The battle between old TV and new TV continues to be fought,
with the protagonists actually the same companies fighting themselves.
The problem obviously exists because when it come to money,
the Web just doesn’t pay for itself, and until that changes, we’ll get
ludicrous cases such as what is happening to Gossip Girl.
It’s hard to imagine an example that sums up the
conflicting
ambitions and tensions within the TV business better than the latest
announcement about Gossip Girl.
Cw Network
The show currently appears on the CW network
(co-owned by CBS and Warner Brothers).
The news from the network is
that fans will no longer be able to watch
episodes online,
as they have been since it started airing last fall.
Instead, CW would
like viewers of the show — which is all about a girl and her
blog, and
was effectively created in part to piggyback on the online habits of
its target audience — to watch it only on television.
The Meaning Of Irony?
That’s ironic enough, of course
– a show that’s all about how young people
are turning to the Web and social media, but you
can’t watch it online.
The reasoning behind the decision is even more illuminating,
however:
in effect, the network is saying that the show has become too popular
with fans online, and they would like to shift some of those eyeballs
to the tube instead.
Why? Because that’s where
the advertisers are.
Short Term Vision
Advertising on TV still brings in far more revenue per viewer than
online, and CW needs to build up the former at the expense of the
latter.
In reality, of course, the network may end up irritating
the core group of viewers — many of whom enjoy the freedom of
watching
a stream online whenever they want — and the show could go
down the
drain regardless.
Written by Mathew Ingram, a technology journalist. Catch his views on the intersection between media and the web at MathewIngram.com. This post is licensed under the Creative Commons.
