KEY POINTS:
How old is YouTube? No gold stars for being a know-it-all, I'm afraid. It's a question I had thrown at me the other day that got me thinking. Because everyone knows YouTube.
It might be just another of several squillion websites within easy Google reach, but it's probably the only one that's familiar, ubiquitous, habitual and lots of other words meaning your oldest grandfolks and youngest kids probably know and use it as well.
It's the one-stop shop for an unguessable number of cute kittens, embarrassing cock-ups, and outright oddities that get traded for giggles at such a rate that last year it reportedly swallowed up as much cyberspace capacity as the entire internet required in 2000.
Yet this phenomenon was only officially launched in December 2005. So, YouTube isn't even 21/2 and is already bigger than Elvis. But like all children of that age, it's extraordinarily advanced for its age and has no idea what it'll end up looking like when it grows up.
It also illustrates how fast digital technology is moving, which would be only relatively interesting if it wasn't for the fact it's turning our established media orders inside out. Music has already passed the point of "it'll never be the same", now we're seeing the same realisation sinking in among the television and movie emperors.
And who's to blame? Who else? Ungrateful kids. In particular, the ungrateful, pirate-type kids who won't wait to see what our television networks have in store for them and instead steal product from struggling conglomerates such as Sony and Time Warner by downloading illegal copies of their wares.
Of course, we've been told that the cultural end is nigh several times - printing presses which spread uncontrollable ideas were the work of the devil, the phonograph was going to destroy the family unit by ending piano-singalongs, recordable cassettes were going to kill music, VHS was going to do the same to movies and giving women the vote would mean they'd eventually be running everything.
So, is there really cause for concern? It seems so, which may explain why "The Man" has come out swinging from the start. He's packing lawyers and if he can't find the pushers, he'll happily take the kids to the cleaners whenever he finds them, even if he knows his efforts are doomed.
In the money quote from the underground call-to-arms doco Steal This Movie, Motion Picture Association of America chief executive Dan Glickman acknowledges: "We recognise and we know we will never stop piracy. Never.
We just have to make it as difficult and as tedious as possible and let people know there are consequences if they are caught." But what does such an admission mean for the future? And where does the future of broadcast television lie when you have Al Gore's user-generated Current TV as well as a growing number of shows such as Take Me Back available online for the cost of a few minutes' time? First, we have to understand what's happening already.
Meet "Chris". He's an IT-minded guy, early 30s, an educated, inner-city dweller and an unlikely criminal, but he illegally downloads TV shows like there's no tomorrow. In fact, he's never watched so much telly, or had so much that he wants to watch, yet almost never tunes in to TVNZ, TV3, Prime, Sky, Maori TV or Triangle.
It was frustration at not being able to join in conversations about buzz shows such as South Park and The Daily Show, rather than profit or malice, that pushed him over the edge. "Obviously, I don't live in the US, so I couldn't see the shows they were talking about," says Chris.
"It felt like I was living in an isolated community where we don't have normal access to the wealth of entertainment they have. But with the internet I can. To me it's like smoking pot: How illegal is it? It's just one man's law. I like South Park and sure, we get it here, but we are way behind the States and I want to watch it as soon as it is shown because it's not relevant a few months down the track. They're making a show that relates to current events and I want to keep up with contemporary culture."
Unfortunately, the new and improved copyright laws passed in Wellington in April still regard Chris' actions as illegal. Regardless of how common the act, it remains illegal to format shift movies from DVD to your home computer or any similar device such as an iPod, and while you can record a TV show, it can only be kept for whatever may be considered a reasonable time for you to get round to watching it.
Up to now, naughty people like Chris have been portrayed as pasty-faced and friendless, scouring the net in their darkened bedrooms for days with malice on their minds and no regard for the impact of their actions. Well, for starters, he's not even remotely alone, he's regularly engaged with the online site Babblelon, chatting away with others who share similar interests.
It's reaching the point where people such as Chris have become networks in their own right, but instead of offering up a schedule of programmes he sends recommendations or links to the best bits to his friends so they can take a look.
Over time, interconnections between such discrete networks have created a climate where new discoveries can become widely known extremely quickly, which can't be a bad thing, surely. He also lays claim to a working conscience and so doesn't download local product into his library if it's available in shops, but considers it prudent to sample an international show via the web before deciding whether or not to "commit" to a DVD version.
So, in basic terms, Chris is searching out stuff that's either not available here or in cases of shows like The Wire or The West Wing, were either dropped or shoved into horrible time slots. "To me it's the social imperative," says Chris. "If you don't do it, we'll do it ourselves. Look at what's happened to the music industry - you'd think they'd have learnt from that.
It's about demand, and if it's there, you have to provide for it or your customers will go somewhere else. I probably watch way more television now than I used to, but I don't have to work around television scheduling any more. I can find what I want, store it, then when I find the right moment for the right show, I'll watch it.
I do run out, so I'm often searching around for a new fix. "It's a binge situation, I might watch several series to catch up with a new show and then move on.
It's like you become the master of your television, you don't sit down and hope something good might come on." THE THING about Chris is that he came to downloading after having grown up in a world without it. The generation at school have never known a time where almost anything they craved couldn't be found via the net.
For them, TV networks are just another, less efficient source of entertainment. As can be seen from their willingness to rip off any musical track they want without fear of legal consequences, the belief seems to be that if you can touch it, you'll probably have to pay for it, but if it's been an intangible download, then it's fair and free game.
Then if you combine this concept with a web-driven desire to seek out the newest and coolest and easily accessible digital tools which can manipulate sounds and images into something completely new, well, you've got a whole new game that's making up its own rules as it goes along. The most common sources of material are BitTorrent sites such as Sweden-based The Pirate Bay, the largest with 2.5 million registered users, or smaller sites like UKNova and MiniNova.
But take your pick - there are so many that on heavy days they can collectively account for half the data moving through the net, with each based on a programming concept originally developed to hide information by spreading to all corners of cyberspace, and with varying ethical stands in regard to intellectual copyright.
What makes them impossible to stop is that these decentralised networks contravene normal internet logic by becoming more efficient as more people join in, a quirk that has fostered a borderless empire based on sharing and copying anything and everything. So, just like the downloadable Truth in The X-Files, the copies are out there already.
Our major TV networks are already reacting to the sea change, says multi-media commentator, Russell Brown. Aside from the shift toward high-definition picture quality, TV3's attempts to screen new shows as close as possible to their overseas screenings is commendable, despite the lingering impact of the US screenwriters' strike, while TVNZ is showing increasing willingness to make its past and present programmes available online for free after failing to attract any traffic willing to pay a fee.
On the other hand, he says TVNZ, which hosts Brown's new show Media7 on Freeview channel TVNZ 7, probably drove a large chunk of its viewers to take up downloading when it stalled the obsessional Sopranos for several months midway through its final series. "If people weren't downloading themselves, they were getting it off friends or had a server at work that had it.
Then there was that amazing morning [after the final was screened in the US] on the Stuff site, where people were discussing a show that hadn't been on here, and again the next morning on Breakfast on TVNZ, they had their own discussion on a show their network wasn't going to screen for another three months."
Media commentator and former TVNZ director, producer and commissioning head Irene Gardiner says the networks are testing a new strategy to hook in audiences for new shows by repeating the first two or three episodes within a few days of their original screening for viewers who didn't see them. She also suspects heavy-hitting, high-cost TV One shows such as Dancing With The Stars and Stars In Their Eyes are carefully aimed at the network's older, core audience which is less computer-savvy than the younger TV2 and TV3 viewers.
"TV One is doing okay right now ratings-wise, so may not think it is so vulnerable [to downloading], and these shows have that old-fashioned thing of everyone sitting down and watching them at the same time, then talking about them around the water cooler the next day.
Not too many shows have that any more and in the past they were just too expensive for us, so the move to taking them on now may be, in part, driven by the risk of screening an overseas production after its core audience has already downloaded it."
For its part, TV One remains adamant that screening shows three months after they've appeared overseas works fine with its audience. But for hip shows such as TV3's Heroes and Battlestar Galactica, which are highly attractive to downloaders, there must be nasty implications for advertisers. Who would pay for expensive slots if viewers are watching elsewhere?
Brown suggests a shift in that direction could favour public broadcasters such as TVNZ who aren't entirely reliant on the advertising dollar because they will be free to offer content on any manner of platforms from television, to download, to website - his own show can be found in three different formats.
But the big issue remains: finding a way to make money from them. Downloading aside, this issue could be one of the fastest drivers of change in television.
We are becoming increasingly ad-averse, and it's an issue now being felt by websites where the annoyance of pop-up advertising is driving browsers to ad-avoiding programmes such as Firefox. This shift is having two major effects, says Saatchi & Saatchi New Zealand's digital and direct general manager Tony Gardner.
For one, advertisers are having to take a more broad spectrum approach to pushing their products - TV is not an answer in itself and is no longer a guarantee of high-visibility - while networks will have to look at themselves as content providers rather than broadcasters, meaning they will have to release programmes on the most suitable format, including the net.
"The holistic approach is now key," says Gardner. "I'm optimistic about where that will take us. Consumers at all levels want better engagement, they want to know more, they want to be taken on an adventure and I think new approaches, including digital space, will offer that."
But the trend toward DIY television may not be all sweetness and light, according to Auckland University television and film senior lecturer Dr Luke Goode.
His concern is that while getting your kicks direct from the net might open up all sorts of previously unobtainable material, most people will probably stick with whatever reinforces their own beliefs and tastes. He says TV programmers may cop a lot of flak, but they at least make an effort to provide a balanced diet of viewing possibilities.
But if the networks and schedules are to survive, they have to find a way of opening up new revenue streams. Just as customers flooded into video rental shops when they opened, Goode believes viewers would take advantage of large-scale, legalised downloading, free for low-level visual quality followed by sliding premiums as the quality rises.
In many cases, fans aren't even chasing entire shows, they just want the best bits which can be enjoyed in small, YouTube-sized chunks. He also sees a time when networks will try to exploit the income potential of add-ons such as box sets and show-related merchandise in a similar fashion to music stores, which are expanding into games, books and fashion.
But for now, TV's biggest battle may be generational change. Over-40s may find the notion of a TV station comforting, harking back to the days of "water-cooler culture" when everyone watched one channel and followed the same shows, but for today's kids the telly is just another screen. "Parents don't talk about rationing television time, it's screen time," says Goode.
"TV doesn't have that special status anymore, it's one of many entertainments like PlayStation, Game Boy, computers and cellphones. Life is becoming increasingly decentralised, so there is a danger of the networks eventually disappearing under all the alternatives.
It's up to them to find new and viable business models before that happens."
- NZ Herald
