TV's Perfect Storm?

While UK television execs are telling themselves what they need to get through the day as viewing figures slump in favour of the internet, the Hollywood writers' strike drags into its second month and sees TV writers exploring their own web options and Murdoch's MySpace giving weight to an online broadcasting trend.

Sport and (un-scripted) reality TV shows (including the "News"?) are about the 'freshest' US TV broadcast content out there, which heralds a giant audience moving online for the latest in entertainment. That migration should include viewers in markets like Australia that screen a high proportion of US television content, as well as viewers in other markets following more selected content. Advertisers will no doubt follow the migration like lions follow wildebeest (although, of course, online nobody knows you are a wildebeest).

All of this suggests that TV execs will have to pay even bigger bucks for good writing and sports rights to keep themselves in a job.

PS: 7 Jan '08, a survey commissioned by MySpace says kids would rather network online than watch TV:

"A group of 18- to 24-year-olds drawn from 1,000 people surveyed by Future
Laboratory said it would rather spend 15 minutes visiting social networking
sites than watching television, reading, playing video games or talking on
mobile phones."