An open letter to TV executives!

Dear Major Networks:

UR DOIN IT RONG.

Seriously, all lolcatinternets speak aside, you guys are losing out on MAJOR MONEY. The only show that is doing it right thus far is South Park. South Park Studios is something that the fans wanted, nay, demanded. (Demanded? How exactly, Tiffany?)

Okay so even when South Park was relatively young, people were ripping episodes and posting them online. 10 years ago I was 14, a veteran of the internet at the time (between being a latchkey kid in a no tivo/DVR place) there wasn’t much to do. Before megavideo, youtube, and other video streaming sites you had the choice between downloading WMV or MOV formats. There were at least 3 big-ish sites that allowed you to download ripped, horrible quality but decent enough sound South Park (and Simpsons yay!). So, I got to catch up on my episodes. A breaker of the laws in place at a tender 14 years old.

Now that I’ve been provided with the awesomeness of SouthParkStudios.com, I can watch episodes anytime I want – provided I’m online. Obviously there’s that catch, which means that people still will buy DVDs if they’re dedicated enough (or, if they want to hear those awesome mini commentaries from Trey & Matt, *dreamy teen fangirl sigh*). However, I’m certain that with nerds who have computers hooked up to their HDTVs (like I do) or the plethora of internet savvy youths who will watch most everything online provided they get the chance to, there’s FINALLY a way to bring commercials back to the game! (You mean, putting things on the internet will help us with the money we lost when Tivo and it’s fast forwardable commercials came into play?) Possibly, executives. Possibly. I mean, the same people who mute the commercial will probably take the effort to do the same (even if it’s unmuteable, computers can still be muted.) However the majority of people won’t care, the commercials are HEAPS shorter (30 second break? That’s fine! 3 minute break? Please no mas!). Also with the fact that you see that same commercial three times within a 20 minute period, it sticks folks, and that’s your goal, as far as making money from advertisers goes, right? Making it stick?

Let people choose what they want from a series of choices and you’ll not only get invaluable market research (from the fact that while neilsen groups only pick 1-in-such-and-such amount and with this you can have exact numbers, data, with real time results, that shows you the complete total of people, not just an appx. loose amount based on a small survey of people.), but you’ll see an increase in purchases. More invested, because they had the power to choose a specific brand instead of having it hoisted on them in this age of 5000 + ads per day. Getting to choose, getting to in a sense, be heard, has a much more memorable affect than trying to blindly get their attention with what may or may not work, depending on the mood, person, etc.

Quick aside about advertising: I’m not joking folks. People love to choose. Hulu’s doing a pretty good job of the quick survey, and even sometimes lets you play advertisements. If you give people a choice of commercials geared to different demographics (ex: South Park caters to gamers. Gamers are usually boys, and there’s a greater percentage of boys who watch south park versus girls. Great match right?)  who typically watch the show. Bonuses are again, market research, on top of that, people will be more likely to pay attention to the commercial because you paid attention to THEM.

TheSimpsons.com – if that offered me every episode, available to watch not only through my computer, but also through the ps3 hooked up to the TV, would probably play NON STOP. (Okay, not literally. I do sleep people, and occassionaly like to watch other things.) Give me a TheSimpsons.com and a “random episode” button, and I’ll watch it whenever I don’t have anything in particular to watch. As part of a new generation of freelancers and get-it-done-ers who spend the better part of their day trapped behind a computer, we’ve learned to multi-task. Watching TV while catching up on the latest blog while organizing our RTM and planning out, possibly cooking, dinner, is all part of the daily practice for us. We would LOVE  to have a no hassle way to know we’re going to enjoy what we’re going to watch!

Also, do you know HOW many shows I missed out on mostly because I couldn’t watch the first episodes of the season?  You will get sooooooo many more new viewers both to the cable showings, Hulu “new episodes” showing, etc.  Now that I have TVShack.net I work from home, edit photos, create websites, clean house, etc – all while either Pandora’ing or TVShack’ing.  What can I say, after living in a media world for so long, the comforting flicker of the TV screen helps me to focus my mind and get things done (I think with portability we’ve gone well past the “zombie” stage of TV, and should stop fearing it.)  Obviously it’s not the only thing I do on the internet, I just happen to function better while multitasking.   I think it’s generational. I hear many similar things from many student friends of mine (well, some friends, some former classmates).

Back to the point – all the TV shows you’re keeping in “wait” for someone to buy or to see on the internet is money lost from advertisers that would pay you for very specific research, very specific demographic and psychographic data you could be capturing at the SAME TIME as advertising. How’s THAT for innovation?

This is part 1 of a series, I’ll eventually write more once I get some hard data, research, and more. Because I know that’s what you executives like, numbers.  Hopefully I can get examples on LOST, as leading up to the sixth, and final season, the purposely put all episodes on Hulu and on Netflix so people could watch and catch up, or rewatch and find out more mysteries (ooooOOoooooo).

For now,

Tiffany

Tags: executives, letters to, television