I spent a long weekend with some guys that I’ve known since college and it got me thinking a little bit about time and ephemera and how we track our relationships*. Setting aside the COVID blip where we all aged however much but didn’t mentally move at all, it seems like it’s all flying by. We just passed 4 years where we all went home for the day and some of us never left again. I see those guys effectively once or twice a year now, even though they’re my best friends.
*I’m a lot of fun to hang out with
And that got me thinking about a physics teacher that I had in high school - Mr. Nicholson - who spoke at our commencement about what he called Nicholson’s Theory of Relativity. He started by comparing his theory to Einstein’s Theory of Relativity, which he summed up as the faster you go, the slower time gets. Nicholson’s Theory of Relativity states that the older you get, the faster time goes. I’m paraphrasing, because despite what you’ve heard about me, I can’t remember things that happened a million years ago word for word*.
*Or, if you ask my son, whether I remember how electricity was when I was young - which tbh, it wasn’t great, but screw you, kid
Now, I’ve thought about this periodically since I heard Mr. Nicholson talk about it back then. Incidentally, and I’m sure you’re interested in knowing, at last check Mr. Nicholson is still alive and in his 90s and I’m gonna tell you that his theory is immutably true - it’s like when you’re a kid and someone says we’ll be there in 20 minutes and you were like “20 minutes???? That’s FOREVER”. And when you’re an adult, 20 minutes is nothing. Most days, I feel like the entire morning is gone before I blink and I haven’t eaten anything, used the restroom, gotten up from my chair at all. The older you get, the faster time goes.
As usual, I’m sure you’re asking yourself “what does this have to do with anything at all” and as usual, you’re not only right to ask, but I’m going to explain. I’m about to propose Wolinetz’s Theory of Relativity*. Wolinetz’s Theory of Relativity is very simple: the more mature a medium gets, the less interesting it is.
*If you’re interested, there’s also Wolinetz’s Theory of Star Wars Clothing, which states simply “the older you get, the less Star Wars clothing you should wear”
I’m not breaking any serious ground here. This happened with terrestrial radio - someone figured out that you can play two songs and run a bunch of ads and make a bunch of money when there were no other options. Then came Pandora and Spotify and SiriusXM and honestly, I can’t remember the last time I’ve listened to a radio station. This has happened with linear and cable TV - they pump out formulaic drama after formulaic comedy with no ability or desire to get creative with content legth, format, whatever. Then came Netflix and Amazon and the only thing people go to TV for is live contents and Apple and Google are picking those off too. And now a non-sweeps weekday 8:30pm forgettable comedy from 2003 got 8x the ratings numbers that the biggest show on TV gets today.
What of CTV?
Well, as I’ve said before, I’m a geek about this stuff. But if I were AppleTV or Amazon Prime or Netflix, I’d be looking over my shoulder. I’ve got two young people in this house, one of whom questions how alternating current ran when I was a kid, who just don’t watch and have very little interest in watching the huge screen on the wall. They much prefer the one in their hand and they much prefer content that’s way shorter.
The CTV market is not mature, at least in how we’d traditionally evaluate such a thing, but if we think about Nicholson’s Theory of Relativity for a minute, the older you get, the faster time goes. And media in general is old. I’d argue that means these trends move faster now than they ever did, which means that something like what my kids watch (Snap, TikTok, whatever other thing they use that I haven’t heard of because I’m old) is going to take hold a lot sooner than we think. And that’s not even to speak about augmented reality*, which I know is gonna come sooner than I want it to.
*You know how in like Terminator when the terminator can look at someone and size them up with a bunch of information about them? That, except instead of telling you the person’s diagnostic information, it’s going to be like “Joe Smith: manifests abundance; practices gratitude”
And also as usual, I don’t know if I have any answers here. You hear “skate to where the puck is going to be” a lot, so if you’re busy recreating the current CTV model to try to take advantage of an emerging market, you’re probably skating to where the puck is and not where it’s going. Verizon had this Go90 thing years ago* - the problem is that they went 90 the wrong way. If the way my kids watch is any indication, the 90 you’re going to have to go is horizontal to vertical (not the other way which was Verizon’s suggestion)
*Go90 meant turn your phone 90 degrees, which might have killed it faster than anything
The older you get, the faster time goes. True for everything.
So here’s the big news: I’m writing a book.
I don’t know how long it’s going to take or when it will come out (or even how it will be released), but I’ve got an abstract and a title, and I’ve started an outline. It’s been bouncing around my head for a while, so I figured it’s time to get going.
More to come on this …
As always, thanks for reading. Until next time, friends
"If you’re interested, there’s also Wolinetz’s Theory of Star Wars Clothing, which states simply “the older you get, the less Star Wars clothing you should wear"
disagree. *adjusts jedi robe*