I moderated a panel this morning, part of the MITX Digital Marketing series. This one was on the future of TV. The panelists were Adam Berrey (Brightcove), Matthew Emans (Navic), Brent Simon (Verizon FIOS), and Peter Kim (Forrester).

Much of the discussion was about how advertising will work, but it did veer occasionally into deeper, muddier waters. What will TV become? Will we still be facing forward on the couch being bathed in one-way photons? When there are millions of “programs” to watch, will networks be replaced by playlists and in-boxes? Granting that we’re always going to want to watch some big, expensive, professional programs, where will they come from and how dominant will they be in the mix?

I dunno. But it does seem to me that we’re not as committed to “quality” as broadcasters assume. We like amateur podcasts and videocasts in part because they are amateur. Sure, I like big budget movies and top-notch TV like The Sopranos, and I don’t imagine that that’s going to come from the grassroots for quite a while…although those durn grassroots do have the habit of surprising us. But I don’t feel like I’m in a two-tiered system in which there’s the professional programming from the networks and then crappy little home-made programming. First, the tiers are already healing as grassroots content is getting more professional. Second, and more important, the broadcasters think it’s obvious that the quality is on the professional side. Production quality, sure. But TV for years has been hosing us down with the most awful, cynical dog water. The notion that quality is on the side of the broadcasters confuses three-camera setups with creativity and humanity.

Further, there are only a few genres of TV programming that the grassroots won’t be able to produce rather quickly and rather well. Dopey sitcoms will be hard for the grassroots to do, as will big budget spectaculars, features with big stars, and live sports events. But reality TV shows will come from the bottom up. Talk shows will. Sketch comedy. Cooking shows. The Online Daily Show with Amanda Congdon. Why not?

At the end of the session, Christopher Herot from the audience lit the Net neutrality stick o’ dynamite and handed it to the panel. Brent from Verizon gamely answered, saying that of course Verizon allows its users to access any content they want, but that Verizon is committed to providing the highest quality access, which I took as code for “We need to prioritize bits so that your on-demand videos play smoothly.” There’s lots to say in response, but I actually muttered under my breath, “Verizon doesn’t allow us to access sites. It’s our Internet.” Poor form for a moderator. Sorry. But I do think that captures some of the difference in viewpoints: The big providers think their management of the pipes (er, um, tubes) gives them the right to determine what gets pushed through the tubes. Net neutrality would tell them that tube-providers are only in the business of moving bits and that they don’t get special control over what goes through the tubes.

Then, fortunately, the bell sounded, the session ended, and we went home to await Congress’ “fast-track” passage of the disastrous telecommunications bill.

Chris Herot captured a bunch of the session in his blog.

Speaking of bottom-up TV, I created my own Kayak.com ad. They first review them for nudity and cussing, so it’ll take a day for it to be posted. But there’s a whole bunch up already. (Mine shows the Cheers bar.) [Disclosure: I’m friends with one of the co-founders of Kayak. That disposes me to like the site and its ad contest.] [Tags: tv mitx net_neutrality television]

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