L'esprit de l'escalier

Television Distribution is a chapter in The Business of Media Distribution: monetising film, TV, and video content by Jeff Ulin. It’s a little outdated (it was published in 2010, and thus hasn’t seen the further development of streaming sites, piracy and the like), but it gives a good overview of how traditional television is distributed, changing perceptions of TV and the possibilities of online video platforms.

Today we think of the other markets as emerging and competitive to TV, but if and when content is everywhere then free TV will become the limiting not the defining factor, because unlike other platforms broadcasters have retail-like limited shelf space: just compare 22 hours of primetime versus an infinite range of choice on demand or via the Internet. The fact that a program at least was aired or launched on TV, or was produced for TV, may become the defining element of whether it falls within the notion of TV at all.

This quote simply outlines the fundamental difference between traditional TV, and online TV: primetime scheduling of 22 hours versus infinite content online. This is the main advantage of online video platforms. Additionally, if you have 22 hours of content, to keep people viewing, it makes sense to have blocks of TV fit around people’s days (meals, work, exercise etc). And in a day, obviously, there is a limited amount of content you can air. The money comes from advertising, so it has to be built around long enough blocks that advertising can be repeated and sink in with the viewer. The content can be longer than online video in general, because viewers are going to be in the one place. With online video, it has to be shorter, because it isn’t necessarily going to be watched at home.

The final point in that quote is really important for our research. What defines TV now? Whether it was made for TV. That makes sense. However, if video content that was released online only adheres to the TV formula (length, style, genre), should that still be considered TV? I think so. If the online content could reasonably be aired on traditional television, then it is television. In that sense, it was probably only released online to maximise viewership.

Something which keeps cropping up in these articles and papers about television is advertising. I had previously thought of television only as television programmes, but this is a narrow view, it would seem. The content is inextricably linked: the shows are structured around blocks of advertising. Duh! Ulin notes that online advertising is ‘more valuable’ because it cannot be skipped. (Although, like I said in a previous post, it is more perceived to be more disruptive to the viewing experience.) Ulin says that cable channels can take bigger risks than networks because their profits come from more sources: 1) subscriber fees 2) advertising 3) DVD revenue 4) video on demand fees. Essentially, this means that their original content can be more daring.

I think this is an interesting point to note for online video platforms. Netflix doesn’t have advertising (unlike Hulu) so how is it economically viable for it to produce original content? Netflix is trying to be the next HBO, with the added bonus of BINGE VIEWING. It all comes down to number of subscribers, though. An article on VideoMind says that:

Netflix is giving people a reason to sign up while fundamentally altering the way TV is created, delivered and consumed. They are also directly attacking the common (though unfounded) complaint about not having enough new content to watch on their streaming service.

What we are discovering, here, is that traditional broadcasting is geared towards mass audiences whereas online video platforms target individual viewers with content specific to them (this is why there has to be more content).

mass audience=less content
individual viewer=more content

As I said above, this chapter is from a 2010 book, and as such its main limitation is its age. It doesn’t address new viewing habits (online binge watching) or the production of online original content.

Sources
Ulin, J, 2010, ‘Television Distribution’ in The Business of Media Distribution: Monetizing Film, TV and Video Content in an Online World, 1st edition, Focal Press, Burlington, MA, pp. 222-291

Nielsen is a company which conducts extensive research on consumer habits and trends globally. In this report, they have looked at video households. Previously, Nielsen used to assess traditional TV households, but now their definition of TV and video content households has had to be expanded because it no longer accurately reflects how many people are watching television content.

Since 2007, almost 2.5 million more American households have altered the way they receive TV content; 75% of these homes have at least one TV; 67% of these houses receive content on other devices (37% via computer, 16% on TV internet, 8% via smartphones and 6% via tablets); 48% of them watch TV content through subscription services. These non-traditional TV homes are populated by a rather young demographic, almost 50% of residents under 35.

Still, traditional TV is used the most; in the 18-24 demographic, the average American watches 23.14 hours per week, compared to just 2.04 hours of video content online. It would be useful to know, though, whether what they are watching is television programs or YouTube videos. A clearer assessment about just how much television content young people, and older people, for that matter, consume weekly. For our project, that would help us when analysing streaming of original content on Netflix, and how the experience differs. At this point, it seems that the main difference is there is so much less TV consumed online, probably because it’s so easy to have the TV on in the background. As it is, this report will be useful in establishing what devices people spend the most time on, and which would be appropriate for distributing content targeted at a particular demographic.

Additionally, it would be handy to know whether any downloaded video content is watched on the television, because that has implications for the TV experience regarding screen and acquirement of the video. The DVD/Blu Ray content is rather low, only 1:09hr for 18-24 and 1:38hr for 25-34; what sort of content are they watching? Television? Film? Drama? Stand up?

I realise Nielsen conducts such large research projects designed to give an overview of platform use, but, as with all the other articles, specific details would be extremely useful.

Sources
Nielsen, 2013, Free to move between screens: the cross-platform report, cat. no. unknown, The Nielsen Company, New York

This article by Marc Graser (Daily Variety, 2013) looks at the generation of binge watchers, the implications for broadcasters and where binge watching originated. Graser quotes the statistical research of MarketCast to show that the House of Cards phenomenon was not the first example of binge-ers.

House of Cards, the new Netflix drama, is generally considered to be this amazing example of binge watching and how dump distribution signals the beginning of a new type of viewing. That is not the case, however, people have binge watched numerous other shows. MarketCast surveyed over a 1000 consumers and found that of different TV shows, The Walking Dead, Breaking Bad and True Blood were some of the most popular. I think this is to do with the complex narratives of these shows. Watching the content all in a row makes it easier to remember details and keep the plot straight in your mind.

That being said, binge watching is not really a way of life. Only than 5% of binge-ers said that bingeing is the only way they watch television. Bingeing is often related to a new season coming out and the viewer wanting to catch up on the previous episodes, avoidance of commercials, revisiting of a series they have seen before or needing something to do while unwell at home.

Bingeing is significant in regard to online video platforms because 58% of it is done through a streaming service. To give you an idea of what this means, 1/3 viewers of Netflix’s House of Cards watched the whole first season (13 episodes) in less than four weeks of its release. I, myself, watched it in less than two. Which is actually slow for my normal standards; if I hadn’t been so busy with school, I probably would have watched it in two or three days. Serial binge-er.

Anyhow, this article will be useful for our research because it gives us an idea how many people binge watch, and the effect of dump distribution like House of Cards on viewing habits. Questions still to be answered: is House of Cards television? How does binge watching alter the television experience?

Sources
Graser, M, 2013 ‘How binge-ers watch: millennials, solo viewers predominate’, Daily Variety, vol. 318, pp. 42, viewed 09 April 2013, http://find.galegroup.com.ezproxy.lib.rmit.edu.au/gtx/infomark.do? &source=gale&srcprod=AONE&prodId=AONE&userGroupName=rmit&tabID=T003&docId=A323971895&type=retrieve&contentSet=IAC- Documents&version=1.0

Hulu or NBC? was a study conducted by Kelty Logan in 2011. It used online interviews of young adult viewers (both of online streaming television and traditional television) to discover whether there is a differing perception of advertising on each platform. Interestingly, Logan found that young adults watched “62% more traditional television than online television and were significantly less tolerant of online advertising”. According to 2009 research, 30% of 18-34-year-old Internet users watch whole television episodes online; of course, this would be rather higher now. The viewers of online advertisements have better recall than traditional television watchers, however, this is a response to the fact that, generally, advertisements cannot be skipped online. Online advertising is considered to be more intrusive and distracting than traditional TV advertising, despite the fact the two models are similar (episodes, length).

In these interviews with young adults, Logan found that online TV viewers use the video platform more often for convenience and economics than for social interaction. Of course, this makes sense, because a mobile device is not conducive to shared viewing. But, the viewers of TV and online TV share a key characteristic: their viewers are after entertainment more often the informational content.

Logan’s study suggests that young viewers use the “online episodic television to augment their traditional television use”. (Similar to Cha’s idea of different gratifications for the different platforms.)

This study will be useful for my group in our understanding of how to make a profit online without alienating viewers. It demonstrates that traditional television advertising is less accepted online. To better engage the viewers with commercial content, the advertising needs to be more interesting, shorter, targeted and integrated. Perhaps, even, it would be better if there was more product placement; or if it engaged the viewer in some sort of interaction (as the online medium allows for).

Possibilities for further development of Logan’s study include researching whether the viewers make a distinction between traditional TV and online TV; how exactly online TV ‘augments’ traditional television use; and experiences of both platforms (specifics on content consumed).

Sources
Logan, K, 2011, ‘Hulu.com or NBC?: Streaming Video versus Traditional TV’, Journal of Advertising Research, March edition, viewed 10 April 2013, http://comm.rider.edu/com333/fosterc/files/2010/09/HuluOrNBC_Article.pdf

This is a study conducted by Jiyoung Cha, what a dynamo. It was published in revised form in January of this year. This descriptive research study looks at how the “perceived characteristics of online video platforms and and consumer-related factors affect consumer intention to use the Internet and television to watch video content”. It is similar to the study on substitutability, which I wrote about here. In fact, I think it may have used the same survey sample of 1500 US adults who use the Internet. But instead of looking at motivations for consuming video content, this study looks at intentions to use different platforms. Confusing, right?

Here is what it says:

1. If the new video platform is perceived to “be different from television in satisfying their needs, the likelihood of using the new video platform increases”.
2. In predicting the intention to use online video platforms, the most important factors to consider are the “relative advantage”, “compatibility” and “perceived ease of use”.
3. Consumers have to adapt to the new technology. After a new technology is adopted, “it’s not uncommon to find that the perceived ease of use…disappears”.
4. Today’s consumers are more “attached to the content than to the medium”.

This opened my eyes to how the perceptions of a medium influence intention to use it. If a technology adds something to the viewer’s experience, they are more likely to use it. Furthermore, the consumer cares about content more than what they are watching it on. This suggests that just because one is a subscriber to Netflix, it does not mean that they won’t watch traditional television, or go to the movies. It is about content, and where they can access that content.

For us as content makers, this is reassuring. It prioritises quality over medium. Sure, more and more people are watching online, but if they are interested, they will watch it on traditional television. I would also like to investigate whether the dumping distribution model of Netflix is more or less profitable, or feasible, than traditional pilot-signing for a season of network TV. Netflix had to invest all the production money in the beginning, without any idea of what viewership would be or whether it would be popular. It’s a big gamble. I suppose this is when the advantage of binge watching comes in, though. If the content is all there, people are going to be more likely to keep watching as opposed to waiting a week for a programme they are not sold on.

It would also be useful to conduct an updated study looking at user experiences of online platforms, and what content they consume on them. Netflix and Hulu must have this data.

Sources
Cha, J, 2013, ‘Predictors of television and online video platform use: A coexistence model of old and new video platforms’, Telematics and Informatics, vol. unknown, viewed 08 April 2013, http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.tele.2013.01.001

It was 2011. Wales. Aberystwyth University. Glen Creeber became obsessed with online dramas, that is, dramas made for online consumption. Ye olde Glen argues online dramas are a mix of old and new platforms; in particular they revive the ‘intimate screen’ of television. Television has three distinct characteristics:

1. it is a means of “instant transportation of material”.
2. it is a “medium of intimacy”, delivering content into a domestic sphere, sometimes seen to have established a new social relationship.
3. it is a “hybrid” of theatre, newsprint, radio and film. It performs the function of these four mediums, just with the “advantage of 1 and 2”.

Creeber (or as I’d like to call him, Creeper) points out that these three qualities can be found in online video content. 1) this doesn’t really need an explanation, material can be live streamed, or simply uploaded immediately after the fact. 2) the camera can be placed in the author’s bedroom, or house (an intimate space) and, I would like to add, can also be delivered to the same domestic sphere of the traditional TV audience. 3) the hybrid medium is created through online multitasking—multiple windows, tabs etc, each performing a different function.

The webcam, particularly, gives an intimate experience like TV. Although it is often unpolished in contrast to traditionally broadcast content, it has a sense of reality to it, and thus of intimacy: a glimpse into somebody’s life. Television tends to capture important events, but the webcam captures small ones, non-events.

Creeper [sic] moves on to analyse web dramas, like EmoKid21Ohio and Lonelygirl5. I think it is important that these two dramas were initially believed to be real; the Internet provides an opportunity to deceive the viewer in a way that traditionally broadcast TV generally can’t. A lot of online works have now moved away from the ‘this is real’ concept, but the possibility indicates a type of immersion which broadcast TV can’t offer. The online viewer can participate in the story. Creeber agrees with me! He argues that success of the online drama comes through participation.

How to make money from online dramas: product placement. It’s non-intrusive and lucrative. How to save money making video content: make online dramas—the medium almost expects imperfection (as in handheld cam, jump cuts)—which lowers production costs.

Online dramas emphasise the intimate: close ups and direct address.

Interestingly, online dramas have so far mimicked the traditional television serialisation of content. Although Netflix’s House of Cards was dumped online (every binge watcher’s dream), short episodes released once or twice weekly can build a following. If it’s good content, people are excited for the next ‘broadcast’, and the online medium gives them so much space to talk about it in between episodes.

“If [...] early television drama was built on the ‘revelation and display of the character’s inner feelings and emotions, effected by a close-up style…’, then this new ‘small screen’ is fighting back against contemporary television’s increasingly ‘cinematic’ aspirations.”

This last part is important to consider, because it contrasts with the original online drama content produced for House of Cards. This is a show that is constantly being referred to as cinematic. Does this create a distinction between types of online dramas, dependent on the development of traditional television? One embraces the long ago ideals, the other dumps TV-as-we-know-it onto an online platform. What’s the difference? Are they both considered online drama?

The idea of the re-emergence of intimate television is significant to our research, because it looks at the traditional television experience and provides us with opportunities to contrast it to other online television we know. This would also be my criticism, though; in his analysis of previous research, Creeber does not consider how traditional TV dramas as we now know them (more cinematic ones) are viewed online, and how that contributes to the continuing history of television. Does he consider traditional TV content to be superior in some way? Or is it a simple evolution process? Where do cinematic TV dramas fit into the online world and TV experience?

Sources
Creeber, G, 2011, ‘It’s not TV, it’s online drama: The return of the intimate screen’, International Journal of Cultural Studies, vol. 14, pp.591-606, viewed 08 April 2013, http://ics.sagepub.com/content/14/6/591

*Please note: Thao, Mike and I realise that we have the same article referenced, here. We thought that as we each have more than 8 entries, the duplication wouldn’t matter, and three perspectives would be useful for our later work.

This is an interesting article by PwC (PricewaterhouseCoopers) from February this year. It is, in part, a summary of a debate between the Marketing Association of the Columbia Business School and the Virginia Commonwealth University; however, it also incorporates an examination of specific research conducted in the following area: “challenges and opportunities second screen technologies present to the traditional TV model.”

What is the second screen? you ask. Well, dutiful reader, the second screen is “supplementary, social and synchronised experience that delivers enhanced content to a tablet of smartphone”. In short, it’s whatever you watch TV on that isn’t a TV.

It is noted that traditional viewership is decreasing; from now till 2017, it is expected to see an annual 0.9% drop. This is due to the opportunities of connected TVs, time-shifting through game consoles and watching content online. However, TV still reaches more people than other mediums, and people chillax with their TVs more than other devices.

It is important to point out the role of social media in viewers’ decision about what to watch and even when to watch. Social media is like Leonard Maltin, or something.

The indications for PwC views the second screen as an opportunity to extend the television experience; it “presents broadcasters with new ways of maintaining and engaging audiences, promoting channel loyalty, and growing advertising revenue”. The increase in sales of tablets and iDevices indicate that more video content will be consumed on other screens than the TV, but instead of being all “woe is meeee!”, content makers and networks should embrace the opportunity. And that’s why I think the ABC is swell. They have an innovation department which assesses new technologies and how they could be used by the ABC to create original content.

To have a successful second screen campaign, PwC advices that you follow these golden rules:

1. Nurture the conversation, not just the product
2. Agile advertising requires collaboration
3. Harness the potential of your super-fan subscriber
4. Respect consumer privacy
5. Use new metrics to measure success

This is an analytical research paper, even if the first part is a bit of a non-traditional discussion. The paper targets researchers into online video platforms, whether they be content makers looking to develop a strategy for a project, or academic theorists looking for a starting point for further research. The paper includes previous research as well as putting forward a new theory on how to approach working on the second screen.

What should my group take from it? That online video content, or content for the second screen, requires a different approach to traditional television. The second screen’s connectivity is what will define it: interaction between viewers, and between viewers and the show itself (actors, the program’s official page etc) are important. What you want is customer loyalty, and an online dialogue is key. Furthermore, at this point, the second screen is exactly that, a second screen. It hasn’t yet replaced the…first screen. The TV isn’t dead yet. The two screens can work together (and bake cakes made out of rainbows and smiles), to some extent, to create strong followings.

Sources
PricewaterhouseCoopers, 2013, The cord-cutting debate and the role of the second screen in TV, advertising, and content distribution, PwC, cat. no. unknown, Delaware, viewed 12 April 2013, http://www.pwc.se/sv_SE/se/media/assets/a-closer-look-february-2013.pdf

This is an article by Jiyoung Cha and Sylvia M. Chan-Olmsted from 2012. It was published in the Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly; it is a descriptive research paper which addresses whether viewers perceive online video platforms and traditional television to be substitutable by examining the goals of viewers in consuming video content. In their survey study, they found that there are six motives for watching video content: “timely learning, relaxing entertainment, boredom relief, companionship, escape and social interaction.”

The Internet is used more frequently than TV for timely learning because it is better at “satisfying consumers’ learning motives in a timely manner”. This, in part, contributes to the authors’ discovery that “the web is not as relaxing as watching television”; the Internet is not solely a video platform. Additionally, being online requires a certain amount of participation which the television does not; hence the ‘lean forward’ and ‘lean back’ terms to describe audience types.

Watching video online has a functional uniqueness; the new platforms can gratify the consumer’s needs in a way which TV can’t. Cha and Chan don’t make it clear how the platforms do this, but it would seem it stems from timeliness and accessibility; the immediacy of the Internet is relevant to its unique experience. I would also add that, concerning entertainment video, the web offers opportunities for catching up on past episodes, or binge re-watching of series, that the television medium doesn’t easily facilitate.

Interestingly, Cha and Chan found that viewers still consider the television to better satisfy entertainment and relaxation needs. This is strange considering how many people watch content online; then, it must be about convenience.

Users of online video platforms have different expectations of the two mediums in providing needs gratification. This is important for my group to consider in terms of what we will make in the future, and where it will be distributed. If we are making entertainment content, it should be geared towards the online experience rather than trying to mimic the television experience. Because the Internet is considered to be less relaxing than the television, the content should utilise the possibilities of the medium, otherwise there is little point to having the content online when the viewer would enjoy it more on television. This means looking at which online video platform to publish on, length of episodes, whether the content will be dumped or serialised, streamed or downloaded, the opportunities with social media and how to expand the story world on non-video platforms (transmedia). Of course, this is leaning away from traditional television, but that is kind of the point. Not quite TV really means that it shouldn’t be TV as we know it. It has to have more to do with the medium.

As for catching up on traditional TV content online…that seems to be doomed to be a hybrid of TV and not quite TV. The viewing experience is altered because it is consumed at the viewer’s convenience, and on a different device, but it is still TV because it was made for the TV.

This study is useful for establishing general uses of online video platforms and the television, but it did not get into specifics. Be specific, Bob! (High five for The Incredibles reference, Tess.) It didn’t not research the specific content type which viewers consume in each medium. Rather than looking solely at uses and needs, it should have be established whether viewers were watching news content, YouTube clips, drama or reality TV, or whatever, online.

*Also, the study was published in 2012, however, it says that the data was collected in 2009. This seems like rather a long time until it was written; and potentially this data would be different if collected more recently, considering development of viewing patterns and consumer awareness in those three years.

Sources
Cha, J & Chan-Olmsted, S, 2010, ‘Substitutability between Online Video Platforms and Television’, Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly Journal , vol. 89 no. 2, viewed 10 April 2013, http://jmq.sagepub.com/content/89/2/261

Part of what my group wants to look at is the future of TV—we’re going to be making TV content, so it’s important to know how what we make is going to be both distributed and the technology it is going to be available on.

The Consumer Electronics Association has a report on ‘Next-generation TVs’. Even if our content is going to be TV that is made for the web (see, House of Cards by Netflix), that doesn’t mean that it can’t be watched on TV, connected TVs, that is.

3DTV
A TV that adds a “simulated sense of depth to video playback” which can be achieved through passive glasses, active glasses, glasses-free 3D and head-mounted 3D display.

4K TV
A 4K TV “provides quadruple the total display resolution of today’s best Full HDTV sets” by doubling the horizontal and vertical pixel displays.

8K TV
The 8K TV is the 4K TV on crack. It provides a resolution 16 times larger than our best HDTVs of today.

OLED TV
An Organic Light-Emitting diode (OLED) is an LED (you can figure that one out for yourself) that “contains a layer of film composed of an organic semiconductor compound”. Basically, that means the emitted light is used as a “pixel element in a digital display”. OLED TVs are aces, it would seem—they are thin, light, use less power and achieve higher contrast ratios, as compared to an LCD (liquid crystal display).

Head-mounted Displays
Sort of like Google TV Glasses, I guess, but monocular and binocular.

Right now, OLEDs, which are the TV of the future, are not especially common, accounting only for less that 1% of flatscreen scales, according to Michael Inouye, from ABI Research.

With all of these new technologies, the important thing is to create content which can use their capabilities. I don’t know what that content is going to look like, but for 3DTV (which I have the best understanding of), it’s like Martin Scorsese’s Hugo. It’s one thing to 3D-ify a film, but a film made for 3D is capable of really using the technology. To make the best content for OLEDs, that might mean using particular cameras or colour ratios. And there has to be enough content for the technology—there’s not really any point having a 3DTV if there isn’t 3D content.

Chris Chinnock, president of Insight Media [says] “Most people are going to look at their TVs and say, ‘It looks really good and crisp to me. Why do I need four times as many pixels?’ And the answer is, from a visual acuity point of view, you probably don’t. Most people are not going to see a difference—certainly not under a screen size of 50-inches viewed from a normal living room distance.”

And why do we need OLEDs?

To quote an article from thevine.com.au which quoted Malcolm Turnbull: “The answer to your question is that nobody knows.”

Growing up I didn’t think I needed a digital TV. And now I don’t think I need a 3DTV. But the developments of technology bring us new possibilities in art and content creation. I can’t imagine what I could produce that would require an OLED TV; somebody else can.

Sources
Consumer Electronics Association, 2012, 5 technology trends to watch 2013, cat. no. unknown, CE Vision, Arlington VA, viewed 11 April 2013, http://content.ce.org/PDF/2K13_5tech_proof.pdf
MonsieurMaori, 2013, ‘The NBN Proposals in Plain Speak’, blog/news post, 10 April, Life & Pop Culture Untangled, viewed 11 April 2013, http://www.thevine.com.au/life/tech/the-nbn-proposal-in-plainspeak/

Further to my last post, I thought I’d look at what the main connected TV platforms are, and what these smart TVs can do.

Mitsubishi StreamTV
I know what you’re thinking: Mitsubishi is a car company! What the heck are they doing selling TVs? I had no idea either. I’m as mindblown as when I found out Cotton On owns Typo. Okay, I’ve looked into. Perhaps I was the only one that didn’t know Mitsubishi have been making cars, fans, elevators, air conditioners, TVs since Adam was a boy. Their aim is to contribute to society through technology, apparently. Get to the point, Tess! Okay, moving right along. Their new model TVs have ‘streamTV’, which, if you connect it to your wifi or ethernet, means you can stream from Vudu (an online American movie-TV service). Not only can you watch TV from the internet, though. StreamTV also allows you to social network, with built-in Twitter, Flickr (etc) capabilities. This seems very odd to me; TV is attempting to be the un-portable iPad.

I guess I had a naive view of what connected TVs would be. I assumed a TV would remain TV functioning, as in to play video and audio content made for the TV. But of course somebody was going to add social networking. Not that I can see the attraction of having giant Twitter in a common room.

Apple TV
Apple TV is a wee little box which connects your TV to your iTunes, and much more. The AirPlay accessory connects your iWhatever to your TV, so all that content is accessible, too. Even your games which you play on your iPad can be seen on the big screen with Airplay Mirroring. (Isn’t it funny that since TVs began mimicking the cinema experience by becoming bigger, big screen is now the big screen compared to your weeny iDevices? If that made sense.) Apple is so slick. Their taglines are like ‘Your favourite artists. Headlining in your living room.’ And iCloud makes everything easier—if it’s there it’s everywhere. (In case you can’t tell, I’m an Applemaniac—I may have in my possession and iPad 2, iPhone 5 and Macbook. Stupid iFreak.)

As I see it, this brings TV back to the TV, and back to the living room. The Apple TV description says, ‘You’re going to need a better couch.’ But Apple TV is not an actual TV—it’s a box which extends the function of your TV. It’s TV Apple-style, which, like the StreamTV, is all about accessibility to all types of content. New TVs are broadening the scope of TV. This just builds on my group’s essential idea of ‘not quite TV’. But while we’d been thinking of TV not on the TV, its reverse exists, too—not TV on the TV.

PS3 PlayTV
I’ve been reading a lot about TV on game devices lately, but I don’t actually know what that means. It would seem that PS3 PlayTV (ergh, what a mouthful!) functions like a set-top box. It’s an HD twin digital TV tuner that lets you “watch, pause and record live digital television directly to your PS3 hard disc”. This still works while you are using your PS3 to play games, watch movies or listen to music.

Sources
Apple, 2013, ‘What is Apple TV’, product description, apple.com.au, viewed 11 April 2013, http://www.apple.com/au/appletv/what-is/
Dick Smith, 2013, ‘PS3 PlayTV, dicksmith.com.au , viewed 11 April 2013, http://dicksmith.com.au/product/YG7282/
Mitsubishi, 2013 ‘Mitsubishi TV Features, product description, Mitsubishi Electric, viewed 11 April 2013, http://www.mitsubishi-tv.com/features