TV vs VOD

One advantage of traditional television programming is that it preserves the mental load of viewers. Indeed, leaving the arbitrary decision and free choice of content planning to others gives us the space and energy to think, reflect, choose and decide on more important or urgent things.


Unfortunately, this programming carried out by others highlights a homogeneity and standardization of the contents broadcast. The criterion on which television broadcasting is based is Popularity. It would seem that by relying on content that is already popular, the gamble is minimized, the risk of failure controlled, but it is a choice on the part of the channels to offer THE right content to the right target at the right time. In the end, the risk of making a mistake is there.

Thus the visibility of new, niche and independent content is 0. No opinions or criticisms from large entities? No distribution. There is not a known name in this achievement? Sorry, no diffusion.

Lack of customization and disinterest in external programming.

On Wednesday we had the cartoons, on Sunday morning we had our children’s special and we were looking forward to this weekly event! But for our parents, it was a wake-up call full of animated stupidities that were often stupid: just a bad time to spend. What about the commercials and programmes aimed at the senior target audience between lunch break and 3pm? This meant that we were not allowed to have entertainment, a documentary or a show that was worthy of us, programming adapted to our immediate needs. So we had to stuff ourselves with Stannah stairlifts, incontinence diapers, health magazines and death insurance and endure in silence. What a waste of time…


Perhaps being guided by strangers on the choice of the length and type of content to be viewed tonight or at lunch was rewarding before. Maybe letting strangers create the rigid “dates” of entertainment was acceptable before.

But since VOD, everything’s changed.

The computer, just like the smartphone, is also becoming a mobile television, combining the flexibility and nomadism of our times.

Video-on-Demand: Flexible Custom Content

Now we’ve got a taste for customization and are looking for smart tools to sort through the incredible amount of content — some interesting and some crap — that’s being created more and more every day.

The customization algorithms have really brought all the added value of the VOD (video-on-demand) or MOD (music-on-demand) platforms in addition to their ease of multi-channel and multi-media access.

Can you imagine if you had to search a chronological output list (like the old popular social network publishing algorithms) for content that will have real value for you? Can you imagine having to search through Spotify’s infinite library, listening to each song (or part of it) to refresh your music playlists?

There are so many things to do instead of wasting time looking for a needle in a haystack. Today’s technology allows us to look for that needle in an interesting little ball of wool that is served to us on our doorstep. Thank you robots and engineers!

Mental load and self-discipline.

So it is true, it’s up to us to make our choice, to decide, but also to be hard with ourself to stop and move on. We are masters of our own content, so we are masters of our own behaviour in this totally open and unlimited “world of content creation”.

It’s so easy to ruin a night’s sleep — and the day ahead — because we only had 10 episodes left to watch of this series we love … It’s a lot of energy — we don’t realize it — to make choices (even minimal ones) and push ourselves to keep discipline by setting an end time for this fun, passive and enjoyable activity.