Why TV Is Dead – But Doesn’t Know It Yet

Hello? Anyone home?

Craig Engler, and executive at SyFy network has published a list of 10 Reasons Why Every TV Exec Has To Start Tweeting.

This insightful piece comes, ironically, a day after The New York Times revealed that 8% of the population already tweets.

OK.

So if we assume that there are, oh, say 10,000 network executives (is this too many?), and that they decide what the rest of the nation ‘gets to watch’ on TV… then the Network Execs represent .003% of the population.

So.. if 8% of the population (24 million people) are already tweeting, and if the tiny .03% of the population that decides what the rest of us ‘get’ to watch are not yet doing this.. is there something wrong?

In other words, are the wrong people in charge of the nation’s most powerful medium?

I think so.

They are decidedly not hip.

Not on the cutting edge of culture or technology or seemingly even in touch with where the world of digital media is today.

Which is too bad  – because as we spend, collectively, 4.5 hours a day in front of a TV set, we have placed in their rather unsophisticated hands, the sum total of what we will spend our time watching.

Mistake.

Big mistake.

The funny thing about Mr. Engler’s list of 10 reasons why TV execs should tweet is that he misses the whole point.

Twitter is about the democratization of the medium.

It’s not about ‘Pretending’ to pay attention to what viewers want (“It shows viewers we care” – Reminds me of George Bush).

Twitter and other social media are a way in which the entire relationship between producer and viewer gets reversed.

Now the ‘viewer’ can (and should) effectively control what is on the TV for them to watch.

In other words, as the interconnected world really gets going, you don’t need the rather patronizing “TV Executives” trying to ‘figure out’ what ‘the viewers’ want to see.

You don’t need it.

You don’t need the ‘TV Executives’ at all.

What?

Now that’s disturbing.

But think about it.

Take the most successful web sites there are.

eBay, for example.

Is there an ‘Executive Producer’ at eBay who ‘decides’ what will be available for sale at 10 AM?

“Barbie dolls at 10AM, old radios at 11”

Is there an ‘Executive Producer’ at jDate who decides who will be paired with whom?

The fat girl and the bald guy.. set em up.

You bet there isn’t.

The web doesn’t work that way.

TV is a remnant of an old, linear way of thinking.

We decide- you watch.

That’s not how the world works.

I would tweet this to you, but it takes more than 140 characters.