The television. Going back to my first memories, it’s been absolutely fascinating to me. This probably was caused by being only able to watch one night a week when I was a kid, the Disney Hour on Wednesdays. (It was also the only night of the week I was allowed to have soda and popcorn as well. That may explain a lot of things to a lot of you.) So I learned very young that a TV set was something to be profoundly cherished. The question is, will it stay that way?
I started thinking about the television because this is a big time of year for the TV industry, specifically the first three weeks of May.
First you’ve got “sweeps”. This is the time period where the ratings are taken for the last part of the prime-viewing season. The networks run their series finales, and the episodes leading up to the finales, in this window. This week we get really big ones too, Glee, Idol and the last three Oprahs. Oh my.
At the same time, as you may have noticed last week, you have the “upfronts”. This is where the networks release their schedules for the following fall while announcing which shows have been dumped and which ones renewed, plus the phenomenal (just ask them) new shows they’ve got in the hopper.
On a national level, the release of the schedules for the fall has always been a major deal. The networks have lavish parties in Manhattan, usually in a theater of some sort (i.e. NBC in Radio City Music Hall, CBS in Carnegie Hall) with the stars of the shows appearing. The invites are like gold. Gold, Jerry! Even the local affiliates used to have parties at their studios and invite all the advertisers in for the unveiling. Times have changed locally, unfortunately. Now all we get is an email from our rep forwarding the press release from the network. Hard to get a buzz on that way. But I digress.
A recent study shows that TV’s position as a necessity is dropping like a stone. People listed their number one necessity as a car, 86% in fact, which makes sense. But TV’s got to be next, right? Who can live without a TV? Well, evidently a lot of people, which doesn’t get an ad guy too excited.
Guess what the next two things people absolutely cannot do without are? Number two is the clothes dryer. Really? That’s right: The clothes dryer ranks as more needed than the TV set! (Interestingly, a clothes washer doesn’t even make the top ten. Maybe we’re supposed to use the sink or the bathtub). Then next is the microwave, which seems to me best served by making popcorn to munch on while you’re watching TV. Evidently not.
Shockingly, only 42% of Americans consider the TV to be a necessity, down from 52% in 2009 and 64% in 2006. That’s a bad trend. And it has a lot to do with computers and cell phones. Computers and cell phones both rank above televisions as necessities, and those percentages are growing rapidly.
If we’re not careful, the traditional television set will go the way of the landline telephone.
What’s happening is that Gen-Y (18-34 year olds) and their successors are more comfortable watching TV shows, movies and podcasts on their laptops or smartphones, hence the advent of web sites like “Cracker” where you can watch all kinds of things, like movies and TV shows, online. In addition to being able to watch first-run network programs on the network web site the day after the show airs. Hence less use for the TV.
I can clearly see a day when a home will have a couple of big computer monitors rather than TV’s. Heck the new iMac’s come in 27-inch sizes now, which are bigger than the first TV sets I watched Disney on.
I do hope I’m wrong, because I still love the television. Watching golf and hockey, and even the first of the three Oprah finales (we DVR’d it, and I must admit it was pretty cool), in HD is breathtaking. My soda and popcorn have evolved to wine and cheese, and I just can’t imagine my little party being as much fun in front of a computer.
