeing the Internet as a farm system for Hollywood, the way the major studios hope.
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Malik Ducard, the global head of family and learning at YouTube, sees this dynamic every day — both at work and at home, where his children are 13, 10 and 7. “My personal belief is that kids travel from medium to medium and vehicle to vehicle seamlessly,” he said. “It’s become something innate and natural to this generation.”
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year to year, the number of hours people spend watching videos on YouTube keeps growing — up 50 percent over last year, according to the site’s own statistics page — and a lot of those watchers make the transition to becoming creators.
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They are less interested in personal branding than in sharing their enthusiasm
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Around the world, YouTube has built production facilities — called Spaces — to provide their best-known creators access to soundstages and equipment.
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This is just a hobby for Archer, not a path to fame and fortune. But as with a lot of children his age, the transition from watching to creating happened quickly and naturally. As Mr. Ducard put it, these new kinds of screen time have spawned a world of their own. “It lives,” he said, “And in a way that you don’t see it living on television.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/05/business/media/youtube-younger-viewers-content-creators.html
"TV Transformed: How We Watch"
Echantillon de témoignages des nouvelles formes multiples de visionnage des contenus de TV : du teenager "streamer", au surfeur sur laptop, du consommateur à la carte, au picorage entre TV et ordi, en passant par la TV de rendez-vous. Mais beaucoup dépend de l'âge !
"Millennials Reconnect the Cable Cord as Children Arrive" (Et si les jeunes revenaient une fois installés ?)
Le phénomène de cord-cutting s'accélère, notamment dans les milieux urbains. Et les jeunes ont laissé tomber le téléviseur. Mais, même si les chiffres restent confus, dès qu'ils s'installent et commencent à avoir des enfants, ils reviennent à la TV par câble, selon Nielsen. Attention toutefois : les 18-34 ans passent désormais 40 heures par semaine sur leurs smart phones pour se distraire (musique, vidéos, jeux). Le double d'il y a un an !
Extraits :
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"The decision to go without a traditional cable or satellite service and rely exclusively on Internet streaming video might last only until millennials start families, new Nielsen research on the media habits of the 18-to-34 age group suggests
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et with much of media in flux, their viewing habits continue to confound researchers, although the new numbers offer some clarity.
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In any case, cord-cutting accelerated during the second quarter this year, industry analysts say
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it is still unclear whether digitally astute millennials who want to have children will find it necessary to subscribe to a traditional service, particularly as the number of streaming alternatives explodes".
"From Wasteland to Wonderland: TV’s Altered Landscape" (Finie, la vacuité!)
Le passage de la rareté à l'abondance, du temps de cerveau disponible vendu sur 3 chaînes à des milliers d'offres de qualité, du plus petit dénominateur commun à la prise de risques, a bouleversé -- en bien -- le paysage TV.
Extraits :
"When technology replaced scarcity with abundance, every core assumption about TV began to crumble. Everything about the medium — how we receive it, how we consume it, how we pay for it, how we interact with it — has been altered, and TV is infinitely better for it".
"Unwrapping the Cable TV Bundle" (Le dégroupage des bouquets)
Payer pour des centaines de chaînes qu'on ne regarde pas n'a plus guère de sens quand on peut choisir à la carte. Des bouquets moins chers, allégés sont proposés avec succès. Mais le public va être de plus en plus attentif à ses choix et se tourne aussi vers de nouveaux genres, comme les jeux. YouTube l'a bien compris.
Extraits :
- "It has been a turbulent few months for media companies. In early August, media stocks including Disney, Viacom and Time Warner fell sharply. Investors seem to be worried, principally, about one thing: The prospective undoing of the expensive cable television bundle.
- Most industry analysts agree that the bundle, as it exists now, is in trouble. Or, as CBS’s chief executive, Leslie Moonves, put it earlier this year: “The days of the 500-channel universe are over.”
- “There’s going to be people who are going to be slicing it and dicing it in different ways.”
- All good, in this case, could include the amount a consumer spends, but how the consumer will spend in the new environment is an open question.
- You could probably spend some of the difference but you spend it on other forms of entertainment.”That could include online gaming, or a future in which a YouTube star will command paid subscriptions for access to content
- ESPN has lost roughly three million subscribers in the past year, according to Nielsen, because of people’s cancellation of their cable subscriptions
- The future, Mr. Goodman argues, is one in which the consumer will likely pay less but will have to be very vigilant about what to mix and match — or slice and dice.“More choice,” he continued, “means you’re going to have to pay attention to what you’re buying.”
1985: Television Transformed 1.0 (La vraie révolution fut la cassette vidéo)
La vraie révolution s'est passée il y a 30 ans quand nous avons pu enregistrer les programmes sur des cassettes vidéo.
Extraits :
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"In like fashion, the colossal library of Netflix may be impressive, but the videocassette recorder was a revolution. The rest, which a reeling industry is still trying to sort out, is digital gravy.
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the real revolution came about 30 years ago. By 1985, viewers could see a show after it had aired, and their choices had increased greatly.
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The heart of today’s transformation of television is storage
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The introduction of the home videocassette recorder was the medium’s most important sea change.
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The TV revolution took a lot more effort to enjoy three decades ago. You needed to check listings, set timers and rewind tapes"
"Watching for the Programming Apocalypse" (Déjà trop de séries ? )
Même avec 400 séries proposées cette année (le double de 2009 !), les nouveaux acteurs, comme Netflix, continuent de produire de nouveaux shows. Et de nouveaux concurrents arrivent.
Extraits :
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"More than 23 years after Bruce Springsteen lamented 57 channels with nothing on, viewers in 2015 will be able to see some 400 original scripted series on hundreds of broadcast, basic cable, pay cable and online services. As recently as 2009, the comparable number of series was around half that.
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So it’s reasonable to ask, as many are: Could the programming bubble be about to burst? Even some of the pessimists aren’t so sure.
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WGN America’s president and general manager, Matt Cherniss, said changing viewer habits made calculated risks worthwhile for upstarts. “I don’t think the audience goes: ‘Where is that? I don’t watch that channel,’” Mr. Cherniss said. “I think they’ll go wherever they need to, to find the content that they’re interested in. So in that sense there’s a lot less work needed to convince the audience that new, great programming can be anywhere.”
"Searching Deeper on Online Video" (Trouver cette scène ?)
Pour l'instant la recommandation (éditoriale, sociale et algorithmique) reste le moyen dominant de découvrir des vidéos en ligne. Mais tout le monde travaille aussi sur le search pour satisfaire la demande à la carte. Grâce aux données.
Extraits :
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"Click on a search box at Netflix, and you can search on titles, people, and genres. With Hulu, your choices are titles and people. With HBO Now, you can search on titles, and that’s it. If you’re looking for something more specific, like scenes from “The Sopranos” that depict Tony eating dessert, fuhgeddaboutit. You’ve got to try YouTube for that.At least for now.
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When we’re producing a program, we create so much information even before a single frame is shot. Location, cast, crew, script, scenery, props. There’s so much rich metadata, and you never know what one individual user is going to find interesting.”
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devices like Google’s Chromecast make search input easier by letting you do it on your smartphone
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Siri will broaden video search in some compelling ways
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But even as input challenges get solved, video search will continue to face the same challenge that text-based search does: How do you deliver relevant results when the data sets being searched are so large, especially when viewers don’t know exactly what they’re looking for?
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In 2013, Netflix told Wired that 75 percent of its viewer activity was driven by recommendation rather than search. (Netflix declined to comment for this article.) Mr. Goodrow said recommendations drove the majority of viewership at YouTube, as well.
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The holy grail of video search is not just to return links to videos that contain the contents sought, but to link directly to the spot in the video where that content exists.None of the major subscription video-on-demand sites offer such functionality, for the moment
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his kind of pinpointed approach has value in a news context, where people are most likely to be looking for specific content, like a presidential candidate’s statements on immigration.
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But in an era of obsessive fandom and big data, shouldn’t such specificity extend to entertainment platforms, too — especially on subscription sites where flexibility and better service are parts of what you’re paying for?
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That’s where we’re heading,” said Ms. Tryneski of HBO. “The systems we’re creating now are going to make all the information we capture more readily accessible to users, who’ll be able to connect that information in unexpected and delightful ways. What is today TV on the Internet is going to evolve into a much deeper experience.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/05/business/media/searching-deeper-on-online-video.html
