The Arbour Media Blog

We were trolling the internet the other day and ran across the site for The Boonies International Film Festival in Warren PA. We love this idea, partly because we tried to get something similar started in Lewisburg several years ago but the idea fell on largely deaf ears. We salute the chutzpah of the event’s organizers. According to the festival website:

The Boonies International, an independent film festival for filmmakers of all ages, is motivated by our mission to create and develop film and educational opportunities and events.

The Boonies International 2011 will present the films and stories of filmmakersfrom around the world.

The Boonies 2011 will also shine a light on independent music, a wealth of art mediums and the future of technology — now. Artists everywhere can take part in this planet-wide grassroots phenomenon.

Education is inherent in The Boonies International. The Boonies has developed educational value into all aspects of the festival. Our broad encouragement of the arts includes the support of our local fringe and traditional arts through ourdonations to The Allegheny Center for the Arts (ACA). Because the ACA is also education driven and arts focused, the two non-profits are ideal partners. Ourestablishment of a “Scholarship Fund” for those studying the arts was one of our first acts as an organization. Scholarships are awarded annually to selected students.

Need we say that this kind of effort is something that the internet makes possible in a way it was never possible before?

In a story with interesting implications for the growth of online video, the New York Times reports today that

The Nielsen Company, which takes TV set ownership into account when it produces ratings, will tell television networks and advertisers on Tuesday that 96.7 percent of American households now own sets, down from 98.9 percent previously.

There are two reasons for the decline, according to Nielsen. One is poverty: some low-income households no longer own TV sets, most likely because they cannot afford new digital sets and antennas.

The other is technological wizardry: young people who have grown up with laptops in their hands instead of remote controls are opting not to buy TV sets when they graduate from college or enter the work force, at least not at first. Instead, they are subsisting on a diet of television shows and movies from the Internet.

That second reason is prompting Nielsen to think about a redefinition of the term “television household” to include Internet video viewers.

“We’ve been having conversations with clients,” said Pat McDonough, the senior vice president for insights and analysis at Nielsen. “That would be a big change for this industry, and we’d be doing it in consultation with clients if we do it.” [emphasis added]

The decline marks the first time in 20 years that television ownership has fallen in the U.S.

According to the report:

“While Nielsen data demonstrates that consumers are viewing more video content across all platforms — rather than replacing one medium with another — a small subset of younger, urban consumers seem to be going without paid TV subscriptions for the time being. The long-term effects of this are still unclear, as it is undetermined if this is also an economic issue that will see these individuals entering the TV marketplace once they have the means, or the beginning of a larger shift to online viewing.”

While the Times speculates the small declines means that TV will be at the center of  American homes for some time to come, we think that Nielsen is positioning itself for a future in which the audience for video becomes at least as significant as the cable and broadcast  audience.

As we’ve noted before, the “TV”  revolution won’t be televised.

Nielsen’s press release on the subject is available at the Nielsen website.

The technology news blog Gigaom has posted an interesting article on Comcast, Time Warner Cable and Cablevision’s experiments with making their cable TV offerings available via iPad apps.

In the first 5 days its iPad app was available, says Cablevsion, it was downloaded 50,000 times.  Time Warner’s iPad app was downloaded 360,000 times in the first month of its availability, and Comcast’s iPad offering has been downloaded 1.5 million times since it was released in November 2010.

The bottom line meaning of these numbers, according to Gigaom:

Cable subscribers are highly amenable to the idea of accessing content on their iPads.

Why is this important?

As it becomes normal for audiences to access cable video programming on iPads or similar devices, they’ll be all the more willing to give any video content they can find a try.

This means, in effect, that programs on Rocketboom, YouTube, CNN, the Discovery Channel, BBC America, Hulu, or any other web- or app-based  channel will be more and more on equal footing in terms of audiences’ access to them.

It means we’re on the cusp of a time in which 1000s of video content channels may bloom–channels that can in theory be created by any individual, organization, or business that has a message to broadcast–and in which audiences will become even more segmented by various interests.

At Arbour Media, we’re ready to help individuals, organizations, or businesses create such channels.

The “TV” revolution won’t be televised.