The Future of Television is Carson Daly

This Future Of Television technofestival is taking place in the very same ballroom in the Roosevelt Hotel that housed the very first Oscar ceremony and, also where, legend has it, some distraught actor offed himself after losing an Oscar and still haunts the place to this day. (In the form, we’ve been told, of chill air that suddenly and inexplicably appears in the room; coincidentally, there’s an air-conditioning vent just above that spot in the room.)

No one has killed him- or herself during this conference – yet – but there do seem to have been a lot of missed opportunities here. By focusing on emerging technologies and narrowcasting and advertising, the event’s organizers have betrayed an interest in those who will profit from all of this. But there are those in the TV industry who have some rocky years ahead of them, and even if their futures aren’t nearly as rosy, they probably merit discussions on how to survive the coming tumultuous years.

Nonetheless, there was no panel discussion on how the broadcast networks can best weather the storm as their viewership dwindles – or what the effect of their diminished stature means for everyone else. (With fewer mainstream programs succeeding, other sites that cater to fans of those shows will be affected, and the volume of traffic lured to sites based on their appeal would shrink, meaning there will be less people to sample the other wares being offered at such sites, and so on.) Nor was there a panel discussion on how local affiliates will be impacted, how all those local news teams will be bankrolled as the broadcast networks rely less on them and more on other platforms to disseminate their programming. Nor was there, say, a panel on the broader sociological implications of viewers grazing across the Internet in search of the latest viral video and utterly ignoring current events, or what happens when news sites, catering to audience demand, lean more heavily on entertainment coverage (The Associated Press recently announced a new division dedicated to infotainment) and moving away from hard news – there’s stuff we want to see or read about, and then, there’s stuff we need to know, but if our choices are completely in our hands, will we know about corporate or political corruption, or will we base our votes in elections on Obama Girl or those three daffy biddies singing “It’s Raining McCain?”

Nope, none of that, but plenty on just how even more f@%&ing impossible it will be to avoid commercials in the future (yay! Not a moment’s peace for oneself!) and why the kind of throwaway material produced to be watched on cell phones merits an entire panel discussion unto itself).

And then, there was Keynote Speaker Carson Daly.

Introduced as “someone who really does sit at the center of what’s going on in pop culture,” Daly – wearing a baseball cap, a sweatshirt and sneakers – announced, “You’ve had a lot of very smart people talking about the future of television, and I’m not that. So what am I doing here? It’s a good question.”

The answer probably wasn’t as good. “The answer is passion,” Daly declared. “I’m passionate about entertaining, passionate about television … passionate about finding out my future stake in it.”

Daly posited himself as someone studying new media while working in traditional media, and concluded, “If I live in both of these worlds, maybe I can introduce them to one another.”

He then discussed a few of the projects that he has been involved in attempted to combine traditional TV and interactivity. Almost invariably, he concluded, “It was an idea ahead of its time” or “Ultimately, it didn’t pan out.”

Daly’s speech wasn’t ahead of its time, but in the end it didn’t pan out, either. Truth be told, it wasn’t a bad speech if you were a neophyte in this realm, but no one in attendance was a neophyte.

(Psst. Shh! I’m outside the ballroom writing this and Daly is standing about four feet away. Don’t look over here, Carson! It’ll only break your heart! Though I did say it wasn’t a bad speech! Keep looking at the brunette! Or the old guy with the mustache and the plaid jacket!)

(OK, now he’s been shuffled away to do an interview. “Are they gonna talk about the strike?” he asks; “No, we’re not doing that,” a handler answers.)

One last thought from Daly’s speech: “TV is nowhere near dead. That’s just a bunch of crap.”

As are, I’ve decided, the rest of the panels today. There’s your Future Of Television, kids: People dazzled by shiny objects and favoring jargony buzzwords over discussions on how to create the sort of programming people might want to watch.