Did you miss Hiro’s trip to ancient Japan on “Heroes”? Jerry Seinfeld’s guest shot on “30 Rock”? The fuss over “Kid Nation” or that awful “Caveman” sitcom? The networks suggest we catch up, anytime, by watching entire hours and half-hours via computer.
Full episodes are available for free, with “limited commercial interruption,” to fulfill the modern anywhere-anytime mandate for television.
Try my excuse: Before ducking under the headphones, simply tell the boss it’s research.
Everyone into the stream! The networks are making full episodes available at the click of a mouse and claiming more fans are taking advantage. Streaming video may not become the national habit some claim, but the networks want to be in the streaming business, just in case it is the next big thing. As a result, the consumer is in charge like never before.
In an age of too much good television (“Mad Men” and “Damages” are not available for streaming but “Pushing Daisies” is), streaming can help you stay current.
In an interesting turnabout, rather than guard proprietary broadcasts, the networks are pushing their content to all comers. Quincy Smith, president of CBS Interactive, observes an industry shift has occurred. More networks are willing to experiment with releasing their content online, in clip form as well as full episodes.
“The key is, you learn more about where your fan base is,” Smith said. The networks know that anytime they can connect with a fan base, they can sell to a fan base.
Beth Comstock, NBC Universal’s digital chief, said her network, like others, is “placing bets in a lot of different technologies.”
In addition to putting shows on their own websites, NBC is launching a service called Hulu, ABC has a deal with AOL, CW is in business with Yahoo, and Fox is working with iTunes. All aim to scatter their shows to desktops, laptops and palm-held devices everywhere.
Online gets first crack
This season for the first time, a slew of pilot episodes were available online before the broadcast premieres. Traditionally, series were kept under wraps until premiere week. Instead, this promotional push was intended to create advance buzz and momentum for new shows.
But why would the hyper-competitive commercial TV networks suddenly behave so generously?
It’s about marketing and distribution, according to James McQuivey, a Forrester Research analyst.
“Think of streaming the top TV shows as a two-pronged strategy: On the marketing side, the networks spend millions promoting their TV shows on Yahoo, MSN and AOL. By streaming their shows online they are in effect getting free prime placement on those portals,” while the advertisers foot the bill, McQuivey said via e-mail.
It’s not giving anything away, it’s free exposure.
“As a distribution strategy, streaming is intended to extend waning primetime audiences in order to please advertisers, and it is also intended as a DVR-buster. People will be less likely to DVR (record) a show and later skip commercials if they know they can watch it online. Together, these two objectives justify a streaming strategy.”
This shift is having an impact on programming, giving the networks extra feedback about what’s clicking. A show like “Jericho” got a reprieve from cancellation partly because of its unusual popularity in streaming online. It’s due to return for seven episodes at midseason.
NBC points to “Heroes” as a streaming success. On TV, a single episode of the show averaged 16 million viewers. If you add in a repeat episode on the Sci-Fi Channel, streaming video on the NBC online site and downloads at iTunes Music Store, the total climbed to 18.4 million viewers. The bigger number matters to advertisers who seek the active, eager audience willing to track down a favorite show.
Streaming a fad?
Skeptics say streaming is a fad, and a bad one at that.
Phillip Swann, president and publisher of , is a noted naysayer who believes “streaming is not the future, not in any kind of long form.”
Swann belongs to the old school that insists PCs are for work, TV is for entertainment, and the twain don’t meet.
“All the networks trying to put their programming online are going to fail,” Swann maintains. “People are simply not going to sit around on a computer and watch television. For 30, 60, 90 seconds they can see some guy hit himself in the head on YouTube, but they won’t sit for a whole half-hour of ‘Two and a Half Men.”‘
To him, the more telling trend is folks lugging home 42-inch screens and larger.
“Do people really want to watch ‘Desperate Housewives’ on a 2.5-inch screen when they just bought a 56-inch screen?” he asks.
Thirty million homes have high-definition, Swann said. “That’s the future of TV.”
In jumping into streaming, the networks are running, lemming-like, in the wrong direction, Swann maintains. “They’re operating out of the herd mentality. They see movement, they follow, whether or not the movement’s going off the cliff.”
He blames a lack of creative thinking in network executive suites.
“There’s always the sentiment that if something is happening they should be involved because you never know, it might be the next big thing. Smart thinkers would experiment, not invest a lot of money in trying it.”
The networks admit they can’t afford to miss a potentially business-changing technology. Everyone is afraid they might miss the next iPod and they feel compelled to be strategically positioned, just in case.
But Swann says there’s no evidence that the streaming is having any impact. “You don’t even see Apple talking about having millions of people using iPod for network episodes anymore.”
To him, “all these efforts to try to make a TV out of a PC and a PC out of a TV have consistently failed. It’s trying to put a square peg in a round hole.”
Short clips promoted
The networks are streaming ahead.
CBS’s Smith acknowledged to critics that “watching full episodes might not be so great online because there is a beautiful plasma screen television in a lot of living rooms right now. They are going to enjoy that experience. So you are going to count on us for smarter clips. It’s still the four- to six-minute area that we really pay attention to. Full episodes are absolutely available. But we’re going to also focus a lot on those next-generation clips.”
The clip of “The Sopranos” in seven minutes, an online favorite, is Smith’s model.
When the networks first put their product in cyberspace for streaming, there was concern that the viewing on PCs would cannibalize the regular TV audience. Not to worry.
“The research that we have done shows that it’s additive,” said Jeff Gaspin, NBC’s digital-content chief. “Of course, there was some concern that, as you increase the number of streams of these shows online that it might cannibalize the on-air audience, but it’s just not the case. Everything we have seen said that it helps people catch up.”
In the case of “Heroes,” by the time the ninth episode rolled around, the network posted the first episode online and it drew a crowd. Gaspin assumes “if they are watching the first episode, they are learning about the series, and there’s a good chance that they will then catch up with the series on air.”
NBC Entertainment boss Ben Silverman similarly has said that when “The Office” moved into the digital world, “We saw a new audience exposed to it that then came back to the premiere episodes.”
Whether streaming becomes a profitable goal in itself, or a way to direct the audience back to the primetime TV set, remains to be seen. For now, it may be time to get your feet wet.
Joanne Ostrow: 303-954-1830 or jostrow@denverpost.com
