|
 |
|
 |
 |
| TRANSFORMING TELEVISION | |
 April 5, 2000 
|
||
|
|
A new kind of video recorder on the market in the United States could change the way people watch television forever. Media correspondent Terence Smith takes a look at this new technology. The NewsHour Media Unit is funded by a grant from the Pew Charitable Trusts.
|
|
SPOKESMAN: Action, adventure, romance --
SPOKESMAN: This is not the future of television. This is now. This is now. SPOKESMAN: Replay TV. SPOKESMAN: All that technology, all of the awards all are about helping people have fun with their television sets. TERENCE SMITH: Replay Networks is one of two companies currently making these new machines. Steve Shannon is vice president of marketing.
MAN: I mean they can the first few seconds of -- TERENCE SMITH: The PVR is a smart set-top box, the equivalent of having a personal computer linked to a television. These devices can download and store on their hard drive between 14 and 30 hours of programming, as currently designed; much more in the future. |
|||||||||||||||||||
| Up-and-coming personal video recorders | ||||||||||||||||||||
|
SPOKESPERSON: Welcome to TiVo, the exciting personal TV service that -- TERENCE SMITH: TiVo is the other company making personal video recorders. Their product is already in retail stores across the country. Stacy Jolna is vice president of programming for TiVo.
TERENCE SMITH: So, in theory, you would come home in the evening, let's say, and have available to you all the programming that you've selected anyway of what, the last 24 hours? STACY JOLNA: It could be for the last week. TERENCE SMITH: And that's not all. STACY JOLNA: We can go to live TV, and here we are. We can -- for the very first time -- pause live television, and we have full control over our television experience now.
TERENCE SMITH: The units vary in cost. The Replay box, that has 20 hours of storage, will sell for $699. TiVo costs from $399 to $999, depending on the storage capacity, plus a small monthly fee. The prices are expected to drop sharply as more units are produced. Gary Arlen, who's been analyzing new media technologies for over 20 years, says these machines will change more than just viewing habits.
|
 |
|||||||||||||||||||
| A shift of control to the viewer | ||||||||||||||||||||
|
TERENCE SMITH: The new technology has one feature that is giving broadcast executives heartburn. TERENCE SMITH: You have a quick skip button that lets you skip commercials? STEVE SHANNON: Yeah, with this technology, it is definitely a shift of control over towards the viewer. TERENCE SMITH: Garth Ancier, president of NBC Entertainment, says this feature is threatening to the networks.
TERENCE SMITH: Ancier says the networks may have to look for alternative revenue streams.
SPOKESMAN: Now if I choose the movie zone, I get a list of different genres. TERENCE SMITH: And it won't be long until the personal video revolution catches the public's fancy, says Gary Arlen.
SPOKESMAN: John, how are you? TERENCE SMITH: Les Moonves is president and CEO of CBS Television. He says it's only a matter of time before the impact of this new technology is felt. LESLIE MOONVES, President & CEO, CBS Television: We in the broadcast business, as a businessman, we're going to have to change how our thinking -- how we've been doing business for 40 years. TERENCE SMITH: The networks see these machines as such a threat that they have formed a coalition to protect against the recording of their copyrighted material. At the same time, they have invested in the technology.
TERENCE SMITH: And are you minority partners going to these organizations and saying, 'Don't skip the ads -- that's our bread and butter?' LESLIE MOONVES: To a certain extent, yes. To a certain extent, yes. We're saying, -- there is a way to give your service, and still not cut us out of the business.
Some experts are skeptical about whether PVR's are the next big thing. Advertising executive Jon Mandel.
GARY ARLEN: They suffer from the usual first generation problems. They're a little too big. They're a little too awkward. They're a little too hard to install, but these problems are likely to be solved certainly in the next couple of generations, the next couple of months is what that amounts to in this fast-moving business. |
 |
|||||||||||||||||||
| Mouse potatoes | ||||||||||||||||||||
|
SPOKESMAN: I've got interactivity directly with the TV. TERENCE SMITH: Andrew McMasters, a demonstrator at the WebTV booth. ANDREW McMASTERS: This is actually one of my favorites. This is "Judge Judy." I can actually become a part of the criminal justice system, right here. Here, when this is on TV with me. And there's a small 'i' that actually comes up in the corner, and that's what indicates the interactivity, and those come up at various different times. TERENCE SMITH: There's one. ANDREW McMASTERS: Based on the program, and then I can choose to go interactive. I can choose to buy her book, which I have on here, so I can purchase the book right off of this. I can also participate in a poll, or I can go into a chat room. I can go down here, and I can decide -- TERENCE SMITH: As to guilt or innocence.
TERENCE SMITH: Do you? ANDREW McMASTERS: Yes. Which is good. So, I don't know -- TERENCE SMITH: She's tough, you know. ANDREW McMASTERS: And I don't know whether she listens to me, or what it is, but you know, something about Judge Judy. She knows when I vote. And see, there we go. I win again. TERENCE SMITH: One thing I understand you can do, but I don't think we've quite seen yet, is you can watch television, and have e-mail, or other Internet services, on the side. ANDREW McMASTERS: Basically, I can still be surfing the Internet and then, I could still be watching whatever I was watching on TV. TERENCE SMITH: So this is the broadcast television? ANDREW McMASTERS: Right. Right now, what I have here is this is the Discovery Channel. (Doorbell) COMMERCIAL: Hi.
TERENCE SMITH: And you can even order a pizza, without getting off the couch. ANDREW McMASTERS: I've got my commercial here for Domino's. I see the 'i' up here in the corner. It means I can go interactive with it. All I have to do is enter in a pin number that I had set up and it remembers what kind of pizza I ordered before, what my entire order was. I actually had the ham and beef last time, but actually what I am thinking about this time is, I am actually going to go with the beef and beef special. And so I've got all the information here. I've got all my stuff down. I go ahead and press 'next.' Now what this does, is this automatically charges it to the credit card, and now I know the pizza and soda are going to be on their way. ANDREW McMASTERS (talking to pizza delivery person): Oh, thank you very much. Here it is, my beef and bacon special. PIZZA DELIVERY PERSON: Thank you very much. TERENCE SMITH: Many broadcasters are already putting their programs on WebTV. PRESIDENT CLINTON: In the Northeast, the impact has been particularly harsh, because --
LESLIE MOONVES: You will be able to watch a sporting event, shortly, and be watching an NFL football game on CBS, and press a button and you'll say, 'OK, Dan Marino, let's find out more information. Where did he go to school?' And there will be on one third of your screen, biographical information on Dan Marino. TERENCE SMITH: WebTV has a little over a million subscribers today. Its president, Bruce Leak, says advertising models will change dramatically with this new version of television. BRUCE LEAK, President, WebTV: The exciting things around the commerce opportunities and the advertising opportunities, is they don't necessarily just have to be between the programs. The sponsorship can actually move inside the program -- now that it's interactive -- and be part of the program.
SPOKESPERSON: This isn't a future reality. It isn't weeks and months from now. If you had this box, you could go home and play "Jeopardy" and "Wheel of Fortune" today. TERENCE SMITH: It's already here. |
|
|||||||||||||||||||
TERENCE
SMITH: Every year, network executives and Hollywood movie moguls gather
at this New Orleans convention center to schmooze and to peddle their
programming wares. The star at this year's convention was not a famous
face, but a technological innovation called a personal video recorder,
or PVR. This innocuous box has the potential to change television as
we know it today.
STEVE
SHANNON, VP, Marketing, Replay Networks: It completely changes the way
people watch TV when you have one, because what you do when you have
a Replay TV is you watch all of your shows whenever you want. You watch
them on demand from a local hard disk. 
STACY
JOLNA: Everything that I've recorded winds up in a place called Now
Playing List, and these are all of the shows that I've explicitly asked
TiVo to record for me. I can come home after a hard day's work, plop
down on the sofa, don't have to flip through network after network anymore.
I just go right to my Now Playing List.
TERENCE
SMITH: So much so that watching a live basketball game, you can freeze
the action, go answer the doorbell, come back and watch the play, once,
twice, if you like, with instant replay, then pick up the game where
you left off. The hard drive in the personal video recorder is continuously
downloading the signal so nothing is missed -- nothing is missed --
nothing is missed.
GARY
ARLEN, New Media Analyst: It changes the whole dynamic of a 50-year-old
television industry. TV is the one medium that forces everybody to watch
the same thing at exactly the same moment. This changes, you can watch
it whenever you want and that really is a different dynamic for this
medium after fifty years. 
GARTH
ANCIER: If enough people do skip all the commercials, then I think,
obviously, all of us in broadcast television will have to find a new
way to finance the kind of high-level, expensive product that we make.
GARTH
ANCIER: We may have to move to a different model. Cable television has
a different model. Most cable networks get the majority of their revenue
directly from subscribers. You know, maybe you'll have to subscribe
to an NBC in the future. 
GARY
ARLEN: This business of the personal video recorder is coming faster
than almost any technology we've seen. Right now, there's fewer than
200,000 of these boxes in American households. By the end of the year
2000, it will probably be 2 million. A year later, there will probably
be 6 or 7 million. I mean, it's growing that quickly, so that we're
seeing easily, 10 percent, 15 percent of households having these in
the next three to four years.
LESLIE
MOONVES: As the TiVos and the Replays are coming into our world -- and
they're coming -- it's better to be inside the tent, and figure out
what they're doing to work hand in hand with them, as opposed to saying,
'You know what? The automobile is not going to work. I'm going to stick
to my horse and carriage,' you know.
TERENCE
SMITH: Replay has already agreed not to promote their quick skip button
as a way to zap commercials. The networks aren't the only media companies
investing in Replay and TiVo: America OnLine, Time Warner, Disney, Discovery
networks and others, have put money into one or both companies. And
satellite TV providers are incorporating personal video recorders into
their set-top boxes. 
JON
MANDEL, MediaCom: Over 50 percent of people felt that 'I would have
one if it was part of my TV, I would have one if it were a part of my
personal computer, I would have one if it were part of my set-top box,'
but as a separate box, you get into this cat-in-the-hat, you know, 'leaning
tower of boxes' problem, and 'it's one more g I don't know how to connect,
and another remote I'm not going to know how to work.' 
TERENCE
SMITH: Beyond the so-called personal video recorders, companies like
WebTV, a subsidiary of Microsoft, are offering a service that combines
digital recording with Internet access and interactivity that threatens
to convert a nation of coach potatoes into mouse potatoes. WebTV has
got the fast forward and taping capabilities of a personal video recorder,
plus --
ANDREW
McMASTERS: Who I think -- yeah, and I get to be a part of the American
justice system, right here, that easily. You know, and then I can vote,
and I get to see who Judge Judy actually votes for. You know, I can
decide who I want to vote for, and what I've usually found playing here
for the last couple of days, Judge Judy and I, we vote the same. 
COMMERCIAL:
Sputnik Pizza. 
TERENCE
SMITH: "The NewsHour" also can be seen on WebTV, through a
Webcasting project funded by Microsoft. 
TERENCE
SMITH: And when does the brave new world of television arrive? 
