eTV — The future of broadcast media

Today, a TV is anything with a screen, and a “show” can be anything from a 30 second Snapchat story to a 24 hour Twitch stream. A new batch of “eTV” companies is cropping up to challenge the traditional broadcast media model by delivering media to any screen in any format viewers want, and they are capturing the attention of viewers and competitors.

Netflix’s most recent letter to shareholders references an NBC executive’s comments that traditional, linear TV is “TV like God intended.” Netflix responded with “Our investors are not as sure of God’s intentions for TV, and instead think that Internet TV is a fundamentally better entertainment experience.”

I’d say the numbers agree with Netflix, and we are just getting started with new entertainment experiences that can be delivered via the internet. We see this in Comcast and Verizon offering OTT streaming services, HBO moving into streaming, Facebook and Snapchat offering live coverage of major events, and new, live-streaming experiences from services like Twitch and Periscope.

The experience of consuming content from eTV providers like Netflix or Twitch is fundamentally different than watching something on TV, and the reason is eTV companies are consumer companies driven by user experience, not legacy regulations and business models based on outdated audience measurement systems.

eTV is all about optimizing the customer experience and maximizing customer engagement by offering rich, media content along with features like interactivity, personalized recommendations, the ability to binge-watch videos, and more.

Until now, the most interesting eTV experiences have been related to time-shifting and binge-watching, but with companies like Facebook bidding for the rights to stream NFL games and Twitch demonstrating the value of small, engaged communities, social features and live broadcasts appear to be the next frontier for these companies to explore.

This trend will be an interesting one to track, so if you are working on reimagining the future of entertainment or know people who are, I’d love to hear from you. Leave a comment here, check out the eTV Product Hunt collection, or find me on Twitter. Also please like this post so it can be recommended to others!