About 18 months ago we bought a post-production business in Manhattan Creative Bubble (now definition 6) and  unified it into our interactive agency because we fundamentally believed that the future of the internet and marketing was brilliant story telling. We wanted a group of story tellers and emotion creators to be a core part of our team and have the capabilities to produce work for Hollywood, TV and Madison avenue at a world class level.  We have achieved this and since unification have won a Clio, an Emmy, an IBIXX, OMMA, ADDY, ProMax and even Small Agency campaign of the year from Advertising Age.  But what I did not expect was to be so engulfed by the discussion regarding "What is happening with TV, entertainment and the internet?"

 

Most of the conversation has sounded like "who moved my cheese?" especially to an outsider who never had cheese in the first place (cheese is consolidated broadcast advertising dollars and limited distribution channels such as movie theaters and DVD's). Ultimately, I've come to believe the issue isn't that TV is dead or dying, in fact it is growing and thriving, or that VOD is going to destroy Hollywood. The issue is that ad buys are more complex, dynamic, fragmented and content distributors are having to work harder to maintain margin and that content producers are having to become more sales savvy because they need to have more customers than the limited number of broadcasters and theater distributors from days long ago.  Everyone blames the internet, the Millennial’ s, the mobile revolution and cord cutters for fragmented the audience and making it harder and harder to find a digital dollar vs. digital penny.  As a response, we are seeing a slew of "Smart TV's" internet enabled televisions with app stores, over the top content, deals with VOD organizations and social integration. Awesome! Fantastic! we will bring the distractions from traditional living room TV into the living room and then we will get all the dollars in one place again and things will just be beautifully profitable for us again.   Except…..

 

Who asked you to make the idiot box Smart? I want to watch TV, not necessarily watch a specific show, just watch TV.  According to a #CES panel where either Nielsen or TV guide said "70%+ of the people who sit down to watch TV don't know what they are going to watch until they sit on the couch" - ok, I buy that, and to me that means I still want it to be easy, passive, yes I want to do discover, but not necessarily search and explore like I do with Google, Twitter and Pandora. Stations and networks are good, they have themes, they have repeats, they have marathons in case I've fallen behind or want to get immersed on a weekend afternoon in a new series. So stop touching my TV, I want to sit back, relax and watch the "History of Steel" or "Golf" or "The Guy from the 70's painting and talking in that soothing voice" - I don't want to grab content, make my own playlist, find my favorite actor that cross references with Kevin Bacon to kill 20%-50% of the time I have to WATCH TV. Leave my few times a week I have no plan, and only want to enjoy.  Now if you can make it work with my iPad and come with me on my phone when I'm in line at the supermarket, then I'm all yours and I look forward to the new adventures of "TV and Me".

Follow Michael on Twitter @mkogon