KEY POINTS:
Here's a tip for TVNZ to help solve its apparent ratings woes.
The state-owned channel is aware of the problem that all free-to-air TV stations are facing worldwide: younger people are switching off live TV. We are more inclined to do our own thing at our own time including
watching DVDs or downloading programmes or music and we're distracted by other means of entertainment including video gaming.
But free-to-air stations like TV 1 give the impression they think young people will watch the night news if it's presented fresh-faced youngish presenters and full of things like pop music. TV 3 is already doing this.
They fail to admit the hard truth that nothing is going to draw young people to the news. Our news is not about mortgage rates and boring politics, but what our friends are admitting to on their MySpace and Bebo pages.
But America's free-to-air channel CBS today does something courageous that no other major US network has done to date. It experiments with broadcasting a "sport" it has never covered before - and is doing it on prime sport-watching Sunday afternoon.
It is broadcasting a video game tournament as a regular sporting event it would more traditional sporting spectacles like golf or tennis tournaments. Korea has done this for many years and top players are idolised by the masses.
The words from the CBS sports boss showing they 'get' video gaming and realise its broad appeal.
CBS Sports Vice-President Rob Correa told the New York Times: "There are an enormous amount of people of all ages who play video games these days, so we're going to try to see if video games' popularity can translate into a viable television audience."
The show will be edited highlights of the World Series of Video Games tournament, held last month in the US.
To keep Sunday afternoon telly gazers from being scared off by graphic violence, the games aren't first person shooters like Quake, Halo and Killzone.
A more acceptable television option is to use titles like popular strategy World of Warcraft, realistic boxing game Fight Night and the best-selling rock star game Guitar Hero.
For non-gamers the commentators will provide lots of explanations of what is going on and, for the uninitiated, the terminology.
In the end, running this like traditional sport is a wise decision.
Video gaming is big business - it now overshadows Hollywood, which still gets a lot of TV compared to minimal video game coverage.
Last year, $13 billion ($NZ17bn) worth of systems and software were bought in the US alone. Movie box office takings were around US$10 billion. And big advertisers have queued up to buy ads into the video gaming show on CBS including KFC and Intel.
Says the CBS sports guy: ""Who knows, in 10 years we could be looking back on this as a very significant moment." in South Korea, such shows have been major TV events attracting audiences in the millions. Presently there are 3 full-time video-game TV networks in South Korea.
Local TV news shows all cover movies - but what about a game of the week? Go on, network TV, or at least watch the CBS show and see how it rates.
Would you watch video gaming events on television?
