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- Color TV's 50th Anniversary: RCA says 'Happy Birthday Color Television' (25MAR04) (RCA)
RCA states, "Fifty years ago, Thomson's RCA brand forever changed the way U.S. consumers view home entertainment with the first RCA color television" with the RCA CT-100. "The RCA CT-100 set the standard for color TV, and collectors and broadcast historians still enjoy the vivid electronic rainbow of color from the first all-electronic RCA color television." - Slow Color TV Sales In 1954: Fewer than the 5,000 of RCA CT-100 color TVs made were sold despite 75,000 sales forecast (25MAR04) (StarTelegram)
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The Star-Telegram reports, "Admiral introduced a color set on Dec. 30, 1953. Westinghouse launched a color set in early 1954 -- and only one was sold in the New York City area in its first month on the market. (The $1,295 price tag might have had something to do with that.)" The Star-Telegram goes on to report, "The RCA [CT-100] set, however, gets credit for being the first mass-produced set -- and even then, fewer than 5,000 of the $1,000 sets were sold, despite predictions that 75,000 would fly off the shelves." In a related news item, the Mansfield News Journal reports that RCA only "built 5,000 sets" and they "sold for $1,000 each, astronomical in those days." - Color TV Price Drop: RCA CT-100 had initial $1000 price in 1954, then price drop to $495 by Summer 1954 due to slow sales (25MAR04) (PlainDealer)
The Cleveland Plain Dealer reports that the RCA CT-100 color television set was nicknamed the "Merrill" and "had a 15-inch round picture tube with a mask that squared off the top and bottom of the screen but left the sides rounded." The Cleveland Plain Dealer goes on to report, "When the [RCA] CT-100 was first offered for sale in early April 1954, it was priced at $1,000. Very few of the 5,000 sets that RCA made were sold at that price. By summer, the Merrill was selling for $495." - Color TV Or Black & White TV: TV sales through the years (25MAR04) (DaytonDailyNews.AP)
The Associated Press (AP) reports that in 1954 there were only 5,000 color TV sets compared to 7.4 million black & white TV sets. Nowadays in 2004, the AP reports, "American consumers are expected to buy 18.6 million color TVs by the end of this year and 150,000 black-and-white sets." - Vocabulary Lesson: 'Television' the word first used in 1900, was called 'Mechanical Television' in 1922 (25MAR04) (AmerNews)
The Aberdeen American News reports, "The word 'television' is only a little more than a century old. In 1900 the term was first used to describe what many thought to be a far-off technology. It would be another 22 years until the prototype called a 'mechanical television' would be produced. In 1926 these dinosaurs of the TV age were sold to the public for the first time." And then the "color version hit the market in 1954...." - Black & White TV With Color Adapter: Photo gallery of early color television including color adapter for black & white TV in 1950 (25MAR04) (NPR)
The NPR photo gallery of early color TV provides a photo showing "a 1950 demonstration in New York City" where "reporters and others look at a black-and-white TV receiver equipped with a color adapter." - Color TV 100th Anniversary In 2054: Brian Unger looks at TV's future in 2054 (22MAR04) (NPR)
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NPR's Brian Unger reports, "Looking back from 2054, Americans will wax nostalgic about the transition to high definition, wistfully recall the advent of plasma screens, express outrage about the high price of 3D-TV sets, and ask whose bright idea was it to combine 3D-TV with a coffee grinder and a cappuccino maker anyway? But the most often asked question about TV [in] 50 years from now will still be 'what's on'?" - Telewebber Statistics: American Press Institute's Media Center finds 66.2% of media users watch TV & surf web at same time (25MAR04) (Mediapost)
In citing a report from the Media Center at the American Press Institute, Mediapost reports that "... 70 percent of media users try at one time or another to absorb two or more forms of media at once.... more than 52 percent of newspaper readers are simultaneously watching television.... While listening to the radio, 57.3 percent of consumers are simultaneously online, while 46.9 percent are perusing a newspaper and 17.7 percent are watching TV. Television viewers, on the other hand, tend to be also surfing the Internet (66.2 percent) or reading a newspaper (74.2 percent)." - Media Multitasking: API's Media Center finds 70% of media users use two or more media at same time (25MAR04) (iMedia)
iMedia Connection reports, "Because 70 percent of media users attempt to use two or more forms of media at once, the study questions deeper implications for marketers, advertisers and content providers on who is paying attention to what, and when." - Telewebbing While Downloading: API's Media Center finds 61.8% of media users watch TV while downloading files (24MAR04) (MediaCenter)
Among the various findings made by the Media Center at the American Press Institute is the following: "What people do as they wait for downloads from the Internet: listen to the radio (52.1%); watch TV (61.8%), read the newspaper (20.2%)" - Simultaneous Media Usage Survey: American Press Institute's Media Center Video Briefing powered by BIG Research (March2004) (MediaCenter)
The American Press Institute's Media Center finds that "Simultaneous usage continues to grow" and that "Multitasking [is] a new way of life." - Addressable TV Ads: Visible World merges technology, database integration & TV to tag custom endings to standard TV commercials (25MAR04) (iMedia)
iMedia Connection's Joseph Jaffe reports, "Visible World ... is a company that has figured out how to merge the worlds of technology and television. Through the power of data and database integration, the company's brains have been able to help match the right message to the right segment of consumer by tagging customized end frames to standardized commercials. In other words, the regular 30 second is now a 25 second with three or four unique and customized 5-second endings." Jaffe goes on to write, "The ability to dynamically serve up these varied alternatives enables advertisers to match offers to households based on their clustered demographics -- from income to location to the presence of children, for example.... [Visible World also provides the] ability to determine even who in a household was watching TV at any given point in time, based on the way they used the remote control (in other words, the channels they visited during commercial breaks).... [First,] it becomes pretty obvious that what is starting to happen to television advertising is not that dissimilar from the [advertising in the online] world.... Secondly, this trend is the realization of a predication that several folks, most notably Starcom IP's president, Rishad Tobaccowala, have spoken about pretty emphatically -- the shift of television advertising to an IP-led world." Jaffe concludes that he looks "forward to companies like Tacoda and DoubleClick getting more involved in the television space...." - Free Over-The-Air DTV: Freeview DTV service could overtake Sky as UK's favorite way of watching multichannel TV by end of 2007 (24MAR04) (Guardian)
The Guardian cites a ZenithOptimedia report as indicating the Freeview "free-to-air service, which is [currently] available in 3 million homes compared with Sky's 7.2 million, is expected to be adopted by almost 10 million households ..., with Sky in 8.9 million UK homes and cable in just 3.5 million [in four years time].... The study also suggest[s] 87% of [UK] households will have gone digital by 2008, leaving only a small minority of die-hard analogue viewers." The Guardian further cites ZenithOptimedia as expecting "by the end of 2004 15.2 million households [in the UK] will watch TV via some sort of digital service" with Freeview having 4.8 million, Sky 7.6 million, and cable falling "from 3 million at the end of 2003 to 2.8 million." In comparing Freeview to Sky satellite TV and to cable TV, the Guardian quotes ZenithOptimedia knowledge management chief Adam Smith as stating, "There is no subscription barrier and the hardware cost will continue to tumble. We expect Freeview to be hardwired into TVs" for the UK. - On-Demand Enhanced TV Commercials: TiVo plans to intro WebTV-Plus-like 'Video-to-Video' interactive TV ads to entice ad viewing (23MAR04) (CNET)
CNET reports, "TiVo plans to unveil a new feature this fall that will bring Web-like, interactive advertisements to TV.... Known as Video-to-Video, the idea is to let viewers click a button on their remote control to immediately watch a 3-minute video describing products and services that might appeal to them. The marketing clips are promoted through small icons that appear on the TV screen as viewers fast-forward past regular ads.... For example, if an enhanced ad for Carnival Cruise Lines is aired during a program, viewers would see an icon promoting it. They could then click on the icon to watch a 3-minute video clip while their show continued recording in the background." Ruel's Note: This is just like what the WebTV Plus has except with the inclusion of the extended video commercials and the icons appear during the fast-forwarding and not during the TV show. ReplayTV also had something like this where an ad popped up when you paused a TV show. - Skipping TV Commercials: Starcom Worldwide finds 77% of TiVo viewers skip TV commercials while watching recorded TV shows (23MAR04) (StrategicCM)
In a news item about Nielsen plans to measure PVR usage and viewing, Broadcast Engineering's Strategic Content Management (StrategicCM) cites Starcom Worldwide global research director & senior vice president Kate Lynch as indicating "Starcom has conducted its own in-depth research with DVR marketer TiVo, which showed that TiVo households skip commercials more than half (54 percent) of the time.... The study [also] showed that the rate of commercial skipping is much higher - 77 percent - when DVR users are watching TV that has been recorded as opposed to live TV. The Starcom research also revealed that the vast majority of DVR-recorded programming is viewed within 24 hours of being recorded, often 15 minutes to an hour after it was originally scheduled" for near-live viewing which may encourage skipping through commercials. Lynch is further cited as indicating, "Worst of all, ... this occurs most significantly among the top-rated shows, and the ones that are most expensive for advertisers to buy." Lynch states, "The 'ERs' and the 'Friends' are the ones that get TiVo-ed most. They're TiVo-ed, and 15-minutes to an hour later people watch them" in near-live time with the commercials being most likely skipped. - Broadband Video: FeedRoom's Cleancast technology 'cleans out' TV commercials & inserts broadband video advertising spots (24MAR04) (Mediapost)
Mediapost reports, "Television gave us broadcast. Cable TV gave us narrowcasts. The Internet gave us the cybercast. Now, the fusion of TV and broadband is casting a new TV convention on the ad industry: the cleancast [as developed by Feedroom]. The concept ... utilizes a new technology that strips out the original broadcast TV ads ... and replaces them with broadband video versions." Mediapost also reports that Feedroom has developed "Zapcode" which is a "zip-code based digital coding technology - aptly named Zapcode - that automatically recognizes the location of broadband video subscribers and gives them the option of viewing any ... other [sporting events] that are emanating from outside [a sports team's] local market" to accommodate a local hometown team's blackout requirements if the local game does not have a sold-out attendance. - Feedroom 'Zapcode' allows automatic black out of sports events in team's local markets using zip code of broadband subscribers (19MAR04) (TVBarn)
- Dynamic Logic finds 74.6% see online video ads negatively, TM Interactive finds 50% view streamed ad & 20% for Unicast format (24MAR04) (Mediapost)
In citing the Dynamic Logic's Advertising Reaction Study, Mediapost reports, "Most notable ... was the finding that 74.6 percent of respondents had negative associations with video ads, versus 14.1 percent who were neutral and 10 percent who were positive." Mediapost also cites TM Interactive senior vice president James Hering as finding in a test of an ExxonMobil online media ad that the "average view-through rate, or the percentage of people watching the entire 30-second Exxon spot, was 50 percent for the streaming video format, and only 20 percent for Unicast's format." To this Hering is quoted as stating, "What that showed me was that people want some degree of control... It [also] tends to suggest that people are less patient to have their entire screen occupied with an ad message." Ruel's note: It may also possibly show that people may not be completely downloading the Unicast video ad file and therefore not able to view it. - Portable Video To Go: RCA RD2780 Video & MP3 Jukebox handheld PDA-type device doesn't have enough battery power to last (22MAR04) (PCMag)
In reporting on the RCA Lyra A/V Jukebox RD2780 PDA-type handheld device, PC Magazine reports, "RCA's first entry into the burgeoning video jukebox category isn't quite a slam dunk, but it earns the company points.... The main problem we encountered with the RD2780 was the battery life during video playback. If you are going on a long flight and expect to watch several films without charging, then this isn't the product for you. After watching a typical 2-hour movie, the battery was almost completely drained." - On-Demand TV News: ABC News makes deal to provide hours of TV news for cable video-on-demand with Insight Communications (23MAR04) (Yahoo.Reuters)
Reuters reports, "The ABC News features will be included in a sports and news service that will cost $4.99 a month and initially include content from about seven providers, Insight said. Its subscribers can watch the programs whenever they want with VCR-like features like fast forward and reverse." - Shift From Online DVD Rentals To VOD: Netflix prepares for VOD while Blockbuster is preoccupied with franchisees' in-store sales (22MAR04) (HBS)
Harvard Business School's Sally Aaron writes, "By making it easier for people to rent DVDs, Netflix has established a position where it is difficult for incumbents to respond. But Netflix, which had a disruptive success, now has to ask if it can do it again: Can the company find a way to deliver video on demand (VoD), the next big technological innovation in this arena?" Netflix CEO Reed Hastings is quoted as stating, "We are actively investing in [VoD] and will continue to try and find niches where downloading is actually a better solution for the customer. You know it's not [currently] going to be a mainstream customer." Aaron goes on to write, "Hastings is betting that Netflix's ability to focus its strategy toward VoD using the experience gained from its established online rental service will put it several years ahead of its competitors in that market.... [Meanwhile,] Blockbuster faces an established [brick-and-mortar] franchise system that will combat a transition to VoD. It will take an extraordinary act of management will to institute a strong commitment to VoD within Blockbuster management while pressure continues from franchisees to keep in-store sales strong." - Illegal Movie Downloading: FOX fires 2 workers who were allegedly in 'warez' group using FOX computer server for movie downloads (18MAR04) (LATimes)
The Los Angeles Times reports, "Two employees of Fox Entertainment Group have been terminated after the company's discovery of illegally downloaded movies and software on a Fox computer network server.... The employees "[Lisa] Yamamoto and [Kevin] Sarna allegedly were members of an online 'warez' file-sharing group. Such groups compete 'to gain a reputation as the fastest, highest quality, free provider of pirated computer software ... and DVD movies.'" - MPAA's Jack Valenti To Retire: Jack Valenti had leading role in Hollywood's battle against online digital piracy of movies (23MAR04) (Yahoo.AP)
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The Associated Press (AP) reports, "As home-video and digital technology has advanced, Valenti has become involved in studio efforts to fight film piracy, which he said costs the industry about $3.5 billion a year as bootleggers duplicate movies on video tape and DVD or make them available on the Internet." In a reversed plan to ban Oscar awards "screener" copies of movies from being sent out to Academy Awards voters, Valenti argued that "screener copies had been a source of counterfeit videotapes, DVDs and Internet downloads." - By The Numbers: MPAA's Jack Valenti says there are 108 million TV homes, 47 million with DVDs, 22 million with broadband (PDF) (23MAR04) (MPAA)
In a speech at Showest comparing movie theaters and residential homes, the MPAA's Jack Valenti states, "There are 108 million TV homes - 98 million VCR homes - 47 million homes with DVDs - 67 million with computers - 62 million connected to Internet, 22 million with broadband - 74 million connected to cable and 40 million to pay cable and 25 million with digital cable - 20 million on satellite. I haven't even mentioned millions who are playing video games."
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