The Verge - War for TV: inside the fight for the living room

As broadcast TV ratings fall, advertisers eye cable and web video

2013-03-25T16:37:02Z

The broadcast TV business has had a rough run this season and next season isn't looking much better. Starting from last fall when their new shows debuted, all four major US networks saw a drop in viewers in the age 18-to-49 demographic, the group most prized by advertisers, The Wall Street Journal reports today. Fox saw ratings for this group decline 23 percent through March, ABC's ratings declined eight percent, NBC's by seven percent, and CBS's by three percent. As audiences tune out of broadcast, analysts fully expect that advertisers will follow them.

How Apple can build the next-generation TV

2012-11-29T17:12:05Z

In 2010 Steve Jobs sat on stage at the D: All Things Digital Conference and took a question from an audience member. “Do you think it’s time to throw out the interface for television?”

Steve replied instantly with a confident, multipart answer. “The problem with innovation in the television industry is the go-to-market strategy,” he said. “The television industry fundamentally has a subsidized business that gives everybody a set top box for free or for $10 a month, and that pretty much squashes any opportunity for innovation, because nobody’s willing to buy a set-top box.” Ask anyone about their success selling set-top boxes, he said. Even Apple. “A lot of people have tried,” he said. “They’ve all failed.”

A week on the front lines: inside the battle for TV, the living room, and your attention

2012-11-22T03:07:47Z

We’ve spent the last week and a half digging into the players, companies, and history of the ongoing battle for the living room. To see where television could go next — and why it’s been stuck for so long — we spoke to to everyone from the Boxee CEO Avner Ronan and Vizio CTO Matt McRae to The New Yorker’s TV critic Emily Nussbaum and former FCC Chairman Michael Powell.

Almost every major player in the tech space is competing to disrupt the space, but even the best minds at Apple, Microsoft, Google, Sony, and Amazon haven’t been able to figure it out. None have been able to offer the perfect mix of live television, premium shows, and sports that the cable industry has locked down. Things are hardly settling down, with...

Is Netflix’s streaming focus building a house of cards?

2012-11-21T20:58:30Z

It’s easy to take Netflix for granted. These days it seems like every tech and telecom company with a pulse offers you streaming video to rent and buy. Sure, it blew your mind the first time Netflix delivered you a DVD and you could return it WHENEVER, but those little plastic discs are so outdated these days that even Netflix doesn’t want to sell them anymore.

But you’ve got to remember that the company’s DVD by mail model was the straw that broke the back of the rental industry dominated by Blockbuster and its ilk, fundamentally changing how people rented movies. Since then Netflix has consistently set the pace for all-you-can-eat video over the internet. Despite the growth of Hulu, Amazon Instant Video, and other...

Former FCC Chairman Michael Powell: 'Cable companies are at the mercy of content companies'

2012-11-20T17:01:20Z

Michael Powell — yes, that’s Colin Powell’s son — has been a driving force for change in the telecom and TV industry for years. After serving as an FCC commissioner under President Clinton, he was appointed Chairman by President Bush in 2001, beginning an active and controversial four-year run. As Chairman, Powell pushed to leave the exploding broadband market free of legacy telephone regulations while still maintaining support for net neutrality and fining internet providers for blocking VoIP services. Powell also stood watch over the FCC during 2004’s infamous Super Bowl "wardrobe malfunction," which led to a series of enormous fines for broadcasters who violated federal decency rules.

Powell is now the president of the...

Cutting the cord UK-style: can the Brits succeed where the US has failed?

2012-11-16T21:52:06Z

The idea of cord cutting — replacing your cable or satellite contracts with web services — remains an aspirational goal to many. In the US, thanks to services like Hulu Plus and Netflix, cord-cutting has never been easier, but without a cable subscription you’ll be unable to watch many programs on the day of broadcast, and accessing premium content from the likes of HBO is impossible. Over in the UK, however, things are starting to look a little brighter. The past five years has seen virtually all of the major players embrace digital content in some way, while American giants like Amazon and Netflix have invested heavily to capture the attention of the world’s second-largest (native) English-speaking population.

The state of...

Why TV news matters in the age of information overload

2012-11-16T20:00:29Z

“And that’s the way it is.”

For two decades, whenever Walter Cronkite said those words to end his nightly CBS newscast, people believed him. Cronkite was the most trusted man in America, the person we tasked with telling us what was happening and how we should feel about it.

In 2012, there is no Walter Cronkite. If you believe writers like Clay Shirky, there never will be another Walter Cronkite. When endless information, infinite viewpoints, and myriad options are available, the authoritative voice setting the agenda appears to have no place. That shouldn’t just worry proto-Cronkites, either; on its face it seems to spell doom for the TV news industry as a whole. From Brian Williams’ NBC Nightly News to our goofy local...

Connect the dots: Valve’s Big Picture could be a Linux game console

2012-11-16T17:47:03Z

The Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and Nintendo Wii are nearing their end. As powerful as they have been in the living room, gamers want more. They want better graphics, new user experiences, and more mobility, as much as those things can be at odds with one another. A new wave of game consoles is rising to meet some of those challenges, but perhaps not all: the Nintendo Wii U doesn’t seem to be that much more powerful than an Xbox 360, and the next Xbox and PlayStation are rumored to use what amounts to mid-range PC hardware in order to save costs.

Meanwhile, PCs haven’t stood still. There’s never been a better time to build a gaming PC, thanks to cheaper components and the amazing catalog of inexpensive games you can find on digital...