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| GARTH ANCIER | |
 March 21, 2000 
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Media
correspondent Terence Smith talks about the future of television with
Garth Ancier, president of NBC Entertainment.
The NewsHour Media Unit is funded by a grant from the Pew Charitable Trusts.
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TERENCE SMITH: Technologically, how do you think television will be different five years from now, 10 years from now? |
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| A different world of television | ||||||||||||||||||||
GARTH ANCIER: Well, there are so many things playing at
the moment. It's hard to know exactly what will be happening. You'll be
having certainly some high-definition television, some more than we have
now, as -- you know, I know I'm an early adopter. So I don't expect that
most people will be having high-definition sets like I bought a year ago,
and there are only a few shows in high def, but it's really a fantastic
experience. If you like sports, if you like events, high-definition television
is really quite spectacular to watch.  There's
a possibility that certain broadcasters will be multiplexing. So they
will be taking your favorite shows and running them several different
time periods because they' ll have several digital channels on their new
stations, and there's also, of course, the possibility that the Internet
with the new Internet-2 backbone and with the high-speed access that you
get through DSL or cable modems will become a viable delivery vehicle
for full-motion video on demand. TERENCE SMITH: And if that happens, what does that do to broadcast television as we know it? GARTH ANCIER: If that happens, I think at least in the short term what it does is it allows, I think, mostly shorter video to be accessible on demand. That means shorter shows. It's a little difficult for me to imagine someone downloading a half-hour television show off of ISDN -- well, actually ISDN won't be here, but DSL or cable modem, because it's still going to be a fairly slow -- that's a lot of data. A half-hour show is a lot of data to send down over a DSL or over any high-speed net at this point, let alone the issues that there are with the Internet backbone to support that, but there's no question that within the next two or three years, probably accelerated by the Time Warner-AOL merger, you'll be seeing broadband access for entertainment content. It will just be a question of how that shakes itself out, and that will have an impact on broadcast television. There will be yet another competitor to the product. TERENCE SMITH: And the famous buzzword "convergence?" In other words, the convergence of computers and the television set, futurists will tell you that you'll have a wall in your house that is both controlled by either a keyboard or a remote. Is that a realistic picture? GARTH ANCIER: Well, I think that is realistic. I mean, I would personally, I would love to have a wall on my house right now that is both my computer screen and my television set with -- and where the Internet was more of a media-rich experience, meaning more video; more sound. I mean, when I work on the Internet right now as a human being, I find myself watching television at the same time because right now the Internet is a bit of a media-poor experience. TERENCE SMITH: Yes. GARTH ANCIER: It's mostly without sound or the sound is a little slow in coming. It's a little slow on the graphics. So, going from what it is right now to full-motion video, great sound, great picture, great color; it's quite a leap. It will get there, but it's quite a leap. There's no question, though, that with high-quality LCV displays that I've seen in last few years at the consumer electronic show, you're going to have a flat-panel TV. It's going to be wide screen probably in aspect ratio, and that will be for either broadcasting and high-definition or regular definition -- or now they're calling it "standard definition" -- or for using your computer. TERENCE SMITH: So it will be a different world.  GARTH
ANCIER: I think it will be a different world. That doesn't actually scare
me that much. I still think story-driven programming that is of quality
and that's smart and appeals to people and has terrific acting still drives
that entertainment side of the media.You may access news a little differently. You may shop differently. Certainly, I know already I shop differently using the Internet, but I'd love to shop using a much bigger screen on my wall than on my computer laptop, which is how I interface with the Internet right now. |
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| Embracing interactivity | ||||||||||||||||||||
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TERENCE SMITH: "Interactive" is the other big buzzword, right,
that you're going -- |
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GARTH
ANCIER: If you like my tie, you can buy it from me first, but, secondly,
you could order it online or order it off -- click it, click on it,
and you can do that on the Internet now, click on the product and buy
it. I find myself buying a lot more clothes on the Internet, anyway,
but sure, why not?
GARTH
ANCIER: Well, it depends on the kind of show. I mean, a game show obviously
can be more interactive than a mystery. I mean, it's hard to do -- to
shoot an episode of "Law and Order" and let the audience pick
the ending because it takes eight or nine days to shoot a "Law
and Order" and there are scripts and actors and you'd have to shoot
multiple endings. It's hard to exactly make a dramatic or a comedy show
interactive with the audience, but a game show or a news program, those
can be highly interactive because they're done live and they -- the
audience can fully participate with them.
Right
now, because it's a media-poor environment on the Internet, I find myself
watching television while I'm on the Internet, and actually that's a
fairly common occurrence. When you take polls of people, you find that
quite a number of people watch television and use the Internet simultaneously,
because we've become a little bit better at multi-tasking as all of
these new technologies have come upon us.