Amazon Does Video On Demand

A friend of mine in the business doesn't have a TV. But these days that doesn't mean "I'm a snob, TV is beneath me." It means "Who watches anything on an actual TV any more?" You can watch more and more stuff on your computer. If it's broadcast you're after, you can get a TV capture card. If you want to see some HBO shows, but you don't necessarily want to be on the hook for the monthly fee, you can download shows from, say, Amazon On Demand:

iTunes works, too.

While the broadcast networks really haven't solved their big headache -- fewer people watching ads, which are what is supposed to pay for the broadcast -- big entrepreneurial companies like Amazon and Apple are stepping up with a simply pay-per-view model that works nicely.

Will it rescue TV? Who knows. I think so. People want to be told stories, and they'll pay for it if that's the only way to get it. We're used to getting the stories for free, but that may be a historical anomaly.

Digital is Not a Wonder Drug

[Cancon]

OTTAWA -- Heritage Minister James Moore on Wednesday offered support, but no new concrete initiatives, for the ailing over-the-air TV industry. [snip] "There is tremendous opportunity for Canadian broadcasters to harness these new trends in digital technology, to become more innovative and consequently more profitable," he said. "The efficiency of digital technologies and the dropping prices should leave room for effective solutions."

A lot of people keep throwing around the word "digital" like it's a wonder drug. I have yet to see much in the way of synergies between television and the Net. Yes, some people are streaming shows instead of watching them on TV. The only way that helps broadcasters is that on the Net you can prevent people from skipping commercials, which you can't do when they've recorded your TV show.

But the additional promotional content on the website, the additional minutes of the Jon Stewart interview, the Alternate Reality Game -- these are all "added value" for the consumer of TV that don't necessarily put more money in the pocket of the broadcaster.

It's disingenuous for the Conservatives to say, "Hey, you need less money now 'cause there's DIGITAL!" Prices aren't "dropping." Broadcasting TV is actually really cheap. Transmitters don't cost a lot, and the customers buy their own TVs. What costs is making quality programming that people want to watch. You don't save anything broadcasting a sitcom over the Net. It still needs to have decent production values, great acting, great directing and great writing.

Technology is actually a threat. For over the air (OTA) broadcasters, technology is a tsunami and they're the low-lying coastal areas. In the medium run, the advertising model for television is untenable. People are watching fewer and fewer commercials. Cable channels can laugh it up, 'cause they're paid for by subscription. But I think free broadcast is doomed within the next 10 years, and maybe in as little as 5. Product placement isn't going to fill the gap. Broadcasters are going to have to replace airing stuff for free with iTunes-style downloads, pay-per-view streaming, and more subscriptions.

Or explain to me how I'm wrong.

I have no idea how we're going to rework Cancon so it works in the new environment. The current model forces broadcasters to air a (pitiably small) number of hours of homemade programming. As more and more content shifts to other delivery systems, we'll need Cancon requirements for those, too.

Don't count on the Conservatives to provide them. But dollars to doughnuts there's an election in the Fall, and I think Michael Ignatieff gets it. (I know Justin Trudeau does 'cause I've had him over for lunch.)

Meanwhile, when some Minister says, "Hey, you don't need money, you just need to go all DIGITAL," just ask him how, exactly, "digital" is supposed to fix what's wrong with broadcasting.

"Facebook Killed TV"

The always readable Paul Grahama discusses the imminent death of television.

You Read It Here in December

A few months ago, I blogged that the entertainment sector should do well in the recession. So I was gratified, but not surprised, to read that movie ticket sales are up 17%.

This in spite of a really scary conversation I had with a director friend of mine in LA, who says that the market for new independent movies -- meaning the market in buying distribution rights -- has collapsed catastrophically. Indie movies are made on credit, and credit is tight. It may be a while before ticket sales pump money back into the indie sector.

TV is still a problem. When the tide goes out, you find out who's been swimming naked, as they say. Ad revenues are down, partly because of the economy, but partly also because advertisers may actually be coming to terms with the DVR. As more and more people buy digital video recorders, how many of them are actually going to watch the commercials? And it's patently idiotic to suggest, as some have, that people "watch" them on fast forward. A network exec friend of mine said she asked about DVR's in a meeting, only to be told "we don't talk about that." It seems likely that advertisers are now talking about the problem, whether or not network execs are.

So broadcast TV is facing a technological issue that strikes at the very heart of its business model, and the tide has run out, leaving its naughty bits swinging in the sea air.

Meanwhile, pay cable is doing well. And more and more people are watching "on demand" or downloading to their computer. Ironically, via computer, it is possible to sell your show for money, iTunes style, or offer it for free download with commercials you can't skip.

That's fair. If you don't like commercials, buy the show. If you'll watch the commercials, we'll show it to you for free.

Of course with 60 million Americans still unwilling or unable to grapple with the analog-to-digital switch, any technological solution will likely leave a chunk of the audience behind.

I still feel sanguine about the basic market for television, however it's delivered. TV is about the cheapest way to have someone entertain you. But in the mean time, I wouldn't take out any new mortgages.

I Hope This Is Not the Future

I've been trying for the past ten minutes to see LEVERAGE on my computer. (My parents don't have a TiVo, inexplicably.) The TNT website promises me "full episodes." But first I have to get FlipforMac to watch Windows video. So I do. Then I reboot and reload, and it tells me I have to get FlipforMac.

So I try Firefox. Firefox tells me I can only watch on a Windows computer. 

So I try my mom's Windows computer. This asks me to upgrade two components of my browser, Flash and something else. And then agree to some sort of DRM. And then watch a commercial. And then another commercial.

Then I got a couple of seconds of video. And then it froze. And then it jumped. It's unwatchable. (The commercials, interestingly, had no such problems.) 

The TNT site is really crappy.

For a mere $2.99 I can download the whole thing to iTunes. And I might do that. But only because I consider John Rogers a friend. $2.99 is a lot for a heist show.

I think they're going to need to work out a few bugs in these systems before they replace broadcast and cable.

Fancast

Just got this press release, and my mind has been in Gary, Indiana, so I'll just lay it on you:

TV addicts now have a one-stop online destination where they can watch full episodes of current and classic TV including "The Office," "24," "Lost in Space," "The 50th Annual Grammy Awards," and more for free.

With entertainment content from over 100 providers including major television and cable networks, Fancast.com takes out the guess work for users looking for their favorite shows by allowing them to find it, watch it and manage it 24-hours a day – whether it's on Fancast, TV, online, on demand and more.

One of the site’s many features is the “Watch List” button that allows users to organize and catalog upcoming programming, set a personalized play list and send reminders to themselves about what they should watch in the future - creating an easy-to-use, personalized entertainment guide.

Let us know how it works for ya!

With or Without Your Commercials

As you know, the biggest sticking point in the current WGA strike is that the studios want to pay writers nothing for re-airing their episodes on the Internet. With commercials. The studios are calling these episodes "promotional," which is a pretty truthy use of the term "promotion."

I find it intriguing that the studios find it more profitable to air shows on the Internet as a second window rather than rerun them in syndication. Why? An internet ad can be linked to a product site, so that if you dig the car/sneaker/perfume they're selling, you can just click and go straight to the car/sneaker/perfume site and learn more, and maybe even order. The Internet audience is younger, richer and more proactive than the TV audience. Crucially, it is not easy to bypass the ads on a streaming episode.

Getting the audience to sit through the ads in the age of the DVR is potentially the Big Question for the future of TV. Is Internet streaming part of the solution?

(It is, at least until someone invents a widget to buffer streaming TV, and the audience gets hold of it. Technically this is trivial to program, though preventing buffering is trivial, if a tad awkward as well. The anti-skipping technology would be a simple bespoke viewing application that used encryption technology. Instead of sending you a Real Media or Windows Media Player doc, they send you an encrypted doc that only the viewer can play -- and the viewer's skip button is disabled until you've viewed the ad. You can still walk away during the ad, but the audience has been getting up for a cold one during commercials since the dawn of TV.)

Internet downloads are an even better solution, since the audience pays for the shows directly -- it's basically DVD without the awkward issue of physical distribution. How many people would rather pay cash for TV, rather than agreeing to watch a commercial, is the key question here. There could be a pay/free model -- download free with ads, with some sort of anti-skipping technology built in; or download for a fee, with no ads. Something for everybody.

No one could have a serious objection to this model. Don't like ads? Buy your way out. Want it free? Sit back and relax.

The duration of the strike is really in the studio's hands. The writers can't afford to back down on this issue, because it's the future of their livelihood.

People Are Still Watching Commercials, Thank Goodness

This post from a NY Times blog says people are still watching commercials, even though they have DVRs.

Does this mean that most people are passively, not actively, watching TV? I know I want to get to the next act. In any event my tolerance for hearing more about the Swiffer is pretty small. But I'm not the audience, am I?

I wonder if that's what's going on with FRIDAY NIGHT LIGHTS: someone, somewhere -- possibly showrunner Jason Katims -- has made the decision that to really grab the audience, they need the threat of someone going to jail for murder. Maybe they feel that last season was too subtle to grab a big enough audience. For every me they lose, maybe they pick up five guys who sit through commercials.

If the biggest chunk of the audience is willing to sit through recorded commercials, then the TV business model we know isn't dead after all. Those cats aren't going to be illegally downloading shows. (And frankly, I never thought that the mass audience would put up with any TV distribution technology, illegal or not, that was harder to use than a DVR. Most people never used their VCR to record, after all.) And as soon as the strike is settled, everyone can get back to business.

When You Just Can't Get Enough

I read that sing-along screenings of the BUFFY episode "Once More With Feeling" have been cancelled along with theatrical screenings of FIREFLY and such.

Um. There have been sing-along screenings of "Once More With Feeling"? And theatrical airings of FIREFLY?

I guess this is just more proof that TV is getting to be a lot more fun and interesting than the movies.

And here I just finished a rough draft of my 31st feature script...

Transformational DVR

Amanda comments on the previous post, and points out this article about the effects of the DVR on ad watching:

Far from fast-forwarding through commercials, DVR viewers watch commercials – 40 percent watch them in real time. And even when the other 60 percent are fast-forwarding, they are still watching and absorbing the commercials. That's where "neurophysiological effects" of advertising come into play. See, NBC had a "bio-psychological" study done, and it turns out that even when fast-forwarding through commercials, viewers still actively scan and follow the main action of the commercials. As the Harvard-educated doctor who oversaw the study summarizes, "Viewers do not turn off their emotions while fast-forwarding through commercials."

I continue to be amazed by that 40 per cent number, which I've seen before (though it might be from the same study). I find the idea that viewers "actively scan" very suspect, too. There's a world of difference between what you can absorb fast forwarding and what you absorb watching. "Following the main action" is not the same as getting the joke, or the point.

Moreover, my DVR has a nifty "jump 30 seconds forward" button which is how I ditch commercials. I don't see them at all.

I don't suppose the fact that NBC commissioned the study has anything to do with the results, does it? Did they simultaneously check to see if the viewers who were "watching" the commercials also stayed in the room?

Tell Me I'm Going to Love It

I'm sorta tempted to sign up for TMN to see if TELL ME YOU LOVE ME is any good. But reviews are mixed, and I don't feel like spending $20 to watch one TV show. (Unless it's Rome.) And it doesn't seem to be on iTunes.

As we struggle to come up with a post-broadcast model, it seems to me a couple of things will work.

a. iTunes. You can buy shows at a buck a pop. (iTunes charges two bucks but maybe that could come down for shows you'd otherwise be able to see on TV. Maybe two bucks for cable shows you'd have to subscribe for. And keep the season pass about a little above a buck a show, as it is now.)

b. Cable subscription. But why should we have to trust the brand? Not everything on HBO is equally scrumptious. So how about releasing the first episode on iTunes? That way I can see if I want to subscribe.

c. Which leads to the idea of subscription-driven shows. Networks already make pilots. Then they throw them away. What about putting them up on iTunes? See which get downloaded. Greenlight those shows.

That wouldn't necessarily work for the broadcast model. The kind of show that a bunch of people are willing to pay to see is not necessarily the kind of show that vast numbers of people will tune into, but only if it's free. But as the latter becomes less lucrative because people are TiVo'ing away the commercials, the former kind of show will be relatively more valuable.

I'm actually fairly sanguine about my job. More niche programming means more, cheaper episodes. Cheaper episodes will be more writer driven, because dialog is the cheapest special effect there is. Since my happiness depends on whether I'm writing, not whether I'm getting rich, I'm all for a future full of many subscription driven shows.

Somehow I Missed This

Joss Whedon explains the future of TV way back in 2006:

The networks will all be creating exciting, innovative new spin-offs of today’s shows. Approximately 67 percent of all television will be CSI, including CSI: Des Moines, CSI: New York but a Different Part than Gary Sinise Is In and NCSI: SVU WKRP, which covers every possible gruesome crime with a groovin’ ’70s beat. [...]

Lost has that one-of-a-kind alchemy that really can’t be copied. Therefore, look for the original series Misplaced, as well as Unfound; Not So Much with the Whereabouts; and Just Pull Over and Ask, Already!

... And what of me? My short-lived series Firefly was the basis for the epic action film Serenity (now available on DVD! I have little or no shame), and the future will see even more incarnations of this visionary work, as it returns to TV as Serenity: The Firefly Years, then back to film as Firefly: Serenity’s Sequel, back to TV as SereniFly, and finally end as the direct-to-eyeglasses series Choose a Damn Name Already. I promise it’ll be as heartwarming and exciting as the original Serenity, now available on DVD.

$5 an episode?

Apple is in an argument with NBC, which wants to charge $5 an episode to download its shows. Apple wants to sell all TV episodes for the same price on iTunes.

I think charging a sawbuck is a bit much. Personally I think they will have trouble selling episodes for that much. I got a season pass for MAD MEN for a little over a buck an episode; individual episodes are two bucks. That seems about right.

But I think it's good that NBC is fooling around with its pricing model.

It's clear to most people who worry about such things that the broadcast model is deteriorating with the advent of TiVo and DVDs. If the nets can't count on ad revenu, then they have to move either to a subscription model like HBO, or to some kind of per-episode payment model, or severe product placement, or something new people haven't thought of yet. Figuring out what the market will bear for premium broadcast shows (HEROES) is part of the process of inventing the new business model.

Fve bucks an episode is, for example, more or less what you pay for an HBO show, if that's the only series you're watching on HBO.

Another thing I like about the idea of variable pricing is, it raises the value of well-made shows. I am not sure that you could sell episodes of THE AMAZING RACE for as much as you could sell LOST or GRAY'S ANATOMY. ROME got me to sign up for TMN (our HBO). And if I had to pay per episode for FRIDAY NIGHT LIGHTS, I would.

Per-episode pricing changes the medium. You won't have to worry about act outs, because once someone pays money for a show, they're likely to watch the whole thing; and if they don't, who cares? On the other hand it promotes serial shows: you want your audience shelling out for that season pass. A series like LAW & ORDER doesn't give you the strongest possible reason to watch the next episode over some other episode. LOST does.

A variable pricing model could also create economic efficiencies. You could sell a HEROES episode for $5 on the week it's released, then $3.50 the following week, and so on, till you get down to the Buck-a-Flix Cinema price. That gives the viewer options, and scoops up more money for the distributor. Why should I pay the same price for old LOST IN SPACE reruns and the next hour of MAD MEN? It's illogical, Captain.

So while I can understand Apple's point -- they want their pricing model simple, because Apple is all about simple. But NBC has an excellent point. I hope they get to try their experiment. We gotta figure out some way to pay for all these tv shows.

UPDATE: Tim W. makes the excellent point that people not only have the option not to buy an episode, or wait for the DVD, but also to download it illegally. So the online price really has to seem fair and reasonable. I'm happy to pay $25 for a season pass to MAD MEN -- and I did -- because I don't want to steal episodes via Bittorrent. But at $5 a pop, I might feel outraged enough to consider going through the hassle of pirating via torrentz.

Joost Exactly What Is Joost?

The Mad Pulp Bastard says that the Kung Fu Monkey commanded offhandedly suggested he sign up for Joost. This appears to be the latest in a very long line of Video On Demand (VOD) technologies. I remember talking to a programmer friend of mine who working on this back in the late 90's, and thinking, yeah, I've heard that before.

(I also remember talking to someone who was trying to invent a way to edit video on a personal computer. This was 1986 and a personal computer barely had enough RAM to render a single frame of NTSC. So you would have had to do it all with tape drives, and 60 seconds would have taken all night. Oh, and NTSC isn't digital, so you'd have generation loss. Sometimes the hardware just has to catch up.)

The idea is you can watch your TV shows on your computer when you want them, instead of when they happen to be on. Sort of like TiVo but without having to remember to record the thing; also, it seems to have ads, though I'm unclear on whether they make you watch them.

Oh, and, it's free. But you have to get an "invitation" from someone who already has it.

I wonder if this will catch on? More to the point, I wonder if the broadcast networks will dare put their content on Joost?

THE $100 CABLE BILL

Damn it, all the shows people are talking about are on specialty channels. Three Moons over Milford on ABC Family, It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia on FX, Brotherhood on Showtime. Everybody's got a tentpole show that demands you sign on. Meanwhile, on broadcast, there's the Battlestar refresher / clip show.

I have to choose between a $1200/year cable habit or stick with Zip.ca -- a mere $300/year mail-in DVD habit. (UPDATE: Though I finally had to terminate my membership.)

I would, on the other hand, happily pay a buck a show to watch what I want to watch. I just don't want to have to sign up for the Family Package solely to check out what happens when the Moon splits in three.

And I don't feel right pirating shows. I had the opportunity to watch Season Six of Sopranos pirated, but in the height of irony, I could not enjoy the experience. Somehow immorally watching horribly immoral people did not work for me. Go figure. Yet I had no real qualms watching a download of the show about the minister who has chats with Jesus. (Being as it was cancelled and all.)

Phooey.

WILL DOWNLOADING INCREASE VIEWERSHIP?

The conventional wisdom is that free downloading kills sales, whether of music, books or episodes. Some claim that downloading (piracy) has little effect because a lot of what people download they would not have paid for anyway, so there is no loss of a sale. This science fiction author shows that giving away free electronic copies of his books has actually boosted sales of his physical editions. He believes it's because people want a hardcopy edition, but they like to use the free e-text as a sampler to see if it's worth buying the book. The logic seems counterintuitive but the numbers are pretty clear.

Some readers have argued that so long as networks are willing to sell high-quality recordings of their episodes for a reasonable price (one or two bucks), people would much rather pay than steal. (After all, many people are paying $60+ a month for cable, which pays for a lot of appointment TV.) In this case, TV series "as we know it" won't have to change so much.

Via Webs.