Netflix And On-Demand Viewing Will Destroy Lazy TV

TV is commonly called a "lean back" medium. With computers, you lean forward and you're engaged. The thought has always been that with TV, you're just leaning back and letting the experience play out in in front of you. The networks were always happy to think of us as essentially lazy couch potatoes.

But that's no longer the reality of TV. Today viewers are much more engaged. That means they are seeking out good shows wherever they might live. So something like Transparent becomes a hit even though it's on Amazon, a place people don't usually associate with good TV. Girls, DareDevil and Orange Is The New Black become hits not because of their slot on the TV schedule but because they are high-quality shows that viewers can now easily find and watch whenever they want.

AMC Networks CEO Josh Sapan has an interesting op-ed in The Wall Street Journal today about this titled "The Death of Indifferent TV Viewing." For the majority of the history of television, networks have used the power of the TV schedule to goose certain shows. Launching a new sitcom? Slot it at 8:30 between two shows that are already hits. Want to make sure people flip to your channel? Get a spot high up on the cable lineup so viewers don't have to look too far down the line to find you.

Sapan points out that today, those tactics no longer work. As TV interfaces improve it's easier than ever to just search for the show you want to watch instead of having to channel surf. As cable becomes increasingly unbundled, viewers will have an even easier time only watching the shows they want to watch. There will be no more lazy viewing.

This is going to create a seismic shift in the TV landscape. Executives at all of the networks will have to work harder to create better shows. This will be easier for networks like Sapan's AMC which can get away with only programming a few original hours per week and relying heavily on reruns and movies to fill out its schedule.

It will be much more challenging for the legacy networks like NBC and CBS . It's been clear for a while that they are going to have to radically rethink their models. Shows like American Idol and The Voice were good choices because they required the kind of live viewing that is becoming increasingly rare. But now the networks are sinking to what feel like gimmicks with things like live staged musicals. Sports will always be the trump card but viewers aren't going back to the old way of watching TV and the networks will have to adjust.

It will be interesting to see if they can come up with some really creative solutions to this problem. As AMC has shown, appointment viewing still exists. Everyone wants to watch The Walking Dead live so they can be part of the conversation the next day. But making high-quality shows is difficult, especially in the volume networks need.

While this new world is a difficult one for programmers, it's a boon for TV fans. TV is better than ever and it looks like it's only going to keep getting better.