Ampersand of Alas notes that he is personally killing off free TV, by using his DVR to skip commercials. I do the same thing, and he's right: he and I (and the millions like us) are putting the nail in the coffin of the free television model. I watch more TV now than I ever have, other than in a couple of periods of depression, and the only commercials I ever watch are ads for movies that happen to catch my wife's eye ("go back, go back, I want to see that one!").
There is some speculation in Amp's comment thread about what's coming next. My view is that some low-value TV will remain free, supported by banner ads at the bottom of the screen - stuff like news, weather, talk shows, Springer, etc. Everything else - everything that costs significant money to produce - will come streamed over the Internet. The cost model works. My calculations, based on existing charges for bandwidth, indicate that an Internet-based TV "station" is perfectly feasible.
DreamHost will sell you 120 GB of bandwidth over the course of a month for $8. The market price for bandwidth is accordingly estimated at 6.67 cents per GB.
300 megabytes is a half-hour of adequate video. Nothing great, but watchable.
To send a 1/2 hour news program out on the Internet, to one viewer, therefore, costs just ever so slightly more than 2 cents. 2.001 cents, to be precise.
Two cents, for half an hour of video.
And viewers can download it, too. 300 megabytes isn't a trivial download, but on my cable modem, I can do a 300 meg file in (running speed test) at 4 megs a second, so 75 seconds. A bit more than a minute. Even for people with connections 20 times slower, 22+ minutes for a download means that we can stream the video - they can start watching immediately. Instant-on. Broadband TV.
At this point it becomes a question of finding good content from a production company willing to adopt a different revenue model - probably a profit-sharing arrangement, rather than a "we'll buy X episodes of your show at Y dollars per episode."
Personally, I can't wait. Such a model makes it possible to make a lot more shows - all you need to do is demonstrate an audience exists that will generate enough revenue to cover the show costs. We'd have "Firefly" on three nights a week.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
1 comment:
There would still be production schedules, and it would still make economic sense to space out releases so as to build anticipation and interest in the fan base.
I would imagine PPV to be the simplest model, but I don't know. Subscriptions to bundles might be more attractive to consumers. I would expect to see a lot of different experiments.
Digital playback is trivial, with a number of easy and effective solutions.
Post a Comment