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Games, shows, news:
The Internet could one day end TV's dominance
Burke Campbell and Murray Conron
Financial Post
September 17, 2001
SASSY: Animated shows from such companies as UnpluggedTV.com
are giving the Internet its own brand of entertainment.
CHILLY BEACH: From Net to TV.
Less than a decade ago, the Internet was the sleepless haunt of geeks zipping e-mails and text files across something called cyberspace.
Today, thanks to converging technologies, the Web delivers audio and video-conferencing, music, radio, movies and television programing, gaming and gambling. For the entertainment industry, the Web has generated new business models with an impact exceeding that of the advent of television.
In marketing entertainment, the Web has become a natural. In Toronto, John Gundy, an executive producer and a director of the offbeat TV series called Internet Slutts, as featured on The Comedy Network, says, "The Web isn't just for promoting and selling. It's an important medium for the creation of content and its broadcast."
Internet Slutts features two puppets, Wally and Murk, who demonstrate new Web sites that delight, enlighten and shock. To date, the promotional Web site for this TV show (www.wallyandmurk.com) has received eight million hits from 72 countries.
While some may view the Web as challenging television, others see this new medium targeting a different audience. "The Web offers people an alternative to conventional TV entertainment," says Allan Weinrib, president of UnpluggedTV.com. With a studio of designers and animators, UnpluggedTV.com develops Web sites for accounts such as Pepsi Canada and AT&T Broadband, often in collaboration with large ad agencies.
UnpluggedTV.com features animated Web characters, such as the self-absorbed host Ulf and the sassy Rebecca. In providing an inviting, public face for any online retailer, we may begin to see these recognizable personalities go mainstream, appearing in music videos, TV shows, or even the movies.
While audiences for Web shows are still small compared with other media, popularity can snowball. For example, the Web-based animated cartoon series, Chilly Beach, portrays a Canadian resort community of the same name. Adrift on an ice flow, inhabitants are obsessed with hockey, beer, doughnuts and barroom brawls while "polar bears roam free and devour the local population as nature intended." New Web episodes will arrive this fall and the series is spinning off to TV. Based on the series, an epic movie The World Is Hot Enough is being completed this summer and Doug Sinclair, director of animation for ChillyBeach.com, is now exploring distribution options. Most movies now have preview Web sites.
But content and programming, not technology, will attract audiences to the Web. For this reason, content providers have joined forces with companies that provide connectivity. CanWest Global links Global Television, National Post and various Internet service providers while GlobeMedia matches up The Globe and Mail, CTV and Bell's Sympatico-Lycos. In the United States, AOL merged with Time-Warner and Microsoft and NBC-TV created MS-NBC.
This year, Alliance Atlantis Communications Inc. launched Canada's first Internet channel in a joint venture with creators TVForReal. The series U8TV.com presents the real-time daily experiences of eight young people together in a loft interacting with viewers. Michael MacMillan, Alliance's chairman and chief executive, says, "Developing an Internet television network is a natural direction for us, as Web content and network television programming eventually become interchangeable."
Production and marketing costs for entertainment have plummeted. "Today, you can shoot a program on video, edit it on computer and distribute it via TV or across the Internet," says producer John Gundy. For example, Apple Computer's Final Cut Pro 2 software permits professional video editing with special effects. Using Microsoft's bCentral.ca, a suite of integrated software services, small businesses can market their products more easily on the Web and gain more prominence for the Web site.
Microsoft's upcoming Windows XP Professional operating system facilitates real-time voice and video communication, instant messaging and online collaborations. All these developments make entertainment alliances, creations, and promotions easier and cheaper.
Marketers of Web-based shows must factor in whether an audience will view entertainment on a large desktop screen or a small hand-held set. Toronto-based Poptronik works closely with providers to manipulate content and broadcast it to the most appropriate audience via just the right channel.
For instance, it can simplify a complex video game for user interaction on wireless handsets. Or it can supply a TV producer with technical expertise to link up with a given cable or wireless channel. Poptronik can then build a Web site as an adjunct to attract advertisers and a larger audience.
Cyberspace itself changes the nature of gaming. Forrester Research estimates gaming will become a mass market, generating US$26-billion in revenue by 2005. Stuart W. Ross, chief executive of Poptronik, notes, "It's about alternate realities. On the Net, games are no longer events confined by time and location, but persistent experiences that run continuously and are always available to the players."
Until now, much of Net's content was available for free. Many wonder if the Web will ever prove a profitable concern. The Canadian Film Centre's new media section, h@bitat, trains artists as they explore new technologies for storytelling. "The Web will start making money once companies start charging for premium services and content," says Ana Serrano, the film centre's director . "The Web does not lend itself to a one-size-fits-all business model. Successful companies in this new media sector ... will use the right combination of existing business models -- subscription, advertising, pay per use -- used in the right context."
The Net is changing the way entertainment is distributed. For example, Napster provided free downloading and exchange of musical content and showed clearly the ready market for this form of distribution (although the music industry sought to block this).
In Canada, market researcher Ipsos-Reid says 44% of those over age 18 have downloaded music. Individual artists have exploited this browsing audience on the Net. For instance, in Seattle, musician/composer Gregory Marshall profiles and distributes his music worldwide via his personal Web site. (www.gregorymarshall.com)
In the 1950s and 1960s, TV shows such as I Love Lucy, international news programs and old Hollywood movies attracted millions of viewers. This massive audience made television a dominant medium for entertainment and advertising, and opened up a new avenue for the consumer society. Similarly, the Web is beginning to spawn industries barely imagined.
What's up next? Stay tuned. |
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