Television, as You Like It

About six weeks ago I began a significant new relationship. Granted, it’s with an inanimate object, but that isn’t unusual among those of us who make careers out of watching television.

It’s called TiVo, and if having it around has yet to utterly change my life in wondrous and mysterious ways, as some would suggest, our brief time together has gone a long way toward demonstrating what marvels technology can--and cannot--accomplish in allowing viewers to harness and control the world of television.

At the very least, the advancement known as “personal television” represents another major shift in TV’s balance of power, putting people at home in charge when it comes to setting their viewing schedules.

Becoming acclimated to TiVo has taken a bit of time. There has been the customary getting-to-know-you period, exacerbated by the fact that I am essentially a technophobe and TiVo is a little black box filled with sophisticated hardware I don’t even pretend to understand.

Before going any further, perhaps a formal introduction is in order. Known as a personal video recorder, and about the size of a VCR, TiVo costs $499 or $999, depending on capacity, plus a subscription fee. Its principal competitor is ReplayTV, though TiVo is personified by a cute if meaningless corporate moniker (dreamed up by a “naming consultant”) and a little animated figure to make all this high-tech wizardry seem cuddly.

Both devices possess a remarkable array of skills, among them the ability to pause whatever you happen to be watching. This means that if the phone rings or the delivery guy arrives in the middle of a TV show--even a live sporting event--you simply hit “pause,” then resume the action at your leisure. You can catch up with real time whenever you want.

Viewers can choose their own instant replays, rewind scenes and fast-forward. TiVo also provides the means to tape programs without popping in a videocassette or paying much attention to when something is on. Not only will TiVo record an episode of a favorite program, but you also can request a “season pass.” In my case, TiVo currently tapes “The Sopranos” and “The West Wing” each week automatically, without needing to be programmed or prompted.

Finally, TiVo learns from what you watch and makes suggestions based on your viewing habits. You educate TiVo by pressing a little “thumbs up” or “thumbs down” on the remote control. One week, I asked TiVo to tape “Rushmore” and “The Manchurian Candidate,” which I gave the “thumbs up.” Since then, TiVo frequently highlights other quirky independent films or political thrillers as they pop up on cable.

The suggestions have been an occasional source of pride, with four-star movies highlighted in abundance. They also tend to prompt a bit of self-reflection when titles like “Body Chemistry 3: The Seduction” show up--thoughts like “Dear God, what sort of dreck have I been watching?”

If there’s space available (the cheaper version can store up to 14 hours at a time, the more expensive model 30), TiVo will also tape programs I haven’t asked for, just in case.

Having checked out “Freaks and Geeks” when the series returned, I was startled to see TiVo had taped the next week’s episode on the off chance I might want to see that one too. TiVo did the same with “Sports Night” and recorded a “Law & Order” rerun off the A&E; channel because I almost always watch the originals on NBC.

In short, TiVo presents you with a personal television menu: what you want to watch, whenever you want to watch it. No headaches about remembering what to tape or which cassette it’s on. Your own TV valet.

All of this is achieved by virtue of a central computing system, updated daily through a phone line hooked into TiVo. The in-home system makes a daily call to the little gnomes at the company’s headquarters in Sunnyvale, Calif. (ReplayTV is based in nearby Mountain View), who transmit back listings and dozens of suggestions.

Admittedly, my relationship with TiVo--which I received at Christmastime--got off to a rocky start. First, I lack the PhD in quantum physics required to hook up the blasted thing to a TV set equipped with a picture-in-picture function. After several hours of cursing and a full 40 minutes on hold waiting for a human technician, TiVo was wedded with less fanfare to the TV in the bedroom, where it currently lives.

I was also rather taken aback to discover just how much the TiVo folks knew about me based on what their little spy in the armoire was telling them. When I called seeking help, they promptly rattled off the last time I called and how long I was on the phone--just about everything except my mother’s maiden name and what I was wearing.

Indeed, a slightly paranoid type might begin to fret about what the little fellow is up to--whether it’s talking to the microwave and other appliances, a la “The Twilight Zone,” and planning some sort of coup.

TiVo stresses in its instructional manual (something I committed to memory during the sumo wrestling match known as “setup”) that information collected about individual viewing is closely guarded and strictly confidential; still, for some reason, past intrusions into privacy--such as Supreme Court nominee Robert Bork’s video rental records becoming public-- keep flashing through my mind, causing me to wonder what high office I might someday be disqualified from by the occasional late-night visit to Cinemax or Spice.

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On the plus side, TiVo can upgrade its software and add new features without needing a new box, introducing improvements via the phone line. “You’ll just wake up in the morning and your TiVo will be better than it was yesterday,” explains Stacy Jolna, TiVo’s vice president of programming.

At this point, the number of these devices in circulation remains small. TiVo, which became available on a regional basis during the summer and was launched in retail stores nationally not long before Christmas, has sold nearly 30,000 units. ReplayTV, newer to the market, has shipped about 6,000.

You would assume the people who rushed out to purchase these contraptions take their TV pretty seriously and have a fair amount of disposable income, what’s known in the industry as “early adopters.”

Even so, the technology does appear to benefit the TV industry in one respect, by potentially increasing viewing, making it easier for people to find the programs they want. A public filing by ReplayTV indicates that those who have acquired the service on average record about seven more hours of TV each week than they did before.

According to TiVo, the demographics of its buyers have been broad and most of the feedback has been extraordinarily positive.

“Almost 100% of our consumers have said in evangelical fashion that TiVo has changed their lives,” Jolna says. “They’ve become fanatical spreaders of the word.”

“You run the show,” TiVo says in its advertising, having suggested in one spot that “life’s too short to watch bad TV.” Ironically, such claims underscore both the strengths and limitations associated with the numerous technological innovations currently being grafted onto television.

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As it stands, the television deal-makers and computer tycoons have a long way to go in terms of achieving true “convergence”--the buzzword for computers, the Internet and television all seamlessly arriving and interacting through the same box or wire.

The recent National Assn. of Television Program Executives convention showcased a vastly expanded new media presence, accounting for nearly a fifth of the 17,000 attendees, up from a mere 1% in 1999.

That said, it wasn’t entirely clear the old and new media were mixing much, rather merely coexisting in the same space--not unlike the cool kids and the nerds in high school.

The difference here is that the nerds have so much money, everyone has to pay attention to them. The fortunes amassed by Internet start-ups, combined with the proposed merger of America Online and Time Warner, have fueled perceptions that those who fail to board the new media bandwagon risk being left behind.

AOL-Time Warner was “the earthquake that let everyone know we are in a different business world,” says David Neuman, a former NBC and Disney executive who is now president of the online programming venture Digital Entertainment Network. As for TV’s infatuation with new media, he adds, “There’s clearly a Gold Rush aspect to this. Everyone’s in a frantic, manic rush to see how they can get in on it.”

This sense of urgency has shed a new light on the many high-tech wonders designed to augment broadcasting, such as WebTV, which collaborates with various producers and networks on interactive TV applications.

ABC made a big deal out of its Enhanced TV during Super Bowl XXXIV, and more than 650,000 users (that’s computer talk for “people”) took advantage of the system, accessing live programming and information related to the game. The network trumpeted those results as an affirmation of “the coming age of convergent television,” with a simultaneous play-along version of “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire” in the offing as well.

Such efforts to heighten viewer participation in the content of broadcasts are sure to increase. ACTV, for example, has developed a set-top box that lets viewers select their own camera angles, punch up statistics and even choose which commercials they would prefer. If you got sick of those shots of Al and Boomer in the booth, push 2 for the cheerleaders on the sidelines, 3 for the overhead blimp shot, etc.

Yet while all this is clearly impressive, it’s worth noting that about 87.8 million Super Bowl viewers didn’t use Enhanced TV, meaning the vast majority of us were passively on the couch, viewing TV the way we always do, and only conscious of the Internet in contemplating the deeper meaning of all those annoying dot-com ads.

The latest study by media research firm Statistical Research Inc. indicates about 6% of the TV audience reported going online and watching television at the same time “yesterday,” a figure that is rising.

Still, Statistical Research senior project director David Tice notes that only about 1 in 10 of those viewer-surfers is actually on the Web to augment the TV viewing experience, with most answering e-mail, chatting or engaging in some other unrelated activity, in the same way some of us have the TV on while we talk on the phone or pay bills.

“That’s not a particularly big driver at the moment,” Tice says of play or enhancing options, noting that most people drawn to the Web because of something they viewed on television are seeking more information regarding an ad they’ve seen.

To put all this in context, then, TiVo, ReplayTV, WebTV and the other new services can’t really make television better. Writers, producers and actors would be the primary culprits there, and thus far computers haven’t shown they can duplicate those functions, with the possible exception of the “Toy Story” films and the ape in the latest version of “Mighty Joe Young.”

What technology can do, quite effectively, is take a 60-channel cable universe--or 200-channel satellite dish--and help make sense of what’s on, boiling down the options to a simple menu instead of a sprawling mess.

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There is clearly some appeal in having technology that can do this for us, eradicating carefully crafted strategies by network executives on how programs are scheduled--all the emphasis on lead-ins and audience flow. In this environment, where viewers are liberated from being on the networks’ timetable, if you want to see “Frasier” and “ER,” you watch them. The show in between can fend for itself.

“The old, set prime-time schedules will go by the wayside,” Tice predicts, referring to the ultimate destination of the personal TV wave.

None of this will happen overnight. People remain only vaguely aware about what’s available, and most can navigate the channel-surfing waters deftly enough with one advancement by now taken for granted, the remote control, flipping through the spectrum and sampling as they go.

Yet while no one in the television business is sure when or how the revolution will occur, virtually everyone is thinking and worrying about it.

“It’s simply not possible to talk about the future of the broadcasting business without talking about the influence of the Web,” NBC President Robert Wright told a gathering in Washington last month.

Wright added, however, that any network “lives and dies by the strength of its programming. Content is king, and no matter what technological advances we see in the years to come, viewers will continue to seek out top-notch programming, whatever the format.”

In essence, TiVo and ReplayTV provide viewers with a surrogate to seek out those programs--a computerized sieve to strain out the ocean of mediocrity surrounding the gems, as all that video spills out of cable boxes and satellite dishes.

“This is the end of the boob tube, and the beginning of smart TV,” TiVo’s Jolna says.

The idea of the best content winning out, of course, is hardly a radical notion in television circles. The line “Content is king” (occasionally replaced by “The play’s the thing”) has been spoken by network executives since long before the day Bill Gates first met Steve Jobs.

Come to think of it, there was a movie about that, TNT’s “Pirates of Silicon Valley,” with Noah Wyle as Jobs and Anthony Michael Hall in heavy nerd makeup playing Gates.

As I recall, the film was pretty good. I’m sure TiVo will record it for me the next time it’s on.