brass Blog

Here’s a question: when you get your fix of “The Daily Show” or “The Colbert Report,” are you tuning in on your TV… or are you clicking in to watch the episodes streaming online?

This is a massively huge question in the media industry right now. Increasingly, viewers are accessing streaming or downloadable content on their iPhones, Blackberries and laptops. This shift by users away from the boob tube to new devices has a term–The New TV Ecosystem. In this new environment, folks are now consuming mainstream media on-the-go and on-demand.

According to a report by MediaPost’s Online Video Insider, Internet advertising revenue–at $21 billion–outstripped both Cable and broadcast TV advertising in 2007. To illustrate the growth of the New TV Ecosystem even more, the amount of streaming content and podcasts online jumped 133 percent from June 2007 to March 2008. You can check out the full report here.

Here I go with connections again: a shift in user habits means a shift in the business landscape. It’s left some pretty big corporate players scrambling to readjust and stay in the black. As for now, most major networks are offering popular TV shows streaming online. The business model used by broadcast TV for decades is really being forced to adapt now. The trick is to figure out how to monetize all this stuff and survive in the age of YouTube.

It’s an exciting time, and a win-win situation for us viewers.

– Peter