Here’s good news: TV viewing time is down to an average of 14.5 hours per week, from 21 hours in 1990.
Here’s more, although it’s old news if you’re the parent of a teen-ager or a 20-something: Internet usage now averages 17.5 hours per week.
That’s hardly news to the Barack Obama campaign staff either. They say they raised $28 million online in January.
Unfortunately, few organizations have been so successful in figuring out how to meld audio, data, and video into a revenue-generating operation. Those of us who follow the writings of Gary Arlen know the phenomenon as convergence, which he describes as the “anywhere, anytime environment” of today’s communications.
Arlen has been educating entertainment and telecommunications executives about new media for the past 30 years. Recently, he updated the D.C. chapter of American Women in Radio and Television on convergence.
As always, everyone enjoyed his dazzling global run-through of new hardware, software, and content. But nowadays his talks end with a question mark. When will commercial enterprises successfully bring the old line worlds of print, movies, and radio into synch with the opportunities of interactive media?
One obstacle is a culture clash. The mainstream staff is here, and the online staff is – where are they, anyway? In the loft? Watching something on a three-inch screen?
An even more fundamental obstacle is risk aversion. We know people will buy products online. But what experiences will they buy, or let their neighbors buy?
Making a campaign contribution online is one thing, but gambling? The gaming industry would love it if Congress allowed people who play video games to place bets with other players. Would voters be okay with it?
We’re all okay with interactive experiences that make us safer, like the computer-assisted innovations pioneered by Mercedes-Benz to notify drivers via audio and video of an impending crash. If all else fails, the car even supplements your braking power. We’ll pay more for that; the market proves it.
We’re equally okay with interactive experiences that we think will make us smarter, like museum exhibits with buttons to push. But those experiences are usually free. Nobody knows how much people will pay for them. In Gary Arlen’s words, “transition is tough.”
An economic downturn may actually make it easier. As an observant Gayley Knight pointed out, Boeing made aircraft mechanics more productive by giving them video tools so they wouldn’t be hobbled by maintenance manuals so thick that few took the time to read them with care. That’s potentially life-saving convergence we all should be willing to pay for.
