Henry Jenkins defines 'Zappers' as "people who constantly flit across the dial" (Pg. 74). These folks are the channel surfers and the easily-bored. They spend little time on a channel and flip across a multitude of channels. With our increased He defines 'Loyals' as "people who make long term commitments" (Pg. 74). These people are dedicated to a few shows, spend their social time talking about them, and spend less time than the general population watching television. 'Casuals' are in the middle of these two categories and are not dedicated to a series, but will watch a show start-to-finish if their is nothing better to do. They are "more apt to wander away if it starts to bore them" (Pg. 74). The book talks about how much of the 1990s was seen by analysts as a time when there was an "overstressed significance of the zappers" (Pg. 75). In this regard, humanity was seen to be always in need of instant gratification, and because of this had an inability to sit still through full television programs. It was even predicted that "there will be fewer occasions where people sit down and watch a show from beginning to end without interruptions" (Pg. 75). This prediction has proven to be false, and our current media landscape is prime for a larger amount of people who fall into the 'loyals' and 'casuals' categories instead of the 'zappers' category.
With the rise of online television sites like Hulu, single shows are offered through the streamed medium of the internet. Oftentimes it takes sitting through a 30 second commercial before the program will start, and it makes changing shows difficult and unappealing. These websites are a perfect environment for generating 'loyals' because there is a great difficulty in changing the virtual channels because of the advertisements and natural restrictions built into the system. We are faced with a cable and satellite system that offers so many channels that, to a viewer, it can be like drinking from a fire hydrant. The current landscape holds so many choices that viewers naturally look for a mental buffer to let the best and most personalized shows and programs float to the surface to be viewed.
"Industry research now suggests that 'loyals' are much more valuable than 'zappers'" (Pg. 76). This has proven to be even more true since Convergence Culture was published. The rise of web television has shown that the 'loyals' are much more valuable, because these mediums were designed with this demographic in mind.
Do you think that the greater number of channels offered to viewers inspires more people to be 'loyals' or 'zappers'? If your answer is 'loyals,' do you think that web television services like Hulu going to continue to be growing in prominence because of this reason?
Because of the fast-paced society in which we live, it has become increasingly difficult to make time to BECOME a loyal. But many people use their DVR or Hulu site to sort of slow down life. I think there are, generally, more loyals than zappers. Hulu, like I said, can take a lot of credit for this. Other sites, like the network website that play episodes of your favorite show, haven't quite figured it out yet though. For instance, I remember watching a show on the CW website, accompanied by about 3 minutes of ads at every commercial break. This sort of thing almost discouraged me from watching the rest of the episode, but something kept me on. Maybe the more popular, illustrious shows CAN make their commercials longer, but it doesn't mean that they should!
ReplyDeleteGood post and good questions! I think that becoming loyals or zappers depends on the individual, regardless with with the number of channels available. If a person has very specific interests and will only watch TV for those topics, then that person is more likely to be a loyal, no matter how many new channels are offered. However, for people (and the great majority) who just turn on the television to find something, anything, to watch, they are more likely to zip and zap. The majority of people now, however, are very dependent on TV, so I do see how the majority of consumers are becoming zappers.
ReplyDeleteI grew up without a TV in my room. My mom had this idea that she didn't want my siblings and I trapped in our rooms watching TV all day. So, if we wanted to watch TV, we had to go to the living room...which wasn't very appealing because we shared it among 4 brothers. So, I'm not very used to watching TV. I watch few channels, and only certain shows in those channels, so I'd say that I'm a loyal...regardless if there's 10 or 10,000 channels.
Most people these days end up being zappers, but I think that with the rise of sites like Hulu and access to the opinions of millions of people on the internet, we'll see a significant rise in the number of loyals.
ReplyDeleteFor example, I used to watch all sorts of shows when I lived at home. However, when I got my own apartment here in Austin, I found that cable TV was too expensive for the two or three shows I still watched, and opted instead to simply pay for a broadband internet connection as my sole form of media intake. While I no longer watch TV regularly, I now cherry pick certain series to watch online like Firefly and Archer that have obtained massive amounts of praise from people I interact with online on a regular basis. I'm betting that I'm very much not alone in subscribing to this method of finding shows to watch, because I can assure you it's a lot better than skimming through channels and wasting my time to see if something is remotely interesting in the first five minutes.
Websites like Hulu do seem to attract and even produce loyals, but I would argue that the growing number of channels actually encourages zapping. What the industry folks don't seem to understand is that zapping is often done for zapping's sake. When I watch TV, it's usually with friends. We zap for the hell of it, because it's what we're used to doing and because zapping is more conducive to conversation than fully engaged viewing. The "you've got 3 seconds... impress me" paradigm hasn't really gone away. As long as there are lots of channels, certain viewers will simply prefer surveying their options over fully committing to a single show. Sometimes it's fun just to see what's on the tube.
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