For a large part of my life TV has been the dominate form of entertainment and information, but then the internet showed up and changed the world.  Changed my world. It is also changing the world of TV, primarily the free-to-air model.

A show I quite like that is filmed in New Zealand called ‘Legend of the Seeker‘ has over the last 2 years been showing on Prime. That was until recently when midway through the current second season it suddenly vanished. When asking Prime why and what had happened to it – the canned response was as follows:

“At this stage, Legend of the Seeker is taking a break from schedule and will return later in the year. Dates and time are not yet confirmed, so please continue to check your listings as well as any on-air promo’s regarding this programme”

I particularly like the part that says “… check your listings as well as any on-air promo’s …” – who does that anymore?!

It begs the question do these guys get that the world has changed, and people’s expectations on how they consume media and entertainment have changed along with it.  The answer is – I guess not – given the TV industries lack of address around the increasing decline in viewership and on-air TV advertising.

We live in a world of on-demand. On-demand access to information, on-demand access to games, on-demand access to video and so on – to tell people that they must wait to check out ‘local listings’ and await the station’s ‘schedule programming’ before they can see it again – is ignoring the fact that the on-demand is where it is at.

Additional to this is the other step-change in peoples behaviour – that the internet has created an expectation that information is transparent and navigable. Either via good information architecture and UI or via Search. TV Listings both via set-top boxes or printed form are none of these. They suck basically. So when Prime decides to pull a show – you aren’t told and you can’t find out when it will be next on. In other words you can”t orientate yourself to the content and this is a big no no in the connected, always on, easily informed and searched world we are now living every day.

Look – it is a disruptive age. Online technologies and prolific broadband connect us in real-time with what interests us and is allowing us to bypass the traditional gatekeepers and middlemen. It is unseating the incumbent players. It happened for music, it is happening for newspapers and it is now beginning for television and movies.

For Prime, they need to realise they are no longer the gatekeepers to my access for television content – their programming schedules no longer control or dictate when I want to watch something. And frankly, they along with most of the industry need to wake up to this!

The TV series Lost just recently finished its final run season and given the shows cult status – the final episode was highly anticipated – so highly in fact that the finale was timed to broadcast simultaneously in several countries to avoid the show’s big reveals from being spoilt online as well as to try and curb piracy. None of this, however, changed the fact that the Lost finale has taken the title of the highest downloaded show on bit torrent ever – this bit torrent system is a hugely popular network for peer-to-peer file transfer and used in a large capacity for content piracy – music, games, movies and television are all traded in real-time for all and sundry.

US free-to-air networks show a clear downward trend even in 2008

And if people are not downloading the content illegally they can buy it online at Amazon or Barnes & Noble – many movies and TV series are available for purchase and shipping to New Zealand well before they show up on these shores on local TV or in the cinemas.

This matters. It matter because if you aren’t giving people what they want they will in today’s age, because of the change in expectations, go somewhere else to find it. They will use bit torrent to download it or buy the complete series on DVD from Amazon or watch it on a service such as Hulu, even buy it via Apple iTunes. More importantly, all of these services are a natural fit for the online culture of being connected, information transparent and on-demand. Free-to-air needs to rethink its model and approach and move to offering services that fit this culture or the eyeballs will continue to move elsewhere.

And if their eyeballs are somewhere else they are not on the adverts that are running on Prime or any other free-to-air model. A situation that the advertising industry is beginning to wise up to – Comscore and Neilson ratings continue to show that TV eyeballs are declining – so advertisers are starting to follow to the places they are migrating too and leaving behind empty Ad slots in TV land.

If the free-to-air stations can’t fill their advertising slots with Ads – where does this leave them – where will this leave Prime? Well potentially with empty coffers and struggling business model – now why does this seem familiar?