TV networks should have an extra channel that shows exclusively portrait mode content.
i.e. BBC Vertical.
Also: Netflix Vertical, National Geographic Vertical, ESPN Vertical, etc.
Why?
- Because there’s demand
- To discover how to make good portrait-mode content
- To promote new consumer electronics
- To counter slop.
Good for phones and big black bars down the sides on regular TVs, at least until they ship new ones that hand differently.
Strategic play init.
Why don’t networks have vertical channels already?
They should.
It’s how most people consume most video, judging by how I see people watching on the train.
Sometimes I do see people watching in landscape on the train, it’s true. But it’s always something massively popular like live football or Love Island. Anything less, people avoid regular horizontal TV. (I’ll come back to why that is.)
I think there’s an assumption from the commissioners at traditional TV that portrait mode = short form = story mode. So they look down on it and that’s why they don’t produce any long-form vertical content.
That was the mistaken assumption also made by Quibi (Wikipedia) which launched in April 2020 with a ton of traditional content partners and investor backing of $1.75bn. It flamed out by the end of the year.
The premise was portrait mode, mobile-first TV and ALSO in 10 minute segments.
Too much. To me their approach over-determined the format. (Also I feel like it had misaligned incentives: the only way Quibi would have worked long-term is if viewers habitually opened the Quibi app first and what, content partners are going to cannibalise their existing audiences by pointing them at this upstart rival brand?)
The core premise - that portrait mode TV should be a thing - is good.
But forget the “10 minute segments” constraint. Forget story mode.
So why do people avoid watching horizontally?
Well, it’s so distancing to watch footie or regular telly on a horizontal phone, you feel so far away. It’s un-engaging.
But more than that, it’s uncomfortable…
My dumb explanation of portrait mode dominance is that phones are easier to hold that way, and physically uncomfortable to hold in landscape – increasingly so as they get bigger (compensating for that feeling of being far away). It’s just the shape of our hands and our wrists and the way our necks attach to our heads.
And the only screen-filling content available when you have your phone vertical is story mode content.
But that doesn’t intrinsically mean that it’s the best we can do.
It wouldn’t be enough to take regular TV and cut the sides. Vertical formats will be different.
This is the kind of content that you’d want on BBC Vertical:
- long-form drama
- long-form video podcasts
- news
- live sport
Live sport in particular. The age of blockbuster MCU-style movies is over. Spoilers are on the socials instantly, there are no surprises in cinematic universes anymore; the real time spent is in the fandoms. You can get an AI to churn out wilder special effects than anything Hollywood can do. Or see it on the news. Who cares about a superhero thumping another superhero.
But live sport? Genuine surprise, genuine drama, genuine “appointments to view” and social shared experiences.
But vertical live sport will need to be shot differently. Different zoom, different angles.
Ditto drama. While vertical drama is not shorter necessarily, it is more first person.
e.g. what the kids are watching:
I walked into a room of tweens watching YouTube on the big screen in the dark at a party yesterday and that’s how I learnt about NEN FAM.
The NEN FAM YouTube channel has over 3m subscribers and a ton of vids over 7m views, which is more than a lot of popular TV shows.
(Sidenote: But no Wikipedia page. Wikipedia is stuck with topics which are notable for millennials and older, right? This is a sign that it has ossified?)
afaict NEN FAM is a bunch of 16 kids in Utah who live in the same house and they get up to hi-jinx like sneaking out at midnight but telling their parents first (YouTube, 1 hour) and hanging out at a playground, all filmed like a super vapid Blair Witch Project. It’s v wholesome.
Join me next week for another instalment of Matt Encounters Modern Culture
Anyway formats will be different is what I’m saying.
So NEN FAM and its like is the future of entertainment, given what kids do today is what mainstream culture is tomorrow.
Honestly I think the only reasons that NEN FAM is not vertical-first are
- The YouTube algo pushes against that
- Big screens remain obstinately horizontal.
But how would you do vertical Pride & Prejudice?
omg can you even imagine?
House of Cards with its breaking the 3rd wall and mix in characters carrying the phone pov-style. It would be amazing.
All of this needs to be figured out. Producers, directors, writers, actors, camera crew, lighting – this won’t happen automatically. There needs to be distribution (i.e. the new channels I propose) and the pump needs to be primed so everyone involved has room to learn.
None of this will happen without vertical big screens in the front room.
And this is where there’s opportunity.
Samsung, Sony, LG, all the new Chinese consumer electronics manufacturers: every single one of them is looking for the trigger for a refresh super cycle.
So here’s my proposal:
The consumer electronics companies should get together and start an industry consortium, say the Campaign for Vertical Television or something.
C4VTV would include a fund that they all chip in to.
Then any broadcast or streaming TV network can apply for grants to launch and commission content for their new channels.
It’s a long-term play, sure.
But it has a way better chance of shifting consumer behaviour (and the products we buy) than - to take an example - that push for home 3D a decade ago. At least this pump-priming push is in line with a consumer behaviour shift which is already underway.
The imperative here is that vertical video is getting locked in today, and a lot of it is super poisonous.
Story mode is so often engagement farming, attention mining capitalist slop.
And we’ve seen this week two new apps which are AI-video-only TikTok competitors: Sora from OpenAI and Vibes by Meta AI.
Look I love AI slop as previously discussed.
But what is being trained with these apps is not video quality or internal physics model consistency. They’re already good at that. What they’re pointing the AI machine at is learning how to get a stranglehold on your attention.
The antidote? Good old fashioned content from good old fashion program makers.
But: vertical.
Not just television btw.
Samsung – when you establish the Campaign for Vertical Television, or whatever we call it, can you also throw some money at Zoom and Google Meet to get them to go portrait-mode too?
Honestly on those calls we’re talking serious business things and building relationship. I want big faces. Nobody needs to devote two thirds of screen real estate to shoulders.
TV networks should have an extra channel that shows exclusively portrait mode content.
i.e. BBC Vertical.
Also: Netflix Vertical, National Geographic Vertical, ESPN Vertical, etc.
Why?
Good for phones and big black bars down the sides on regular TVs, at least until they ship new ones that hand differently.
Strategic play init.
Why don’t networks have vertical channels already?
They should.
It’s how most people consume most video, judging by how I see people watching on the train.
Sometimes I do see people watching in landscape on the train, it’s true. But it’s always something massively popular like live football or Love Island. Anything less, people avoid regular horizontal TV. (I’ll come back to why that is.)
I think there’s an assumption from the commissioners at traditional TV that portrait mode = short form = story mode. So they look down on it and that’s why they don’t produce any long-form vertical content.
That was the mistaken assumption also made by Quibi (Wikipedia) which launched in April 2020 with a ton of traditional content partners and investor backing of $1.75bn. It flamed out by the end of the year.
The premise was portrait mode, mobile-first TV and ALSO in 10 minute segments.
Too much. To me their approach over-determined the format. (Also I feel like it had misaligned incentives: the only way Quibi would have worked long-term is if viewers habitually opened the Quibi app first and what, content partners are going to cannibalise their existing audiences by pointing them at this upstart rival brand?)
The core premise - that portrait mode TV should be a thing - is good.
But forget the “10 minute segments” constraint. Forget story mode.
So why do people avoid watching horizontally?
Well, it’s so distancing to watch footie or regular telly on a horizontal phone, you feel so far away. It’s un-engaging.
But more than that, it’s uncomfortable…
My dumb explanation of portrait mode dominance is that phones are easier to hold that way, and physically uncomfortable to hold in landscape – increasingly so as they get bigger (compensating for that feeling of being far away). It’s just the shape of our hands and our wrists and the way our necks attach to our heads.
And the only screen-filling content available when you have your phone vertical is story mode content.
But that doesn’t intrinsically mean that it’s the best we can do.
It wouldn’t be enough to take regular TV and cut the sides. Vertical formats will be different.
This is the kind of content that you’d want on BBC Vertical:
Live sport in particular. The age of blockbuster MCU-style movies is over. Spoilers are on the socials instantly, there are no surprises in cinematic universes anymore; the real time spent is in the fandoms. You can get an AI to churn out wilder special effects than anything Hollywood can do. Or see it on the news. Who cares about a superhero thumping another superhero.
But live sport? Genuine surprise, genuine drama, genuine “appointments to view” and social shared experiences.
But vertical live sport will need to be shot differently. Different zoom, different angles.
Ditto drama. While vertical drama is not shorter necessarily, it is more first person.
e.g. what the kids are watching:
I walked into a room of tweens watching YouTube on the big screen in the dark at a party yesterday and that’s how I learnt about NEN FAM.
The NEN FAM YouTube channel has over 3m subscribers and a ton of vids over 7m views, which is more than a lot of popular TV shows.
(Sidenote: But no Wikipedia page. Wikipedia is stuck with topics which are notable for millennials and older, right? This is a sign that it has ossified?)
afaict NEN FAM is a bunch of 16 kids in Utah who live in the same house and they get up to hi-jinx like sneaking out at midnight but telling their parents first (YouTube, 1 hour) and hanging out at a playground, all filmed like a super vapid Blair Witch Project. It’s v wholesome.
Join me next week for another instalment of Matt Encounters Modern Culture
Anyway formats will be different is what I’m saying.
So NEN FAM and its like is the future of entertainment, given what kids do today is what mainstream culture is tomorrow.
Honestly I think the only reasons that NEN FAM is not vertical-first are
But how would you do vertical Pride & Prejudice?
omg can you even imagine?
House of Cards with its breaking the 3rd wall and mix in characters carrying the phone pov-style. It would be amazing.
All of this needs to be figured out. Producers, directors, writers, actors, camera crew, lighting – this won’t happen automatically. There needs to be distribution (i.e. the new channels I propose) and the pump needs to be primed so everyone involved has room to learn.
None of this will happen without vertical big screens in the front room.
And this is where there’s opportunity.
Samsung, Sony, LG, all the new Chinese consumer electronics manufacturers: every single one of them is looking for the trigger for a refresh super cycle.
So here’s my proposal:
The consumer electronics companies should get together and start an industry consortium, say the Campaign for Vertical Television or something.
C4VTV would include a fund that they all chip in to.
Then any broadcast or streaming TV network can apply for grants to launch and commission content for their new channels.
It’s a long-term play, sure.
But it has a way better chance of shifting consumer behaviour (and the products we buy) than - to take an example - that push for home 3D a decade ago. At least this pump-priming push is in line with a consumer behaviour shift which is already underway.
The imperative here is that vertical video is getting locked in today, and a lot of it is super poisonous.
Story mode is so often engagement farming, attention mining capitalist slop.
And we’ve seen this week two new apps which are AI-video-only TikTok competitors: Sora from OpenAI and Vibes by Meta AI.
Look I love AI slop as previously discussed.
But what is being trained with these apps is not video quality or internal physics model consistency. They’re already good at that. What they’re pointing the AI machine at is learning how to get a stranglehold on your attention.
The antidote? Good old fashioned content from good old fashion program makers.
But: vertical.
Not just television btw.
Samsung – when you establish the Campaign for Vertical Television, or whatever we call it, can you also throw some money at Zoom and Google Meet to get them to go portrait-mode too?
Honestly on those calls we’re talking serious business things and building relationship. I want big faces. Nobody needs to devote two thirds of screen real estate to shoulders.