Tag Archives: television

Why Netflix’s ‘House of Cards’ Is the Future of TV

CANNES – If its pitchmen are to be believed, House of Cards, the first drama series
commissioned by VOD service Netflix, is the future of TV.

Kevin Spacey and Robin Wright, who star in the modern-day political drama, flew
into Cannes to hype the series, which Media Rights Capital is producing and Sony
Pictures Television is selling worldwide. Sony screened the first two episodes
of House of Cards to international buyers. Netflix will put all 13 episodes of the first
season online at once in February.

With a budget north of $100 million for the two, 13-episode seasons commissioned
by Netflix and with David Fincher on board as an executive producer – and director
of the first two episodes – House of Cards has the potential to either be a game
changer for the VOD business or a costly mistake for Netflix and its partners. The series is based on a BBC show of the same name from the 1990s which starred Ian
Richardson as an ambitious and ruthless British politician.

Continue reading Why Netflix’s ‘House of Cards’ Is the Future of TV

The future is now for television viewing over the internet

Illustration: Eric Lobbecke

Illustration: Eric Lobbecke Source: The Australian

THE powerful television executive looked rather sheepish over lunch. The topic at issue was nothing less than the future of TV, and he had a tale to tell about his teenage daughter and the impact of the phenomenon known as IPTV.

Dad, keen to point his daughter to some worthwhile TV, had suggested Downton Abbey, Julian Fellowes’ grand servants and masters Edwardian drama that Seven screened last year to much acclaim and even higher ratings. The forthcoming season two, due on Seven soon, is eagerly anticipated. But when the executive followed up with his daughter, she was unexpectedly enthusiastic: “Dad, season one was great but season two is even better!”

That she was able to watch the program at all, before it hit Australian screens, was due to IPTV. It stands for internet protocol television, and means watching TV over the internet. Some say it is about to change everything. Certainly, there’s a bewildering array of brands to choose from, including Apple TV, FetchTV, Foxtel, GoogleTV, Quickflicks and ABC iView.

Then there is which method to chose to watch: via digital TV sets that come with IPTV built in, or by a separate set-top box or even via a website.

The problem is, these services are not really on people’s radars.

“It is very early in the take-up curve. I don’t think most people know what it means,” says Duane Varan, director of Audience Research Labs at Murdoch University. When most think about online TV, they think of “a three-minute clip of someone who puts a pie in someone’s face”, he says.

“I don’t think most people think it is the legal form of the programs you enjoy on TV, now available over the internet.”

But for young people, IPTV is not over the horizon, it is here. “They are doing it already and doing it in droves,” says David Castran, chief executive of research analyst Audience Development Australia. “The research indicates that for people 25 to 54 in Sydney and Melbourne, 30 per cent of their TV viewing is that, but it is DIY: do it yourself.”

And DIY, for the most part, still means illegally. While legal IPTV is a nascent industry, illegal piracy has taken off. And what they want, by and large, is US drama.

“Everyone I know has copies of Revenge. They have downloaded them from the internet via BitTorrent,” Castran says. The US melodrama, starring Madeleine Stowe as tragic social powerbroker Victoria Grayson, is an updated Count of Monte Cristo set in the glossy Hamptons.

Australian viewers love it, with its debut topping two million viewers in February. But recently, after a break over Easter, ratings had slipped to 1.22 million. Seven reacted after Anzac Day by doubling episode broadcasts to twice a week to catch up to the US.

“It realised the program is being pirated,” Castran says. For Castran, the advantages of IPTV are numerous. You can watch television quickly, ad free and as many episodes as you like.

IPTV will change what we watch. Partly in reaction to this, Australian networks this year will emphasise local content that can’t be downloaded beforehand, such as Nine’s super-talent quest, The Voice. It is bringing in more than 2.3 million viewers each night, the biggest hit in years. But to be part of the conversation about the show in cafes, parties and the office kitchenette, you have to have watched the latest instalment. The program is IPTV proof. “Strong Australian content is a lot safer from pirating,” Castran says.

It is astonishing to think that when masterful English playwright Dennis Potter (The Singing Detective) referred to television as the “palace of varieties in the corner of the room”, it was restricted to a few dozen linear channels that dictated what we watched, when we watched, rather then the endless online smorgasbord of today.

IPTV will change what it is to watch TV. In fact, it already has. At a recent industry conference, Microsoft executive David McLean outlined how viewers would be able to start watching a drama such as medieval sword and sex fantasy Game of Thrones at home via a device such as Microsoft’s XBox, before hopping on to a bus to work and continuing to watch the same episode via a mobile phone or tablet.

Certainly, our TV landscape has changed beyond recognition since the 1970s. Media executive Nick Leeder remembers those days well. He recalled recently: “As I was growing up in Newcastle in the 1970s, my access to information and entertainment was limited to a handful of media outlets – two television channels, one newspaper and a handful of radio stations. Given that airtime and column inches were scarce and expensive resources, it’s not surprising that I had so few choices.”

Leeder is now the managing director of Google Australia and New Zealand. It owns YouTube, which in terms of the number of hours Australians devote to it is a significant TV channel in its own right. Globally, four billion videos are viewed every day and 60 hours of video are uploaded every minute.

“My family has endless choices of what to watch, listen to, play and read,” Leeder says. He is fond of pointing out that Australia has a trade surplus in online video. More people overseas watch more hours of Australian-made video than Australians watch of overseas-made video.

“International online users consume eight times more Australian video content than Australians themselves, with the US being our biggest audience,” says Leeder, who himself is indicative of how the medium has changed.

Google is said to make more money than our big three TV networks combined, but the contrast of low-profile Leeder with a traditional media mogul such as Kerry Packer couldn’t be more marked.

The online medium has thrown up new stars, such as sassy online blogger Natalie Tran. The Sydneysider gained a massive following with her humorous take on life, so much so that when suicide prevention program R U OK? hired her and Hollywood star Hugh Jackman to film online endorsements, at one point just 50,000 people had watched Jackman, while Tran had attracted 1.4 million hits. Mainstream TV is ignoring her, but companies such as Lonely Planet have hired her to be a brand ambassador.

IPTV will change the way companies advertise. David McGrath, the ebullient salesman behind the development of a product called Viewer Interactive Application Program (VIAP) reveals how his technology allows consumers to shop while they watch.

On his laptop, McGrath screens a clip from Sex and the City. Miranda and Carrie stroll through a park while discussing their therapy. Suddenly they freeze and, as a cursor flits over their clothes, up pops a product description of each item. Want Miranda’s Minnetonka calf high moccasin boots? Simply click on them and for $225 VIAP will buy them, bag them and send them to you.

But will the potential of IPTV become a permanent revolution, or will it go the way of the video disc, Betamax video, CB radio and the First Republic? Just because the technology exists, that doesn’t mean fickle consumers will adopt it. While we love new technology, and have the highest penetration of smartphones in the world (50 per cent of the market has one), we haven’t fallen in love with pay-TV in quite the same way as other countries. Pay-TV penetration here is stuck at about 30 per cent, below levels in the US and Britain, due in part to the anti-siphoning rules that restrict the amount of live sport pay-TV can show.

At the Audience Research Labs at Murdoch University, Varan and his team undertake research that goes worldwide, issuing findings on everything from limited interruption addressable TV advertising to profiling the ad avoider. Varan thinks an IPTV future is inevitable but not a fait accompli, citing obstacles present here that are absent overseas.

First, most broadband internet in Australia is offered under a metered model and you need a lot of bandwidth to watch TV.

“That’s hindering the growth of that sector,” Varan says, because it means that IPTV is not a simple proposition. However, if iiNet is your broadband provider, you don’t pay extra to watch its IPTV service FetchTV. Same with Telstra’s T-Box and Foxtel’s IPTV service.

The second barrier is about access. “Is your show available and by whom?” Varan asks. Not all services can provide the same shows. It is different in the US with aggregators such as Hulu and Netflix, “a one-stop shop for a good portion of your content”. Those brands are not available here.

Third, do you connect via a smart TV that encloses the IPTV technology, or purchase a set-top box (Xbox or T-box), or rig up a computer media centre or something else altogether? Fourth, which of the myriad providers to choose?

And, finally, there is what happens when you power up and connect.

“The majority of the interfaces, particularly if you are trying to navigate through a TV, are absolutely god-awful,” says Varan. “The industry is at its nascent stage and it hasn’t developed its conventions. There are a lot of barriers.”

So, the forecast is that Australia will lag behind the rest of the world in IPTV. “It’s not one of the sectors where we will be bold pioneers,” Varan says.

Then there is the looming National Broadband Network, inexorably being rolled out amid political controversy. It will pipe superfast broadband into all homes for a price but, he warns: “It could be a non-event. You radically improve capacity but you could still have a metered model and all the same problems we have today.

“The real power of the IPTV universe is the on-demand characteristic,” he says.

“Conventional TV is like responsible drinking; you have to pace yourself. If you really like something in the IPTV universe you can binge.”

Thus Foxtel, which has an expensive subscription model threatened by cheaper and targeted IPTV, says it has a range of IPTV offerings on its own service but also as part of Telstra’s T-box and Microsoft’s XBox. The pay-TV company offers subscribers a Mad Men special: viewers can download 10 crucial episodes of the critically adored but low-rating US drama (Foxtel prefer to call it “niche”) to complement the current run of season five on Movie Extra.

What is striking about IPTV is its non-essential nature. It is not a must-buy. Certainly, IPTV is years off attaining the level of consumer consciousness where people are aware of it, people are talking about it and people are using it.

Castran warns the impact on TV could be total, and recalls an industry conference several years ago where a speaker warned television was about to go the way of Encyclopedia Britannica — destined for an online-only future.

But Varan is measured. “What is most amazing about the US story is that conventional TV viewing has gone up,” he says. Everyone feared it would cannibalise but, once again, TV has triumphed.

“Before, even if you liked a show, you were lucky to see all episodes a season. But if you miss an episode, you can now catch up,” he says. Viewers who come late to a show can use IPTV to buy all the episodes and watch at their leisure.

“The big companies are still benefiting. It’s a remarkable development.”

Stephen Brook is media editor of The Australian.

US: Nielsen notes continued TV time shrinkage

Digital viewing on the rise but still small

Though consumption of the boob tube is declining as viewing on new platforms
increases, Nielsen isn’t giving digital options all the credit.

The measurement service’s quarterly cross-platform report issued Thursday noted a
drop of one half of one percent in total traditional TV time in the fourth quarter of
2011 versus the same period a year ago. That accounts for a loss of 46 minutes per
month, which Nielsen chalks up to a range of reasons beyond just growing
alternatives to TV.

“This maybe the result of leveling off after a period of sustained growth, weather and
economic factors or of other viewing options,” wrote Nielsen exec Dounia Turrill. “As
more homes adopt DVRs and transition to timeshifted viewing, timeshifted TV
growth has offset the bulk of live TV declines.”

Though viewing on DVR, game consoles and wireless devices registered small
increases across the board, they are lumped into “other potential factors” by Nielsen,
which emphasizes that TV time still dwarfs viewing on digital platforms.

But in a separate reseach note also issued Thursday, Nielsen reported that the total
number of TV households in the U.S. will register a small decline for the second
consecutive year after decades of consistent growth. The projected drop will take
Nielsen’s TV “universe” from 114.7 million next year to 114.1 million in 2013.

While the number of viewers watching traditional TV dipped 1.7% to 284.4 million in
the fourth quarter versus year ago, timeshifted-TV viewers increased 4.9% to 143.9
million and Internet video watchers rose 4.2% to 147.4 million. The number of
mobile subscribers watching video on their phones is comparatively tiny–33.5
million–but up tremendously, by 35.7%.

Perhaps the most marked improvement is coming in video viewing on gaming
consoles. Q4 console usage soared 30%, which may reflect increased gaming activity
as well. Consoles including XBox, Wii and Playstations are now in 45% of TV homes.

By ANDREW WALLENSTEIN – Variety – Thu., May. 3, 2012

The new golden age of TV

Call it the kaleidoscopic age of TV drama. Never before has there been such a range
of colorful story lines, styles and sensibilities at work in the genre.

One program producer enthuses that hour-long series are now indisputably “the
jewel in the crown” of small-screen creativity. Inroads into schedules by reality fare
during the last decade and a recent spate of sitcom successes notwithstanding, it is
drama that still sets the tone for most broadcasters—and potentially returns the
biggest rewards to its backers.

Think high-end, high-cost American network series like Smash, Touch or The
River or the current crop of pay cable contenders like HBO’s Boardwalk Empire and
Showtime’s Homeland, as well as basic cable’s Covert Affairs on USA Network
or Breaking Bad on AMC. Never has there been a time when so many top talents,
behind and in front of the camera, were so attracted to, and adept at massaging, the
genre. Nor a time when so much money was at stake.

Continue reading The new golden age of TV

Adam Zwar on Agony Uncles. ABC Wednesdays 9.30.pm

THE creator of Wilfred and Lowdown has a new show, Agony Uncles, in which male
celebrities talk about sex and relationships.

How long has the idea for this show been kicking around?

Since 2004. I had a newspaper column called ”The Wise Guy” and it was kind of like
a lad’s version of Sex and the City. At the time I’d been single for many years and I
wanted to educate women about how men actually behaved in relationships and
what went on in their minds when they were dating. I thought it would make a good
TV show so I did a pitch document and I didn’t get much interest … I kept rejigging it
over the years and each time I made the sizzle reel better – I got more people involved
and finally in 2010 I went to the ABC and they went for it.

Who do you see as the audience?

My ambition would be everybody. People say that I make stuff that’s cult – well that’s
not my ambition. I don’t want to be cult. I want people to watch stuff that I make. To
me it’s a celebration for men of how they deal with relationships – finally the truth is
out. For women it’s a behind-the-scenes insight into the locker room – what men talk
about.

Guys talking about sex could go horribly wrong. How important was the
input of your female co-producers, including your wife, Amanda
Brotchie?

So important. Amanda was the creative consultant and I’d be sometimes surprised by
some of the things that were considered misogynist or were a bit too wrong. We’d
have a few debates. Sometimes I’d put my foot down and say, ”Even though you
think that’s offensive, I think it’s important it goes in there.” And also you want to
make an impact. I really want this to be as authentic a representation of the male
voice as possible.

Was it at all awkward working on a show like this with your wife?

Amanda and I have a long-standing working relationship so if we have creative
disagreements it doesn’t tend to have much impact on our personal life.

Why did you choose to interview celebrities rather than the man in the
street?

You need to know how to tell a story with a beginning, a middle and an end with
jokes in between and I find entertainers have a greater sense of how to do that than
your average person in the street. It wasn’t that they were famous, it was that they
were good storytellers and had the guts to say what was on their minds.

Did anyone have regrets?

A lot of them can’t remember a thing they said. Yesterday I had a conversation with
Ed Kavalee and this journalist apparently said, ”You’re very brave in Agony Uncles,”
and he goes, ”What do you mean brave? What did I say that was particularly brave?”

How different is this from its sister show Agony Aunts, which airs later
in the year?

The guys talk about relationships in a jokey kind of way but the girls are taking this
really seriously. It doesn’t matter that we’ve got all these great comediennes talking
about relationships – I haven’t even touched the sides with how much I’ve thought
about relationships compared to them. It’s a serious business.

Do you think you’ve discovered the difference between men and women
after doing these shows?

I think it’s quite profound. And I think men should really think about relationships a
lot more than they are or the war is always going to be written by women. They’re
just like 10 steps ahead of us. It’s like we’re a C-grade team playing against a bunch of
international stars. We’ve got no hope.

Greg Hassall – SMH – March 18, 2012

What’s a documentary?

WHAT’S A DOCUMENTARY?

This session at the AIDC 2012 in Adelaide has arisen via a ‘stoush’ between Chris Hilton and Screen Australia over their production Lush House. Chris applied for a producer offset for the program, but it was rejected. However Chris appealed to the Administrative Appeals Tribunal, who overturned the decision. Then Screen Australia appealed, and this was heard on 13 February. To date the outcome is still pending.

The session was the liveliest of the conference, with robust discussion as could be expected – and then some! Chris Hilton put forward a passionate argument in favour of Lush House being awarded the offset, and Screen Australia’s Chief Operating Officer Fiona Cameron rebutted his arguments.

Simon Nasht countered with an offer of a bet that Screen Australia would lose its appeal, as in his eyes their case is weak. If he is right, this will create the very uncertainty that Fiona said they were seeking to avoid over what sort of documentary is eligible for an offset.

Bob Connolly unleashed an astounding diatribe against the current state of the documentary industry in Australia. It was so astounding that we have reported it as a transcript of his comments, to the best of our ability in transcribing it. Our apologies for any errors.

Finally Jennifer Peedom put forward a perspective of someone with fewer kilometers on the odometer, but some equally penetrating insights into the dilemmas facing writer-directors or producer-directors who were not part of a large production company, and who wanted to continue to make films, and also pay the mortgage.

Continue reading What’s a documentary?

Joost den Hartog mourns Film Australia

To herald the 2012 AIDC documentary conference just completed in Adelaide, Director Joost den Hartog took the industry to task for failing to save Film Australia. He suggests that only Film Australia was capable of looking after the need to make culturally relevant documentaries here.

This is what he said in IF magazine:

In 2006 – the year I migrated to Australia – Film Australia made its submission to the federal government’s film funding review. That year my ignorance prevailed when I was occupied programming my first Australian International Documentary Conference (AIDC) as its new director.

Encouraged by industry anger about the terms of trade, role and direction of Film Australia, I programmed a keynote address that criticised the six-decade-old institution and put some more fuel on the already burning fire. The keynote by Wall to Wall’s chief executive Alex Graham was meant to alter the terms of engagement, but it set the tone for a further attack on Film Australia as a whole. Unfortunately the industry mobilisation happened at a time the federal government was keen to cut some costs and a golden opportunity arose to axe Film Australia with seemingly the full blessing of stakeholders in the documentary community.

Had I paid more attention to Film Australia’s submission, I would have realised the deep cultural importance of the institution as the people’s production house. I believe cost-cutting was the true reason behind the demise of the agency – there is no other logical explanation why a small industry would liquidate such a national public asset. Unfortunately Film Australia only made it to the age of 61. Something Australia has always understood very well is the importance of documenting its history. The national documentary history exists parallel with federated Australia’s narrative of nation building, starting with the first multi-camera documentary The Inauguration of the Commonwealth in 1901, and onwards to the present day.

Continue reading Joost den Hartog mourns Film Australia