TVSPY: TV Viewers and Internet Users, Two Different Animals

In this article, Terry Heaton does a great of job highlighting the differences between the Internet and TV, both in terms of the underlying characteristics and audience behavior. Encouragingly, this insight comes from someone who has worked in broadcast for 30 years. Here's a taster:

To broadcasters, people are just people and everybody's a viewer. That presumption, I'm afraid, is leading the industry into a crisis as New Media continues to erode viewership. The industry has responded with Websites that ignore the essential truth that an Internet user is NOT a television viewer. The mindset that any broadcasting paradigm will work on the Internet is just, well, ignorant.

Those that think that any old TV ad will work online would do well to take note of the above. Yes video based advertising can be successful on the internet, however advertisers do need to realise that the online game is very different from broadcast. With TV advertisers can fire out any old drivel at their passive audience, and there will be some effect. However, online ads need to be exceptional, or run the risk of being completely ignored.

The Internet is the most wide-reaching interactive communication medium to date. It makes sense to take advantage of those characteristics, especially when they can be so easily exploited. If a medium is about interactive communication, then giving people something worth communicating about seems elementary.