Don Seaman

As an industry, we frequently talk about the complexity of today’s television ecosystem.  Nearly every aspect of television is complicated.  Multiple screens and thousands of content options have complicated the “what” and the “where.” Behavioral targeting has complicated the “who” of viewing. Nothing is simple. So knowing that, why don’t we try to scale things back and just look at TV not from the perspective of an industry, but from an audience? Let’s go back to the basics of television.

There was a full-blown feeding frenzy recently on Twitter. Chances are pretty good you saw the Tweets (or stories about them), but not the TV movie that inspired them. As a television event, SyFy’s Sharknado was great social media. And a great example of what the Twitter Effect can have on programmers and the television industry. Generally speaking, the more a show is talked about, the more viewers it will deliver. The only difference is that the Twitter Effect alone won’t elevate cable deliveries much beyond what they’re capable of delivering organically. Cable programs — particularly on the niche networks — won’t deliver much beyond their base, no matter how much social chatter they generate.

There was an entire generation of American heroes who were left ignored and unhonored as they came home from a war when our veterans weren’t as readily revered. The heroes of the Vietnam War came home to a much different political reality than exists now. The North Carolina Association of Broadcasters made sure that the Vietnam veterans finally heard those cheers that had so long been delayed.