Wednesday, December 12, 2012
What is your digital and media prediction for 2013?
Millward Brown has just released its Digital and Media Predictions for 2013. This year’s crop of predictions seems particularly good to me. But then the nice thing about predicting the future is that, while you can safely assume that most of the things you predict will prove to be wrong, equally, most people will have forgotten what you said by the time you are proved wrong.
Of course, some incorrect predictions do go down in history ascribed to the unfortunate individual who made them. I rather like the following one:
So I repeat that while theoretically and technically television may be feasible, commercially and financially I consider it an impossibility; a development of which we need waste little time dreaming.
Lee DeForest, American radio pioneer and inventor of the vacuum tube, 1926
Well here we are in 2012, and as Andrew Jerina notes in his prediction on the changing nature of social TV:
Reports of the death of TV have been greatly exaggerated.
So why do people get predictions so wrong? As Michael Sherman notes in the Huffington Post:
Being deeply knowledgeable on one subject narrows one's focus and increases confidence, but it also blurs dissenting views until they are no longer visible, thereby transforming data collection into bias confirmation and morphing self-deception into self-assurance.
He then describes research by University of Pennsylvania psychologist, Philip E. Tetlock:
After testing 284 experts in political science, economics, history, and journalism in a staggering 27,450 predictions about the future, Tetlock concluded that they did little better than "a dart-throwing chimpanzee.
So with that in mind, here is my prediction for next year: 2013 will prove to be the year that digital mortally wounded network TV. It has been a long time coming, but I agree with Henry Blodget, and Bob Garfield, that 2013 is the year when falling audiences finally outweigh the willingness of advertisers to stump up ever more cash to buy a 30 second network TV spot. One of the reasons that this will come to pass is precisely the point that Andrew alludes to in his prediction:
Increasingly, the assumption that a laptop, and a tablet or mobile are the “second” and “third” screens will dissipate.
There is not much point in a third-party TV network when you can construct your own viewing schedule on whatever format you want, at a time and place that suits you.
Of course, I am probably wrong, but then I will be in good company even if my fortune-telling skills rank no better than a dart-throwing chimpanzee. So what do you think? Chimp or champ? Please share your thoughts.
This entry was posted on Wednesday, December 12, 2012
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