FROM THE DIVINE TO THE PROFANE
Television segmentation
Television, open, cable, satellite, digitized, national or regional, belongs to the dizzying world of images, whose impact on the life of modern man emerges, according to Wolton, when he organizes destinies, makes and undoes powers, extends to the infinite borders the imaginary and definitively amalgamates reality, fiction and virtuality (Villamil 1998). This occurs in large and small situations, seriously affecting the satisfaction of the audience and therefore the market.
And it is that surely, the most striking fact in the Latin American television field is the paradox that the same era of globalization has served as the stage for the rise and consolidation of regionalization and television localization.
The constitution and start of transmissions of regional television channels in the eighties was just the prelude to what today constitutes an intense and expansive presence from Mexico to the southern cone, with differences in nuances, but with a rooted in the close life of our societies. To this we add the increasing presence of local television stations positioned in remote places from the cities, in agricultural areas, which can only have access to television thanks to the services of the sector's cable servers.
Definitions moment
Spanish researchers estimate that television companies are currently experiencing a crucial moment: defining the television model that can have space in the current market.
They cite their own experience as examples. A market in which private television companies are beginning to reverse their losses, a decade after their installation. The key is - in his opinion - to have very clear television models in terms of management, with controlled costs, and a defined type of television model to which one aspires. Finally, they consider the possibility of interactivity: television accompanied by the Internet or telephony, which opens the possibility of value-added services. Companies that do not pose these challenges will tend to disappear.
In this context, the challenge of content for its multiplatform distribution becomes relevant, a trend that marks the development of the audiovisual communications industry throughout Latin America with the growing birth of regional and local television stations through the cable service.
The basis for the success of these emerging companies is good content distributed by different platforms. If you only make one product, for a window, it is very risky. You have to open as many windows for the same content, which is possible with digital technology (conventional television, digital, cell phone, Internet and electronic agenda). We are talking about a television program that has its Internet page, from which the headlines can be received through the cell phone or the electronic agenda. The content is the same, but segmented and adapted to the language of each medium, thereby increasing profitability. Thus, income is obtained in two ways: payment from the consumer himself and advertising.
Information is the content genre that is most suitable for distribution through multiplatform channels; any informative content can be distributed through different platforms. Then come sports and thematic products such as film documentaries, travel, nature, health, etc.
Thematic television and its growing interactivity allow, in the long run, to introduce quality advertising: if the average of an advertising batch on a general television is 20 minutes per hour, on thematic television it is talking about three or four minutes per hour, and highly segmented advertising.
It is another way of watching television, which has a series of positive aspects and which does not mean the death of general television, but is a complement for those brands that, for example, cannot manage to put their advertisements on it due to their budget; or they are not interested. We no longer think about mass media, but about small, segmented media with multiplatform content. All these elements should educate advertisers and television media owners in the sense that the criteria have changed, that the criteria of mass television are no longer valid.
Lifestyles and multiplatform consumptions
The predisposition on the part of audiences to this type of multiplatform consumption also seems to be associated with certain styles of life that are characteristic or that allow these audiences to be distinguished. This is what happens, for example, with young people.
The case of young people and cell phones has begun to be the object of study. The cell phone allows young people new ways that adapt more easily to their lifestyles, such as sending messages. MTV realized that people tuned in like a radio and that its website was not visited, so there was no interactivity, for example, to vote for favorite videos. Then it is considered that this interactivity via cell phone is what allows us not to be pending or connected, and at the same time it is a collective activity. As long as you don't have a television with a bandwidth that makes it totally interactive, you have the cell phone as an instrument that favors interactivity.
Camila's research points to another example regarding the use of technologies and lifestyles, which indicate they are related to the climate: in the Nordic countries, Internet connection times at home are longer than in Latin countries. In the latter, which have milder climates, people go out a lot outside the home and, therefore, interactivity via the Internet is more difficult. This is supplemented, however, with other forms of interactivity, for example, through the cell phone.
Current audiovisual research is heading towards two trends in the television industry: segmentation and globalization, what are the challenges that these trends pose to communications research today?
In the case of segmentation, the industry requires knowing more specific profiles of its audiences. An example in the case of national television: since February 2000 RCTV has been measuring thematic television channels and has a complementary profile of their audiences. This allows to know the consumption by day of the week, socioeconomic profile, ages, time when more is consumed. This way you can reach advertisers looking for more specific audiences. What is being seen is the possibility for these measurement companies to adapt to different needs, so that not only the big brands have access to television, but also those that target specific audiences.
There is a study - Eurofiction - that considers all that are the fictions of national production in the 5 big European markets. The study shows how a trend towards the local is taking place: a predominance of the global in some terms, but with a need for proximity: the consumer wants to see something close. These fiction series have worked on very current themes of everyday European reality, with a high quality in terms of production. One of the most profitable channels - Tele 5 - has based its business model on two pillars: information and fiction series. In this market niche, Spanish or Latin American companies, which do not have the possibility of playing in the global market, have the option of developing their activities.
But, in this sense, there is not only a lack of studies and research that provide information regarding many phenomena that interest the industry, but there is also a lack of contextualization.
The few studies indicate that there is a lack of data and research on television segmentation. For example: in 2002 someone invented that in 10 years 80% of Spaniards would have subscription television, which is not possible due to the country's economic indices. In the US, which is the market par excellence, it reaches 60%. The problem is that the data is not verified; it is enough that they appear in the press so that the industry tends to validate them, both in Europe and in Latin America.
There are some sectors where research lags behind since they are virgin markets; in digital media, for example, what is being done is experimenting. And since there are no rules, whoever arrives first imposes the rules. So those rules are not questioned, the data is put in and if it is a leading company, everyone believes it.
THE INCREASE OF LOCAL TELEVISION SPACE.
Alain Turaine, when referring to Latin America, affirmed that its future depended above all "on the transformation of social demands into political action, on moral proposals into reforms, on the national conscience into the will to modernize", and this possibility is largely reserved for regional television as a decentralized and decentralizing medium. As a medium segmented both geographically, psychographic, demographic and behavioral levels, according to Kotler and Armstrong, for its knowledge, attitudes and responses to the community it serves, that is, its market, which is its audience.
The most skeptical would agree that our lives are intervened by television. A study carried out in Venezuela found that 55% is the use of television as a leisure activity after daily work, but the figure doubles on weekends. This may be associated with multiple reasons of an economic nature or the scarcity of offers of recreational alternatives or unfavorable political conjunctural moments, but, in some way, evidences the influence of recruitment that the television medium has on society.
Certainly, ”the Latino majorities are acceding to the modernity of the formats and genres of the cultural audiovisual industries because it is the iconological communication technologies, with their simultaneity, their virtuality and the dynamism of their language, which are surrounding man without allowing him in many cases to differentiate fiction from reality, the public from the private, the important from the banal. The meaning of life itself and that of relationships with others and the situational environment, is mostly built from the social media where television plays a preponderant role by allowing itself to build the media reality of today's communities.
But, despite the fact that this media process is globalized, in our countries, as in the rest of the world, the regionalization and location of television stations in towns far from the big cities is gaining strength; for being a necessity of the towns in search of the improvement of the democracy. Democracy implies participation and participation, democratically speaking, is unfeasible in decentralized and globalized or massive communication formulas.
The possibilities of attending to the particular needs of the peoples through a national television channel, regardless of the will of its managers, are physically onerous, expensive, for reasons of infrastructure, time, communication policy, except in the case of episodes, of shows or specific participations marked by the morbid interest of the regional red chronicles to reflect us on the national screen. Thus, television stations are generalist and generalizing, which serves as an indicator of the acceptance of regional television stations.
The intervention and acceptance of these emerging companies in the audiovisual area is linked to the close, intimate relationship of the medium with the community where it operates. This proximity and closeness, the attention to their target audiences through information and opinion, as well as the vocation of services to their own community manifested in all programming aimed at satisfying their demands, are characteristic attributes of regional and local television stations., since they constitute fundamental objectives of its mission.
In some way, according to Gheude, “the public who watch television in an invisible meeting”, are informed and are transformed through it with an integrating character. Regional television, in many cases, with modest infrastructures and inadequate technological endowments, has managed to transcend its material limitations to reach the individual, man and their close environment. Daily regional events, local political life, the strength of its companies, cultural manifestations, are some of the vital spaces that reflect the deep relationship that exists between regional channels and the populations of their territories.
And it is that regional television, in terms of marketing, is an ideal medium to show the differences of local products and services, to affirm to the preceptor who he is, to serve as a conscience, to allow independence in the midst of the crowd. This is part of democratic television, as democratic is to know the people with their specific stories and take on their causes with respect and seriousness, however simple they may be.
THE NATIONAL EXPERIENCES
The experiences in Venezuela in terms of television segmentation is of recent date and manifests itself in two scenarios; first with the programmatic design, under a unique theme such as sports, in the case of Meridiano Televisión, music with Puma TV, and Globovisión with 24-hour broadcast news, or secondly through its geographical location, either regional because it covers as wide coverage part of a state, or local, because it is in not very populated, agricultural, border areas and with non-existent recreation services.
Even more recent is the appearance of educational television stations whose presence was born in 1992 to manage Ibero-American educational television a cooperation program of the Ibero-American Summits of Heads of States and Governments. It is made up of more than 200 partners from 22 countries, among which are the ministries of education, universities, educational centers, social organizations and educational and cultural television channels.
Television as a mass communication medium causes an unquestionable effect on audiences that is not always educational. Furthermore, an effect that may be contrary to the one sought. On the other hand, Educational Television designs as a PRODUCT, programs with a clear and express educational intention; its technical approaches will always appear subject to the didactics, the contents and its flexible sequencing will be defined according to the educational objectives; THE PLAZA, that is, the audience appears more clearly delimited; Complementary means and materials will be used; where all the elements of the medium (audiovisual codes) are put at the service of education-teaching-training. THE PRICE, or the profitability must be measured with different parameters than those used in commercial television.And quality criteria must prevail over audience criteria.
From this more restricted perspective, we can consider that certain programs have been conceived, planned and designed based on an express intention, to educate and can only be classified as educational television, such programs can be classified in this way, without denying the influence that television exercises as a means of mass communication.
To speak of educating through television is to transmit content of a formative and educational nature, which leads us to profoundly change both education and television. The medium oriented towards entertainment is a learning tool, that is, what is in general terms a tool or instrument of the consumer and market society, can become a public service of general interest and also a means to save the differences to humanize our coexistence. It is therefore necessary to ensure that television, with its enormous power and unquestionable influence, contributes to the purposes of authentic universal communication among citizens and can serve to improve our culture.
On the other hand, the traditional school in which verbal discourse prevails hegemonically over any other language instrument, must necessarily change and also has to do so quickly, which requires regulation in the form of a specific educational policy with respect to television. and its educational use.
In addition to political support in the form of a concrete measure, the importance of teacher training, their change of mindset, the necessary innovation in the field of the curriculum and a general evolution of the school towards more open and flexible learning models must be considered.
From this concept of educational television, the programs that are specifically made to be used in the framework of formal and regulated education, either face-to-face or distance (language courses), would be framed. They are courses with an educational and planned intention, whose objectives have to respond to a formal curriculum. It can also be included in this concept, non-regulated formal education courses, that is, a formal, intentional, systematic, planned education that is not linked to an officially recognized degree.
It is necessary to take into account the great possibilities of the medium for distance education, an area in which it must necessarily be spoken in cable television, satellite and digital with its enormous possibilities of interactivity that it allows. Everything leads to a society of the future in which it will be easier to overcome the difficulties that cultural, social, linguistic differences can change… in this context, the enormous importance that the way in which legislators configure the digital map must be considered and telecommunications in the different countries, in general we can conclude that television is poorly used to address diversity, although it is possible to find some examples that we will see in the next section.
BACKGROUND ………………..ROOT EXPERIENCES
La Simón TV, pioneer in Venezuela in Tele-Education
On September 30, the television station of the Simón Bolívar University, LaSimón TV, began its regular broadcasts through channel 29 of the UHF band. This audiovisual project will be characterized as a specialized channel, whose content is directly related to the mission and educational vision of the Universidad Simón Bolívar, USB. The use of open television and its educational theme guarantee the social impact that the university station has on a diverse and massive public that lives within the channel's coverage area, which currently includes the municipalities Libertador, Chacao, Baruta, El Hatillo and Sucre.
LaSimón TV arises at a time when the educational function of audiovisual media is being discussed, accused on several occasions of being the promoters of a program that contributes very little to the adequate and comprehensive training of its audience, especially that of children. and young people, there are different ways of making television "the beginning of a whole process of bringing the academy home"… "USB is willing to contribute to the rational use of the media, increasing its capacity for teaching, research, development and extension to all of society, making use of one of the greatest strengths of this institution: technology ”…
In the short term, the programming will be made up of two large blocks or slopes. The "prime time" or time with the highest audience, composed of educational entertainment programming, mainly documentaries on science, technology, human rights and the environment, among others. The second block will be that of Tele-education, which represents the fundamental concept of this university channel and consists of the transmission of didactic courses in different areas (computer science, administration, language, teacher training, training of entrepreneurs), several times at the week and at various times, which represents the basis of the distance educational services that the channel will offer to its entire audience.
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