Have you seen sports ratings lately? Just this week:
The NBA on TNT had its highest ratings in 20 years. Versus
had its highest rated regular season NHL game ever.
The first game of
the World Series was the highest rated in five years. The NFL was setting
records on cable and achieving viewing levels not seen in 20 years! College Football ratings are killing it as well.
But wait there is more. TV viewing is up considerably in each of
the last several years. We can even look at the box office for movies
and the fact that the industry is seeing a theatrical revival.
The question is simple. Whats going on?
The answer is simple as well.
The Internet has trained us.
It has trained us to assign two distinct values to content that is
available to us, regardless of media. The first variable is
participation value. The second variable is shelf life. The two variables
go hand in hand.
Every type of content has some quotient of participation value. At
the bottom of the spectrum are games/shows/movies/events that you watch
or attend by yourself, and you have no interest in telling anyone
about. Those shows have zero participation value. They could be Perry
Mason reruns (happened to catch one while I was working out on the
road) or shows you watch when you have nothing better to do.
At the top of the scale are games/shows/movies/events that potential
viewers have predicted to have high participation value. These are
events that we look forward to not only watching or attending, but that
we plan in advance how we are going to extend our participation. We
may plan on tweeting about it or posting a Facebook update because we
know our friends are there and we are bragging to each other, while at
the same time showing off to friends who can’t be there. Think going to
the opening of Cowboys stadium, or going to a concert or opening night
of a movie, or watching the big game.
Or we may plan on going online and participating in discussion
forums or chats. Or we may be planning on posting comments on our
favorite websites where others have shared interests. For others it
may be some version of gaming, ala fantasy sports.
Sports of course have high affinity engagement, and because of the Internet, they have increasing participation opportunities. You may
watch a Magic game just to be able to tweet to Dwight Howard what you
saw while watching the game. You may watch the Giants Eagles game
because your fantasy teams are stacked with players from those teams
and your league allows first come changes. Or you may just want to see
how your guys did so you can text your friends in the league and give
them a hard time, or take a hard time. It’s very, very common for fans
of MMA (mixed martial arts) to stay up to the wee hours to watch our
Dream Fights from Japan on HDNet , all the while online discussing the
fight and then arguing over the outcome with others doing the exact
same thing.
The higher the participation value, the shorter the shelf life. The
role of the Internet for high participation games/shows/events is not
to show them, its to enable the participation. The explosion of social networking and social networking enabled games and applications has
strengthened this as the Internet’s role. It’s improving TV ratings of
shows with high participation value.
While some may think that combining the presentation of
events/shows/etc and the participation into a single web page makes
sense. It doesn’t. The Internet has also trained us that if it can be
shown on the Internet, it’s probably not going to have a high
participation value. Why? Because the expectation is that if it’s on
the Internet, you can get to it any time you want it. It’s out there
waiting for you to stream or download at your pleasure. There is a long
perceived shelf life. So there is no rush.
The latest U2 concert on Youtube is a perfect example. I thought
that when I went to Akamai’s status page the number of concurrent users
would be in the millions. As you can see from this link,
it was about 1.15mm. Nothing to sneeze at, but that is for ALL of the
streaming Akamai was doing at the time and its not dramatically more
than a normal night for Akamai (as I write this, the total on the Akamai visualization page is 1.3mm,
more than during the concert). I shouldn’t have been surprised.
There was no reason to rush to watch it. It’s available now and probably
forever more on the net.
Compare this to live, competitive reality tv. The opportunity to
watch a train wreck or to catch a spectacular performance, live, can
easily trigger a high participation event. Think watching me on
“Dancing with the Stars” hoping or expecting me to wipe out. You go in
knowing and hoping and ready to let all your friends who weren’t
watching know about it, and to talk about it with all your friends who
are watching. So while the ratings may have fallen off some for these
shows, one episode comparable to Marie Osmond fainting, which led to a
huge surge in viewing on my DWTS season, or a Brett Favre last second
touchdown or interception return, or even a movie that is a hugely
positive surprise like Paranormal Activity, all have short shelf lives
while creating the expectation among viewers that they are or could be
high participation events.
Which brings us to our conclusion. The longer the shelf life, the
more likely that there is a lower perceived participation value. Sure
you may want to talk about your favorite TV show with others, but there
is no rush. You can get to it when you get to it. More importantly,
networks and production companies should work a lot harder at creating
real-time participation around their content. If you can increase the
value of participation, you increase the value of the show and the
desire to watch the show at the same time as others. Which is exactly
what is happening with sports in record numbers.
You can’t stop people from recording shows on their DVRs, and you
shouldn’t try. But you should try to give them as many reasons as
possible to take advantage of the increased entertainment value of
participating with others. High participation equals high viewership.
That is exactly what record ratings for sports are telling us.
