In economics, there are many ways that analysts will tell you how markets behave. One is known as The Wisdom of Crowds. To exhibit “Wisdom of Crowds” most would say that a market needs to satisfy the following conditions:
1) People involved in that specific market are quite diverse in their access to information
2) They have opinions which can be quite independent and often do not follow the crowd or defer to others
3) They are decentralized (sometimes globally in today’s world) so they often use local knowledge or interest
4) Their choices or judgements tend to aggregate into a decision which appears collective although not planned.
Watching video growth in recent years and the broadcast and cable decline, I think a case can be made and not a big stretch at all, that the Wisdom of Crowds has accelerated the growth of viewing habits around the world.
To understand this, let us back up a bit. When I first entered the communications business in the early 1970’s, TV viewers did not have a great many choices. There was ABC, CBS, and CBS plus PBS and a handful of independent stations in relatively large metropolitan areas. Programs survived in Primetime (8-11 pm, EST) if they could garner a 30% share of viewing. The death rate of new programs was brutal. I did an analysis early in this century which found that approximately 72% of new programs died in the first year of telecast.
Cable came along as the subscriber count grew and got some traction but the progress was slow. A key variable drummed into me from my first months in advertising was not how good programming was but what was the strength of the programming that it was COMPETING against? That simple stat largely determined the lifespan of a program.
CBS tried a few novel and even daring approaches in the late 1980’s. Opposite the then powerful Thursday night block on NBC, they a Vietnam war drama, Tour of Duty against top rated Cosby and Family Ties. The show won awards but delivered low ratings. They stayed with it and in year three moved it to Saturday. In 1988, they put Murphy Brown up against Monday Night Football. That show clicked and had a long and successful run. Yet, advertiser support was not as strong as you might think in year one, as the competition appeared fearsome.
During this era of the 1970’s and ‘80’s, a concept that was popular was that of LOP which stood for Least Objectionable Programming. A network executive coined the term and essentially said that, with few choices, viewers would pivot to the Least Objectionable Programming, but they would watch television most evenings. Yes, one could curl up with a good book, but not many did.
Today, all that is gone. We do not worry about timeslots as with the growth of Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime, Apple TV and Disney + and fellow travelers it is commercial avoidance that is hurting advertiser supported programming. The quality of the advertising free content is excellent in many cases and, if you have a few streaming options, you can virtually always find something of interest to watch.
So, streaming continues to get stronger. One reason, and I realize some of you might consider this controversial, is the concept of the Wisdom of Crowds. Streaming fits all the criteria necessary in that kind of market activity.
Let’s face it—each day we have hundreds of options from programming shot all over the world. Detective dramas may be stale to US TV viewers but check out the great work as I have coming out of the UK, Ireland, Scandinavia, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. ABC, CBS, and NBC never had to compete with such programming a generation ago except for an occasional 4-6 part series on PBS’ Masterpiece Theatre (now Masterpiece). Friends recommend a program that is streaming to others and shows get legs and often get fairly quick renewals.
There is a lack of censorship so these streaming foreign imports can deal with mature themes that will never see the light of day on over the air TV in the states and much of the cable universe as well.
I see streaming continuing to grow. The power ranking of streaming options will likely shift and I plan to address that in upcoming posts. For the moment, the Wisdom of Crowds is helping streaming video options along very well.
If you would like to contact Don Cole directly, you may reach him at doncolemedia @gmail.com or leave a message on the blog
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