Cloud hosting, TVTropes.org; convergence and transmedia in, interactive TV – well, maybe not out but certainly not the hot topic it was just three South by Southwest Interactive Festivals ago; vooks, iPads, Google TV, TV Everywhere, and too many bands to mention. These are just a few of the things I experienced or, in some cases, heard about for the very first time at this year’s SXSWi. But instead of being excited and re-energized, this is the first year I’ve come away from SXSWi (where most of the TV-related panels occurred) feeling frustrated. The frustration started early with a face-off between Mark Cuban (HDNet) and Avner Ronen (Boxee). They debated over the future of TV in a March 12 panel titled PayTV vs. Internet: The Battle for Your TV.
I don’t pretend to understand all the technical details of what’s happening in media when it comes to television. All I know is I want to watch what I want to watch and when I want to watch it, and it’s becoming clear to me that doing so on my traditional TV with a cable subscription isn’t going to cut it. But I don’t want my TV merely to be another place for me to point and click so I can buy something – which was the impetus for the once-hot interactive TV. Even I knew that wasn’t going to work. Who likes being hawked?
Cuban can be enormously off-putting, so absorbing his position at the panel proved trying. In a nutshell, his feeling was that the existing TV infrastructure was working just fine. Pay TV (digital cable, satellite, IPTV), in his view, was the most efficient way to see and view TV – and besides, it’s a moneymaking venture. Further, Boxee, the free service which allows viewers to watch various types of content via the Internet on their computer or directed to their TV (with the correct auxiliary cords), is not any better, and right now, it’s not profitable. Well, of course cable and satellite companies are making money, thanks to those of us still paying through the nose for those services for something that is nice but, in the grand scheme of things, not really necessary.
It was difficult for Ronen to get a word in edgewise, as Cuban kept cutting him off, but the takeaway from his side of the debate was that because the cable TV model is a fixed format, the ability for innovation is nil. Therefore, while older users will be content with their tried and true TVs, younger users will continue to turn away from it in droves, looking for a more tailor-made experience. “The TV is just another screen” to young people, Ronen said, adding, “when ESPN, Fox, et cetera, deal with the Internet as a submission platform … streaming sports events live,” then TV will have moved into the 21st century. Ronen saw this happening in two years. Cuban believed that the future of TV is TV. In other words: Don’t fix what’s not broken.
A fire alarm interrupted the heated discussion, which provided a useful time to digest all the verbiage that had been tossed out there. While thought-provoking points were made on both sides, I couldn’t help but feel that as a consumer of content, I was an afterthought. I think Ronen is correct – there are viewers that will pay for the content they want. In my mind, that means an episode or a season of Mad Men, as opposed to endless video clips of cats playing the piano and other such moments of levity on YouTube, for example. But I also hear Cuban, who said in his blog post-debate that he wanted the Internet to be at the service of science, medicine, defense, and gaming (www.blogmaverick.com). That makes sense to me. What doesn’t make sense to me is his ongoing mantra that TV is not broken. Perhaps when HDNet stops being profitable, he’ll change his tune.
While I Was Out
A hubbub among One Life to Live fans resulted in a flood of e-mail into the “TV Eye” mailbox. Apparently, the ABC daytime soap opera has decided to shunt the love affair of two gay characters, Oliver Fish (Scott Evans) and Kyle Lewis (Brett Claywell), into the background. “Kish” (as the couple is known collectively) has struck a chord with viewers, launching a feverish letter-writing campaign. (You can find out more – a lot more – at www.savekish.com.) Of the 20-plus e-mails I received, none of the writers realized (or cared) that I purposely avoid daytime soaps. Still, they’re such an earnest bunch. So here’s a spot of ink for the cause, OLtL fans. Good luck.
As always, stay tuned.
E-mail Belinda Acosta at tveye@austinchronicle.com.
This article appears in March 26 • 2010.