If the online world is the doom of the entertainment industry, they'll only have themselves to blame

An interesting analysis on TechCrunch of the chant of impending doom from the entertainment industry about downloading.

The article makes the point that the industry rants and raves about how pirating is breaking them, and that the industry should instead be embracing the new streaming and distribution opportunities. And that they should

• focus on customers
• deliver engaging media experiences to all screens
• make it feel as familiar as channel surfing.

This is all true. But there are some key facets of the equation missing.
First you have to ask why people are flocking in such numbers away from standard TV channels. In Australia at least, people are sick of being treated like either idiots or sheep by the stations. TV series and timeslots get chopped and changed with no notice, people get involved in a show then it's gone. Shows are on and off depending on ratings periods (surely that should be ongoing in this day and age??). Shows start late and run ridiculously over time. Some hot shows are drowned in ad breaks every eight or nine minutes its seems.

People swung over to PVRs where we could watch shows when we wanted and in high resolution as opposed to old VCR recordings. TV stations got uppity about us zipping through the ad breaks, despite research that show that people register far more of the ads while doing so than if they run at normal speed. So they started frigging around with start and end times leaving us missing the final 10 minutes of favourite shows.

What do people do in response to all this shabby treatment? They leave. They buy box DVD sets - fine for the producer but tough for the stations. Or they illegally download. And that's when both station and producer miss out. And really they have no right to complain.

What other retail industry would think it is acceptable to treat their customers like this? We want to use our teles - their are right there, free and easy. But the stations make it harder to patronise them then to pursue the alternatives.

Then the industry is almost totally missing the stunning opportunity that is social media for keeping their customers both watching in real time and engaged. Some current affairs shows are starting to embrace this with publicised hashtags and selections of tweets published to screen. But there is so much more they could try. Just look at the informal fanbase posting that happens around shows like Glee, the various talent shows like Masterchef and YTT, and the footy. Why aren't stations jumping on board with this? We are all skilled at multiscreen viewing now, so leverage it.

Formalise the hastag, run competitions like for the funniest tweet or most retweeted, ask questions, more. Don't neglect Facebook and Google+ either. Some people will use one but never the others. But the +1s and 'Likes' give great tools for stations to gauge what people are liking and reward fans. They could be linking the advertisers into it all too. Heaven forbid we get encouraged to actually watch the ads!

Perhaps the problem is that the stations are employing people who have always working in that ageing industry and they just don't 'get' social media and the potential to drag their viewers back to real time viewing and plumb new markets. But do it is ways that we want to be a part of. Don't piss us off even more. Because we are totally over your stupid games. And we aren't going to take it.

Techcrunch article via @CrystalSinger