If I Was In Charge of… NBC

By on July 28, 2008 in MARKETING

Next Feb­ru­ary, good old fash­ioned broad­cast tele­vi­sion — the kind deliv­ered by the com­bi­na­tion of alu­minum foil and rab­bit ears that sits atop of my old school ana­log set — will cease to exist.  The Fed­eral gov­ern­ment is man­dat­ing that tele­vi­sion net­works broad­cast solely in dig­i­tal sig­nals. Thus, if you are like me, you will need to get your­self a dig­i­tal con­verter soon.  Still, I think this turn of events in con­junc­tion with the tough eco­nomic times we face might just open up a new oppor­tu­nity for Net­work tele­vi­sion.  Fol­low along while I briefly explain my reasoning.

Recently I used the $40.00 voucher from the gov­ern­ment to pur­chase a sec­ond dig­i­tal con­verter for my home.  I bought it at Tar­get, and it ended up cost­ing me $10.00 after the voucher.  As I was buy­ing it, a guy in line who iden­ti­fied him­self only as a Tele­vi­sion Exec­u­tive, asked me if I really viewed tele­vi­sion strictly over the air.  I proudly replied yes.  He was dumb­founded.  He could not believe that I was able to man­age with only net­work tele­vi­sion to guide me.

This got me think­ing, why would I need cable at all?  With my dig­i­tal receiver I now have over 30 sta­tions, all for free.  I have more than 10 ver­sions of PBS — cov­er­ing kids pro­gram­ming, cook­ing and arts, travel, state gov­ern­ment, and tra­di­tional pro­gram­ming.  Not only that, but local sta­tions also offer mul­ti­ple chan­nels for me to enjoy.

Now that got me think­ing even fur­ther…  With the expanded band­width afforded by dig­i­tal broad­cast tele­vi­sion, why would the net­works need cable or satel­lite for dis­tri­b­u­tion?  The answer is they don’t.

So, if I was in charge of NBC, I would cre­ate 100 niche chan­nels and make them avail­able for broad­cast through the local sta­tions.  Music, sports, finance, pol­i­tics, gar­den­ing, gos­sip, talk and more — all for free.  Why would I do this?

Well the whole point of com­mer­cial tele­vi­sion is to sell ads.  If I can attract peo­ple to my con­tent, I can sell more ads.  If peo­ple can give choices with­out hav­ing to make them pay, they should be inter­ested — espe­cially now as fam­ily bud­gets are stretched to the limit.  By being the first net­work to embrace this move, NBC could take a dom­i­nant role in the new niches that will emerge in the dig­i­tal broad­cast space. (note that you can sub­sti­tute CBS, ABC, or FOX and it still works).

Look at your most recent cable or satel­lite bill and then tell me you would not be inter­ested in hav­ing all the net­works embrace this poten­tial oppor­tu­nity.  Imag­ine hav­ing 100, 200, 400 dig­i­tal chan­nels all for free.  Imag­ine hav­ing over $1000.00 back in your pocket at the end of the year — how is that for a stim­u­lus package?

No, cable and satel­lite are not goint away.  No, I would not pull pro­gram­ming from them… yet.  What I would do is take advan­tage of tough times, fed­eral man­dates, vouch­ers, dig­i­tal tech­nol­ogy, ana­log tele­vi­sions that still work, and mount­ing con­sumer frus­tra­tion to take advan­tage of what might well be the biggest oppor­tu­nity to come to tele­vi­sion in years.

What would you do if you were in charge of NBC or another tele­vi­sion network?

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4 Responses to If I Was In Charge of… NBC

  1. Chad July 29, 2008 at 9:08 am #

    Dave,

    This really makes me think about the amount of money I’m cur­rently wast­ing on cable tele­vi­sion. I have a basic level pack­age from my provider in addi­tion to broad­band access. I think my last monthly cable/broadband bill was $98.

    Now, I’m will­ing to pay $45–50/month for a pre­mium broad­band ser­vice because we use it all the time. But $50 for 60 chan­nels of garbage starts to chafe me in all of the wrong places when I start think­ing about it. Exclud­ing local chan­nels, I really only watch 3 cable tele­vi­sion sta­tions (The His­tory Chan­nel, Dis­cov­ery, and Com­edy Cen­tral). Are these 3 chan­nels really worth $50/month?

    Kudos to you for “stick­ing it to the man” by just say­ing no to cable/satellite.

    Chad

  2. Holly July 30, 2008 at 9:24 pm #

    David,

    I really think you have hit on some­thing. I want to point out that in many rural areas of the coun­try, cable TV is rare. Even liv­ing 25 miles out­side of Day­ton, I have to use satel­lite if I want pre­mium programming.

    One of NBC’s VPs grew up in Beaver­creek: http://www.linkedin.com/pub/0/40/525

    Maybe you should take it up with her!

  3. David Esrati August 5, 2008 at 8:21 pm #

    David– you are so far behind. I cut the cable/satellite string over 3 years ago.
    Now– I watch HD pro­gram­ming over the air– or TiVo it on my HDTiVo– I have a sub­scrip­tion to Net­Flix– 1 movie at a time for $6 a month–
    and– I buy shows like Mad Men for $23 for the whole sea­son.
    The HBO shows– they come out on DVD later– and a lot of pro­gram­ming can be found on the ‘net.
    The answer is TV via IP– but, because the tel­cos and the cable com­pa­nies con­trol the pipes– and the Net­works still think they con­trol the con­tent– we have a mess.
    Soon– the adver­tis­ers will offer to sub­si­dize your pro­gram­ing in exchange for infor­ma­tion about your buy­ing choices and pref­er­ences. It will be a trade of pri­vacy for free con­tent– but the adver­tis­ing won’t be near as intru­sive or pervasive.

  4. Holly August 14, 2008 at 2:28 pm #

    A very inter­est­ing arti­cle in USA Today about this topic:

    http://www.usatoday.com/tech/products/services/2008–08-13-digital-tv-extra-local-channels_N.htm

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