Home > Courses > JEM 560 Advanced Web Publishing > Iveta Imre: Research paper


The Online Video
development and implications

By Iveta Imre

(Class presentation: Nov. 12, 2008)

There is no old media. There is no new media. There is one media with one common purpose: to inform, move and inspire the world through information, art and entertainment.

- Chad Hurley, You Tube Cofounder

INTRODUCTION

In 1941 CBS launched its new television network. It was the beginning of television, and many were afraid that this means the death of the radio. The film industry did not want to allow movies to air on TV. Advertisers and content owners were afraid that the existing audience will alienate. The same thing happened to the printing press when Internet came along together with blogging, to the record player with the iPod, and to the theater stage with movie theaters.

Content has been changing the means of delivery constantly throughout the history. Today we witness multi-platform delivery as suppose to the single platform delivery model that dominated so far.

One of the new developments on the Internet is online video. Statistics show that around 10 billion videos are viewed online monthly only in the United States, and 13 hours of content are uploaded on You Tube every minute. Predictions are that by 2010 the online video advertising market is going to be worth over billion dollars, and by 2013 it will grow over 3 billion dollars. “So online video is here to stay and evolving faster and in more dynamic ways than anyone imagined even a few years ago.” said Chad Hurley, You Tube Cofounder.[i]

The digital age brings a lot of challenges. Some embrace and welcome the change, some are afraid that they will loose control over the content.

The purpose of this paper is to explain what we mean when we say online video, what has been happening so far, what are the audience reactions, and what the future brings. The paper also studies what Scripps Networks, Production Company that produces content for Home and Garden Television, and Fine Living, is doing concerning online video content.

 

REPURPOSING VIDEO ONLINE

Repurposed video is video that has already been shown on the television, and was uploaded on the Internet. Repurposed video can be anything from a television show, series, to a movie.

Television distributors started a new trend of uploading their program online, making it available to the audience to watch their favorite series at their time for free. This way many shows get an opportunity to be viewed again. ''We have all this library content, and we've been surprised at how much interest there is in it,'' Jeff Zucker, the chief executive of NBC Universal, said.[ii]

More and more advertising-supported TV streaming TV sites are appearing on the Internet. Hulu.com, an online video site that was founded by General Electric Co.’s NBC Universal and News Corp., offers more than 3,000 episodes of various television series, some even as old as “Alfred Hitchcock Presents” from 1955. Some of the most viewed series on the site are “Buffy the Vampire Slayer”, and Babylon 5”.

Unsuccessful Fox Network comedy “Arrested Development” became one of the most popular shows when showed on Hulu. This show never attracted significant amount of audience while broadcasted on TV. However, it is a perfect show for streaming online because of many hidden jokes throughout the episodes that make sense only after the viewer watches the whole season.

Joost, a company started by the Skype creators and the music-sharing service Kazaa, offers more than 46,000 videos, movies, and TV shows such as “Friends”, and “The Daily Show”, and is planning to show many fall shows from CBS.

You Tube, owned by Goolge.Inc. started adding full-length episodes in addition to its signature short videos. Viewers can watch older shows such as “Beverly Hills 90210”, and “MacGyver”, as well as some of the new ones such as “Dexter”.

Another way a repurposed video content can be used online is to take a full-length episode, reedit it, write a new script, make it shorter, and use the footage in other creative ways. Paul Buckman, director of Broadband Programming at Scripps Networks Interactive says Scripps has this massive library full of great footage that is a pity not to use. He said repurposing is a great option budget wise because you don’t have the same expenses as when you do original programming. One of the projects he is currently working is minute thirty long videos that give people ideas about new travel destinations. For these videos he is using old footage from Scripps library.

“If I was to hire production companies all over the country to do one of the projects I was planning on doing it would cost me at least a half a million dollars. I don’t have that kind of money to do that. Going to the library and using all of the footage here it costs maybe a fifth of that. With repurposing we can get more bang for the buck.” he said.[iii]

Even though repurposed program is more cost effective Buckman doesn’t think it is going to hurt original programming for the web. “Web is a great medium, and there is room to do original programming. There is so much out there that we could do online, it depends on our goals, on the stuff that we are trying to do, and if it calls for the original programming then yeah, we are going to do it.” he said.[iv]

ORIGINAL PROGRAMMING FOR THE WEB

 

            Original programming for the web means that a production company is going to develop and produce video content that is going to be broadcasted exclusively on the web. Many news websites and other have started producing short formats for the web. However, this kind of professionally produced online video is still very new.

            Scripps Productions Interactive worked on this type of a project this summer called Cool Houses Daily which aired on Frontdoor.com, HGTV’s sister webpage on real-estate. This two minute long show aired daily on Frontdoor.com, and talked about houses that were for sale around the country, and were listed on the webpage.

            Angela Meredith, Cool Houses Daily producer said this show was a very extensive project for such a small website as Frontdoor.com. She said it was time and money consuming, especially for Scripps because this production company does not do daily programming.

            The show was produced with 75 percent less of a budget than it would normally be spent for production of a television show. “The budget was very tight. It was a production for a website, and plus it was just so basic, it was me producing it, writing it, and then we had a crew for half a day. The set was just barebones…it was hard to get money to do something more…” Meredith said.[v]

Despite tight budget, the video quality of the show was excellent. Meredith said Scripps has a level of expectation from the viewers to deliver a nice quality product. “I wouldn’t think they wanna scamp on that when it comes to the web either because obviously you can draw your viewers from the television show to the web, you can draw web visitors to the show.” She said.[vi]

The show stopped airing in September despite the fact that Frontdoor.com team was very satisfied with the show. “The number of hits, the number of page viewers just wasn’t, there just was not enough viewers, visitors to the site to justify the cost of production.” Meredith said.[vii]

Paul Buckman also worked on the show. He said the success of online video depends on many elements, such as packaging, what the headline and captions say, and how it is placed on the web. “I don’t know if we have done all of those elements with Cool Houses Daily for it to do well as it could be.” He said.[viii]

Most of the originally produced online video is very short, usually up to two minutes. Even though people watch movies online, research showed that when it comes to the websites that offer specific information short formats are much better. Buckman said most of the visitors on their websites just want to get the information they are looking for, and get out. “In the past the research has shown that people don’t really have time to watch an hour long, thirty minutes show on how to redo their bathroom. But we can do it short, take a bunch of ideas on how to fix a faucet, or something like that. I think it is as effective as the long format.” He said.[ix]

 

THE AUDIENCE

            Many studies, that have recently measured viewing online video, show that the audience embraced this new trend. The most viewed online video watched by 40 percent of the US online video audience is short format, five minutes or less, such as news clips, movie trailers, music videos, and entertainment news. 

            Netpop research showed that a person spends 48 percent of her time watching video online.  Vewers prefer to watch online video that was produced professionally by TV networks and film studios.

            Ipsos MediaCT’s study showed that the percentage of female Internet users that watch video online has grown from 45% to 54% since 2007. Since December 2007 the percentage of adults aged 35-54 who watch video online has went up from 49% to 60%. Adam Wright, Director at Ipsos MediaCT said streaming video is no longer something just teens enjoy. “Television networks, movie studios and other video entertainment entities will need to recognize the growing demand among all consumers for digital distribution.” He said.[x]

 

 

 

            These numbers scare many television executives. The biggest fear is that online video is going to draw the audience away from television.

            NBC showcased these fears with coverage of Olympic Games in summer of 2008. This Network broadcasted live on the Web sports that were not really important, and rarely seen in the United States. Popular sports, such as swimming, and gymnastics were broadcasted live only on television. Executives at NBC justified this by saying that they did not want to undercut the audience that was promised to advertisers, affiliate stations, and cable operators.

            Robert A. Bowman, the chief executive of Major League Baseball Advanced Media said that from his experience webcasting does not reduce television ratings. “We’ve learned that wherever you are, you watch on the biggest screen you can,” he said.[xi] He said the same discussion was going on when television started broadcasting games. He said there was a fear that people would not go to the game if they could watch it television.

            Paul Buckman thinks these fears are unfounded, and that video online just enhances the audience. “People in television have to realize that they have to embrace their own web audience…It is not that their audience does not want to see the program, it is that they might want to see it on a different platform, maybe on the computer monitor, or I-Pod.” he said.[xii]

 

CONCLUSION

 

         Technology has come a long way since the birth of radio and television. Our grandfathers were happy if they could hear news on the radio. People developed a habit of tuning in at five, six o’clock to watch the evening news. Those were the simpler times when everyday life was not so hectic.

            Today hardly anybody has time anymore to follow the schedules of radio or television programming. People are time shifting, they want to watch television on their own terms, when they have time which is not necessarily the time programming offers. This is where the online video comes in. Chad Hurley, You Tube Cofounder said the online video empowers the audience. “Consumers of online video are empowered to be their own content programmers, consuming the relevant mix of mass, niche and personal media they demand.” He said.[xiii]

The online video brought fears that television is going to become obsolete. These fears are not justified because online video can just enhance the audience. “I don’t think television is going to go away; we are just going to use multiple platforms to watch it.” Paul Buckman said.

Buckman addressed the future of the online video. He thinks that we haven’t even scratched the surface of the video online. “I think probable in the future you are going to see online video networks that are going to be just like watching TV, you will pick shows you wanna watch, line them up, and entertain.” He said.[xiv]

 

FOOTNOTES

 

 

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