Occasional Partial Attention.
Last year, lots of people seemed to be blown away by the whole concept of the second screen. At this year's event, there were inaccurate murmurings that nothing new had been said. Such is the nature of media industry audiences - always looking for the radical when they should be dealing with the every day.
But 2 screen is nothing new. We rarely, if ever, focussed entirely on the TV or anything else. The new thing is that the second screen is, in fact, a screen. In the past, we all experienced multiple input sources, but the second screen back then was radio, music or print.
Media folk are excited that the second screen experience has interactive potential, but if they listened to Starling TV's CEO they'd have noted that the 90-9-1 rule abides. 90% of second screen "viewers" are viewing that second screen passively and, I would contend, casually.
Nothing's really changed. Attention has always been partial and occasional - the question that marketers have to answer is, as ever, how to be interesting and relevant so that you get that attention when the opportunity arises.
Just a thought, a fleeting one.
posted by john dodds @ 1:05 PM
2 Comments:
In early 2006 I noticed I had been using my TV screen as background noise while I sat at my desk using the internet. The shift from screen that I looked at to screen that rattled on in the background was because broadband was becoming ubiquitous and that made the TV less relevant.
I was reading a post about 2nd screen TV status and thought how far behind the times that now that five years is a lifetime ago. I wondered how long it would take that person to write about kicking the TV out and not having one for a few years now. TV isn't a screen. It's a talking head that has a commercial interest in legitimizing wars punctuated by the latest version of music hall. That's not the net and why TV will die.
Well the point had been made (and was repeated by Russell D at this event) that TV is the second screen.
I'm not sure if I'm convinced that TV will die - your point about its commercial interest is undeniable, but does that apply to the likes of the BBC or pay stations that go advert-free?
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