Commentary by Henry H. Perritt Jr.
Extending The Internet Revolution To Local TV
In March, the FCC will begin its broadcast incentive auction. The auction provides an opening to take advantage of four disruptive changes that together comprise a perfect storm for broadcast television: targeted advertising, stringer news collection, indie entertainment production and migration of workflow infrastructures to the Internet Protocol standard. An Internet-only TV station embracing all four could become a model for vigorous television through the remainder of the century.
This article was originally posted on rtdna.org
Henry, We are currently partnering with a Dallas TV station piloting a program using our NewsCastic service that facilitates this very thing you reference as “Uber-like stringer- based local content through our marketplace.The program delivers unique digital content to the station for use on various platforms. While we are in the early stages things look very strong. We’ve been up and running in Albuquerque for over 2 yrs building the marketplace out and paying the light bills through so called “native advertising… and, incidentally, out-delivering all local properties in social interaction metrics. If any of your readers are curious please feel free to contact me at: [email protected]
One line in particular caught my attention. That it was the last line in the article makes me think it should have been the headline.
Eventually all television will be Internet only.
So, when broadcast TV eventually goes internet-only the clouds will part and the birds will sing? Hmm. It still doesn’t change the argument that terrestrial broadcasting, with its one-to-many architecture, is still the most efficient use of spectrum there is–and will be even more under 3.0. It also doesn’t negate the fact that both broadcasters and consumers would be at the total mercy of internet providers and telcos with their capricious data caps and price hikes and who have made no secret of their desire to get into broadcast television “game” and compete with the networks. No, as long as broadcasters control that 6 MHz of spectrum, they control the data pipe and, more importantly, their destiny. And consumers get the best that TV has to offer free of charge and without the tyranny of a telecommunications monolith.