Simon’s Blog

I’ve written before about internet television - so-called IPTV. My previous posts have been about the technology for delivering traditional “big media” TV shows over the Net, e.g. via P2P. However, there’s actually something more interesting happening in the IPTV space - and that’s the new breed of TV shows made exclusively for IPTV.

If you watch video podcasts, you’ll know that production values are often pretty low: bad sound; bad camera work; bad lighting; bad (or no) editing; bad (or no) planning of show content; and the people in front of camera often aren’t what you would call “naturals” for TV. Even with all that said though, many such video podcasts can still be worth watching if they serve a particular niche that you’re interested in.

However, there are some people that are really trying to raise the bar; and I think they’re succeeding. Instead of “professional video podcasting” , think “professional mainstream TV on a low budget”. One such company is Revision3. Now, the quality of programming on Revision3 is variable: they’re not afraid to try new ideas, some of which work, and some of which don’t. However, there is some genuine front-of-camera talent there… people like Alex Albrecht and Kevin Rose are doing outstanding jobs on shows like Diggnation, and The Totally Rad Show.

Don’t Underestimate Them

Now, if you watch Alex and Kevin on Diggnation, you might say - well, that just looks like two guys screwing around… err… wait, let me rephrase that… it just looks like two guys drinking beer, and talking about stories that were popular on Digg. Or, if you watch Alex, Dan and Jeff on The Totally Rad Show you could say it’s just a group of Dungeons and Dragons fans (yep, I’m aware I might have put you off the show right there - sorry ’bout that!) chewing the fat (OK, now I know I’ve lost you!) on video games, TV shows and movies. However, if you said that, you’d be way off.

Why would that assessment be so wrong? Because, what these guys are doing with their IPTV shows, that many (professional) video podcasters forget to do, is to entertain their audience. It’s the number one rule. If you can’t entertain people, the rest of what you’re trying to do with a TV show or video podcast is a wasted effort - no-one will be watching. The real magic, though, is that there’s a chemistry between the presenters, and a genuine passion for their subjects, that comes across on camera. Don’t underestimate the value of that. I’ve seen small media companies grow to be worth well over a hundred million dollars, starting on the back of just a single charismatic front-of-camera person.

The State Of The Union

Where are IPTV shows today? Well, a small number of shows (like the ones I’ve mentioned) have now actually started to overtake traditional broadcast TV in terms of overall quality of programming. What does that mean? It means a few things:

• IPTV channels are starting to produce their own unique, high-quality content in a volume than matches some specialist broadcast TV channels. To scale you on this, Revision3 produces a couple of hours or so of what I would call genuinely high-quality programming per week (they make other content too, that doesn’t always reach the heights of their best work). Compare that to award-winning specialist broadcast channels that might make around five hours of their own content a week; with the rest of their programming being in-licensed repeats of shows bought in from around the world.
• The production values of the best IPTV shows betters low-budget programming on even large broadcast channels. For example, if you compare a show like The Totally Rad Show with programming produced for late-night shows on some mass-audience national channels, the truth is The Totally Rad Show is better.
• The best IPTV shows are serving their audiences better than some shows produced for some of the best-quality broadcast channels in the world. So, while a show like Diggnation doesn’t have the budget to do filmed segments and interviews on location, which is what a similar show on a big channel would do; the Diggnation guys more than make up for this lack of budget with passion.

Conclusion

IPTV channels are now starting to produce great progamming - and I think they’re at the start of virtuous circle. This better quality programming will lead to increased audience sizes; which means bigger budgets for future programming; which means better quality future programmings, and so on. It’s a great time for them to be doing this - traditional broadcast TV channels have become overly dependent on cookie-cutter “reality shows” with business models aimed at milking their audiences through premium SMS text voting. Make no mistake - the people that run these big channels aren’t proud of that kind of programming. The fact they rely on it shows only that their creative teams ran out of ideas six or seven years ago. So, when the public tires of SMS voting on tired reality formats - and it will - they’re going to be in a bad place.

Make no mistake, media companies starting with IPTV as their technology focus, and that have genuine “talent” on board to enable production of great quality, creative and unique programming, are going to be huge..

Update

A few hours after writing this blog, I see that Revision3 has just closed an $8M round led by Greylock Partners, who also led their seed financing. Looks like Greylock sees a potential exit for Revision3 north of $100M. Exciting stuff for these guys - the cash will really give Revision3 the opportunity to take their programming to the next level. Lots of challenges ahead - they will have to match their investment in higher quality shows to growing audience sizes.