[Advanced] The Future of TV (3)

Closing arguments - Where does TV go from here?

Mike Proulx
Senior VP and Director of Digital Strategy, Hill Holliday

The New Media Advocate

"Simply put, television can no longer be categorized as traditional media but instead must be approached as new media. The real threat to cable companies comes if the masses can easily access the same content at the same time in the same or better ways at a materially lower price point. People will flock to where the content is, period. After all, our loyalty lies with the content itself--individual TV shows--not necessarily TV networks or TV providers. That takes us back to the monthly tiered subscription model. I feel a bit of deja vu from the days when we were forced to buy entire music albums if we wanted merely a couple of songs. Smart-TV technology and mass accessibility will only continue to improve, which heightens the need for television providers to innovate and deliver value.

Rob Marcus
President and COO, Time Warner Cable

The Cable Honcho

"I think there's a tendency to overestimate the moment you're living in. But it does seem like the pace of change in everything is faster than it used to be, and TV is part of that. Until recently, we were working largely with proprietary technology. It was a relatively self-contained ecosystem. But increasingly we're taking advantage of IP-based technologies. We'll have a programming guide hosted in the cloud next year; that will allow us a lot more flexibility to change the look and functionality. It'll be written in HTML5. We want to work with game consoles, Android. We'll clearly be on smart TVs. We are open to trying anything.

Individual TV viewing is something like 150 hours a month. If you divide a typical cable bill by the number of hours they're watching, it's still a pretty good value compared with other forms of entertainment."

Notes and Vocabulary
flock v.
if people flock to a place, they go there in large numbers because something interesting or exciting is happening there

deja vu n.

the feeling that what is happening now has happened before in exactly the same way

tendency n.
/ˈtɛndənsi/
if someone or something has a tendency to do or become a particular thing, they are likely to do or become it

console n.
a flat board that contains the controls for a machine, piece of electrical equipment, computer etc
game console 

proprietary adj.
relating to who owns something

honcho n.
an important person who controls something, especially a business [= boss]

the head honcho

Discussion Questions
- How do you watch your favorite TV shows? Are you pleased with this method?
- Is Google TV something you would use? Why or why not?
- Are you worried that you may be watching too many hours of TV each week? Explain.

mms://203.69.69.81/studio/20130309ada6ab88f731fbeed485aa296f25d5d54eb.wma