I recently did a little research into how media planning and buying agencies pitch themselves to clients. I found that quite a few of them have a similar pitch that goes something like this:

In a world where consumers have an exploding numbers of ways to entertain themselves, you, poor client, are increasingly befuddled as to how to reach these happy-go-lucky consumers, who are busy cartwheeling through the green fields of content. Starcom, to pick one, has a vision “to be leaders of the consumer attention economy” because “in the future, the scarcest resource in our world will be consumer attention.”

I’m not poking fun or saying this is an outmoded argument. (Though “consumer attention economy” is really something.) There certainly are plenty of ways for us to entertain ourselves today, and that has had an impact on countless companies in the business of content creation, who in turn give brands the marketing platforms necessary to reach consumers — tv ratings continue to erode, venerable newspapers shut their doors, the fate of ad-supported business models is wobbly, and plenty more.

It made me wonder about the other side of the coin though: There is clearly an impact on businesses and brands. But isn’t there a negative impact on us, those supposedly happy-go-lucky consumers, as well?

As a consumer, I am personally happy to have so much choice. But I still somehow seem to have trouble finding things to watch on tv in the evening.

The other day, I was reading the overnight ratings for The Unusuals over on TV By The Numbers — on 4/16/09 it did a 1.9 rating in the 18-49 demo, prompting him to write, “People said I was crazy for predicting the show would be canceled with only one data point, but now there’s two.”

Frustrated, I tweeted: “why do all the tv shows i kind of like suck it hard in the ratings? put another way: why does no one else like the same shows i do?“

From the reaction on my Facebook page, it seems that others (or, at least, my friends) feel the same way. The Unusuals, Chuck, Life, Trust Me. My friend Catherine says, “yeah, we always know that if we really like something (kings!) then it’s bound to be canceled, usually before all the episodes even air.”

So as much trouble as brands are having reaching us, we as consumers are in even more of a predicament because of the exploding content marketplace:

1) We have trouble even finding shows that we think will be great in the first place. There’s plenty of mediocre stuff out there.

2) Once we find a show we like, we’re increasingly unwilling to give it up. There is a very high perceived replacement cost (time, effort, etc.) for any show on our regularly-watched list.

3) Because of the above, we increasingly don’t want to commit the time to get to know a new show.

4) With only a few notable exceptions (thank goodness for Idol!), all of our friends watch something other than what we watch and we are left without common tv-based cultural reference points.

All of this drives down ratings. Which leaves the shows with less leeway to fail and the networks with less cash to develop and promote good quality content. Which pushes more and more mediocre and poor quality content into the world. Which reinforces the three points above. Which drives down ratings further, and the cycle repeats in a downward spiral.

At the end of the day, I’m sitting there on my couch wondering why everything I halfway like is being canceled before it even gets going. I’m even a little pissed off about it. I’ve gotten up the nerve to try a new show, and they go and pull the rug out from under my feet.

(I’m talking about TV, but does this feeling occur in other media with other forms of content, I wonder?)

[x-posted from House of Naked]