Pay-Per-View Downloads of TV Shows? 446
An Extremely Anonymous Coward asks: "I've been thinking about the mass downloading of TV episodes. The TV companies appear to not be so desperate to sue people into bankruptcy for watching an illicit episode of _Friends_ or _The OC_. Does this mean they really are wondering about using this new media, rather then foaming at the mouth and suing twelve year olds? Will TV show production companies be the first to show some sense and offer their own downloads on a pay per view basis?"
"I'd be happy to pay a monthly subscription of around ten dollars, so I could get access to tv shows without being branded a criminal.Alternatively, I'd happily pay around a dollar a show, if the quality was good. The argument that this would give no incentive to buy the series DVD's can easily be dealt with, since the sales from downloads might easily replace the revenue from the DVD box sets, and there are some people (myself included) who'd still like the higher definition versions and box sets of a few shows.Adverts in the deal would change the amount per episode I'm willing to pay. Perhaps options like a free stream with unavoidable adverts, or a subscriber download with either very few, or no adverts, with price determining the amount of adverts included might help entice more users to use the service. A free stream of a popular show with adverts would probably stop most illegal downloaders, simply because their aim of watching the show would be achieved.
DRM is inevitable, which may be why it's taking so long for the executives in control of such things to pull their fingers out. The fact that it's essentially pointless doesn't seem to have stemmed their lust for it. I own lots of DVDs, and yet curiously I've never once had the urge to copy them, making their included anti-copy technology pointless. Also those who do want to copy them seem perfectly able to anyway, but that's another issue.
I find this delay in legal downloads of TV shows surprising, it seems to me that legal downloads of TV media could be the Internet's next gold-rush phenomena, but maybe that opinion isn't shared by many.
If any kind of service were offered I'd join it, even if only to encourage it. How much would other Slashdot readers be willing to pay? And on what sort of terms?"
Well... (Score:5, Interesting)
Think about it, you catch show #10 of '24' and realize "Hey, this show looks damn cool!". Now, if you could PPV rent the firs nine shows of the season that you missed - wouldn't you?
Allofmytv (Score:2, Interesting)
I think it would be great!
Re:Market Adjustment (Score:3, Interesting)
well... (Score:2, Interesting)
but i think the real key here is gonna be price point.
ed
Difficult TV business model (Score:5, Interesting)
Similarly, local networks get a specified amount of revenue from showing these shows. Take the distribution method out of the loop by allowing the end user to directly access the media content and you'd have some pissed off affiliates.
Furthermore, allowing off network viewing of a show would not only hurt a network's bottom line, but also its brand image. People know FOX is channel 7, or 11, but what channel is it when you're downloading from a website? Even if it is fox's website.
THIS should have been AOL's business model. (Score:5, Interesting)
And this is where AOL / Time Warner really missed the boat.
Can you imagine how many new AOL Broadband subscribers there would be if your $20 / month fee included the ability to watch all of the previous seasons Sopranos? or Carnivale?
More complete answer: (Score:3, Interesting)
You're not allowed to do that with a motion picture DVD you bought or rented.
In other words, they have very little to gain from going after people who are taping TV shows.
I would pay... (Score:2, Interesting)
$2... No, perhaps $3? Even $5 doesn't seem too steep.
$5 (per week/episode), to download the latest installment of my favourite show(s). Of course, it would have to be a fast download, HDTV plus 5.1 and <blink>*no* *effing* *DRM*</blink> .
Can pay-per-view really work? (Score:4, Interesting)
The stations make their main dollars from advertising by charging based on viewership. It does not really matter that people get up during the ads to get another beer/take a dump etc. Anything they can do to hike the viewership numbers is considered a GoodThing. If they can do this through counting downloads then they win.
Pay per view is a barrier to hiking the viewership numbers.
Re:I 3 bittorrent (Score:1, Interesting)
Get into a scene with a few like minded people and keep it real.
I moved from web based downloads into hubs years ago.
I share around 40gb of sci-fi content and series episodes, and have access to everything I could possibly want. Theres about 1000 of us on any normal day.
Because its a tight knit community and not publically listed, its a whole lot more secure than kazaa or even places like suprnova.
Downloads are fast, content is checked and validated before being shared, and in my particular favorite hubs, theres no porn (at all) and low tollerence of mp3s.
I've been there for coming on 4 years now and not one person (that we know of) has been sent a C&D or other threatening letter.
The only way this can be stopped is if my ISP starts monitoring traffic and punishing me there.
Re:Market Adjustment (Score:3, Interesting)
I admit to downloading some TV in the past, but it was mostly stuff I could have recorded, but forgot to. I can't count the times that the first few minutes of a Tivo'd show has been cut off...I don't think I've seen the first 3 minutes of an episode of Lost since I watched the pilot. Their customers want an on demand service. There's other options if you want to buy/rent a DVD, but there's plenty of people with setups using their computers. Why else would downloading shows be so popular?
I think they're worried about contributing to the files that are already floating around on p2p networks...but the p2p networks aren't going away. Apple's mp3 site is a good example of legal downloads that are bringing in profit.
/my long rambling post is over
I'd rather have them pay ME (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Kids These Days (Score:2, Interesting)
Video recorders were invented in the mid-70s. Tivo may be a nice usability enhancement, but the "freedom" to record and watch later has been around for decades.
There is a BIG difference between a VCR and a PVR. Sure, you have been able to archive a show for 30 years, but the big difference is that a PVR is random-access when a VCR isn't. I record mediochre shows with my PVR and I may or may-not watch them. But, I always have something to watch, accessiable by my remote.
When you are recording on video-cassette, you can either put a bunch of episodes on one tape, which is inconvenient to watch, or you can put each episode on a different tape, which is inconvenient to store.
I would definatly be willing to pay a reasonable fee to watch all my TV on demand. I would even pay more to get a copy without commercials too. The TV industry would need a major paradigm shift though, to go from an advertising based revenue model to a pay based revenue model.
"The right thing" ? (Score:1, Interesting)
You must realize that there are REASONS behind everything these organizations do. DRM doesn't stand for Dasodfi Rwo9w Maiaioso...it stands for Digital Rights Management, and these companies DO have a right to choosing what to do with their own content.
And "the right thing" from our point of view is NOT always the right thing from industry's point of view. What's economically good for us is not necessarily beneficial to them...we need to realize this.
Re:THIS should have been AOL's business model. (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Difficult TV business model (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:Market Adjustment (Score:4, Interesting)
It will take off when it's free. TiVo and the like are giving advertisers fits. But if they could let you D/L the show/get a free DVD of it at the grocery checkout counter with non deletable/no fast forward allowed commercials intact, it may prove to be even more profitable than broadcasting to millions of people.
Besides the movie chanels, about the only thing I watch on TV is the Food Network and Speed channel. What's an advertiser's cost per viewer to air a single ad on either of those shows? Would it be more profitable for them to buy time on a DVD of "Barbecue with Bobby Flay" that was free with a bag of groceries at the local upscale grocery store? A copy of "The Ferrari Story" DVD free with any $10 purchase at the auto parts store?
Now instead of broadcasting to people who just happened to tune in cause nothing else was on, they're targeting people very likely to be interested in their product.
These guys will eventually catch on to new media: it's either that or die, and they'll die hard.
No major market (Score:2, Interesting)
Is it Piracy (Score:2, Interesting)
Is it piracy if I am paying for the cable channels the show is broadcast on and I record it to watch when it's more convenient and I can fast forward through commercials? The Betamax decision says no (for the moment anyways).
So why is there anything illegal about me getting a copy of a broadcast I already paid for from someone else?
It's just time shifting. It think that thier panties are in a twist over situations like a UK viewer downloading '24' *before* it's broadcast over there (alternatly, the new 'Battlestar Galactica' series released in the UK first, downloaded by N.Americans before US broadcast).
Someone needs to wake up to the fact that there is demand for these shows and that regional distribution is not a viable containment method anymore. The people want to see it and are going to get it one way or another. Might as well make it widely available.
My ISP is the cable company. I'd gladly pay a fee if they would buffer, say, a month of broadcast on a 'groupTivo (tm)' that I could access at my convenince. Pay for what you view, watch alot pay more. Watch a little, pay a little. Watch alot, pay more.
Just my rant
Some companies care (Score:2, Interesting)
I was never sued, but I always fear that it will come back to bite me.
Re:Market Adjustment (Score:2, Interesting)
"MOST" (Score:4, Interesting)
That'd be 18 episode average times $2/episode or $36/year for a given show. Somewhat less than they'd make on a DVD box set, but that's assuming I wouldn't end up buying that anyhow. Furthermore, that $36 has very low distribution costs, especially if the download software incorporates some P2P technology.
Now, Like I said, maybe 10 shows at $36/show. So $360/year. I'm paying roughly $80/month for comshlock cable, so that's $960/year. So I could double the number of shows I watch and still save a huge amount of money. Furthermore, all that money that Comcast would normally get would go right to the production studios who actually make the stuff.
Now, think about it, if everybody was going out and selectively buying TV shows, they'd actually have to be good to compete for money. Why go download that one episode that's nothing but cuts from previous episodes. Give that new reality show a try and if it doesn't pique your interest after a few episodes, just stop downloading it.
Now, broadcasters have to think in terms of, ratings, which means getting either a large audience, or a very well defined niche. One thing that hurts enterprise is that it's a pretty broad audience, but not a big one. If you got all the trekkies to pay $2/episode, that would solve that problem nicely.
The other nice thing is that this opens up the possibility for small independent producers to make small and more creative shows. You have to be able to guarantee delivery of a fairly large audience to cost justify making a television show. That's why reality TV is so popular, it gets good ratings and it's cheap to produce. But if you could make a 12 episode television show for say $120K, or $10K/episode, then if you get 5000 people interested, you at least broke even. Plus, if you aren't sure about the appeal, you can do a pilot, and give it away to see how it goes.
Apple could do it. (Score:2, Interesting)
As the iPod funds the iTunes Music Store, though, they would need something to fund it (ie a product that buying tv shows through them would encourage you to buy). Could be a iPod video, but I doubt it. More likely a MacMini-type "entertainment box" that hooks up to your TV. Products like this have never taken off before, just like mp3 players never took off until iTunes/iPod; people need a reason to buy a new paradigm of technology.
I see it like this. Apple launches iTunes Video Store and the iBox home entertainment center at the same time. At first, the iBox sales are sucky, but people start downloading episodes from iTunes (easier than finding pirated versions). Then people want an easy way to watch these series' on their 90-inch plasmatic television, and iBox sales take off.
And people like me, without a TV, would be happy to pay the occasional few dollars for a TV show to watch...
Re:$5? try $0.50 per hour (Score:3, Interesting)
The only problem would be that I'd have to pay a lawyer to sue anybody who put the files on Kazaa, or else I'd almost certainly never be able to get people to actually pay for it. I haven't been able to think of a good solution, except for trying to find advertising sponsors, and working them into the productions, so that you can't just skip over the ads. (I.E. The hero would save the day with the sponsor's product, or the bad guy would try to kill people with the competitor's product.)
But, since the distribution would be on the internet, most likely, no local businesses would be interested in advertising. (No guarantee that more than a handful of people in the same state would watch, and all the people in latvia wouldn't care that Bob's has the cheapest stuff in Denver.)
But, being a small independent production, a company that is international, and would be interested in reaching people all over the internet like Coca Cola would probably not be interested in targeting a few thousand geeky downloaders on the internet.
So, anybody have any good ideas for how to do an independent Internet distributed series without DRM?
Re:Never Happen (Score:3, Interesting)
First, awesomely thoughtful, insightful, and informative post.
I can see how the cost might not be $1.00 per show, but shouldn't it be less than or equal to to the $4.00 or $5.00 Blockbuster charges for a movie rental?
Also, wouldn't it be possible for a new series to be developed that bypasses the studio altogether? What would prevent Bad Robot (production house behind Alias and Lost) from maintaining the production rights and distributing via Tivo or DirectTV without going through one of the traditional networks? Networks were great when you needed a transmitter in each market in order to broadcast your programming, but it seems that technology has evolved such that traditional networks *could* be made irrelevant.
Enterprise (Score:2, Interesting)
What with the new ST:Ent Challenge [trekunited.com] with the fans essentially paying for the production of a new season. This allows the broadcasters to provide the content without requiring prime-time advertising. Easily allowing the episodes to be made available online.
The only problem I would imagine is the actors royalty payments which DRM (god forbid) or a subscription based system could account for.
I am massively in favour of funding even $50 for the ability to fund a new season and be able to download it when I want to view it.
Hopefully Paramount will look into this option if they go ahead with ST:Ent S5!
Re:"MOST" - How to find new shows. (Score:3, Interesting)
Very good point.
Tivo has a "showcases" feature where their "partners" could (pay to) set up their own listings of what they are showing. They also have a "Tivo" showcase which lists things across the board in different categories. When I first got my Tivo some 5+ years ago, I thought these were useless. However soon after I got my Tivo I completely stopped watching live TV and skipped commercials in recordings and so a few years later I realized that I have never heard of many of the shows that started after I got my tivo. If I did not read about it on internet or was told about it by a friend, the show did not exist. And then I re-discovered the Tivo showcase - specifically the section listing new shows. Every once in a while (especially right before season starts) I would go there and look through what is coming up. If something catches my eye, I will record a few episodes, if I like it - then I "season pass" it. Simple and very effective.
Something like this is easy to implement and free to download previews or pilots can make it even easier. And as long as you put the viewer in charge of choosing what and when to see, Adverts for new shows may not be a bad thing.
Then there is always review sites, magazines, etc.
-Em
Forget Pay Per View - Do Pay Per Production (Score:2, Interesting)
I propose a comission model.
First some background info on TV production in the USA:
Add all that up and you have an industry that is much like cinema - they need that 1 in 10 or 1 in 20 mega-hit just to break even on all the money losing shows. This fact is probably the biggest reason you see networks cancel promising shows after less than one season without giving them a chance to "find their niche."
So, if a production company could be guaranteed a reasonable (say 10-20%) profit immediately upon release of each episode, that would be a huge change in the way hollywood does business. It would allow more niche programming, one might even say more intelligent programming because the need to pander to the lowest common denominator in order to appeal to the largest possible audience would be gone. All you need to do is keep enough of an audience to proftiably fund the next episode.
But, how do you guarantee a profit on each episode? Commission.
Just as the net makes it easy for the pirates to share a show with thousands and even millions of their best friends on the net, so to can the net bring together millions of people to hire the production company to produce each episode.
Let's take Star Trek Enterprise as an example again. Look at the price on DVD for one season of Star Trek Voyager - MSRP is $140 and street is no better than $90. I'm going to guess and say there are 22 episodes per season - that's over $4 per episode. Viewership numbers for first run episodes of Enterprise in the USA are in the 3 million range - that ignores viewers in other countries and during any second showings (if there are any) later in the week.
For the sake of argument, let us say every one of those 3M viewers were to pony up an average of $1.50 per episode. That would produce $4.5M - enough to pay for $4M in production costs with ~13% return on investment in less than a month. In return, the people who paid for the production of the show would now own it - since there are so many owners, it is simpler to just make it public domain and not worry any more about the ownership details - we would all own it.
There are a couple of secondary benefits of releasing it to the public domain -- for both the production company and for society at large:
Re:Market Adjustment (Score:4, Interesting)
I'm not sure if I'd want to pay even $1 an episode. I could go to a local theater tonight and spend $2 on a ticket to see any of Being Julia, Fat Albert, Incredibles, Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events, Ocean's Twelve, Polar Express, Ray, SpongeBob SquarePants Movie, or White Noise, all of which have twice the runtime of current "hour-long" dramas (except possibly SpongeBob at 85 minutes). Tomorrow brings in Elektra and Meet the Fockers.
I certainly wouldn't pay $1/episode for a half-hour sitcom. Not unless I get to retain it, play it back whenever I want however many times I want, and make backups and other fair uses of the content.
They are exersizing caution (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Market Adjustment (Score:2, Interesting)
Prices for 1/2 hour sitcoms are generally a bit more than $1/episode
For example, prices from amazon:
The Simpsons Season 5 - $32.50 - $1.61/episode
The Simpsons Season 4 - $37.50 - $1.70/episode
Friends Season 9 - $30 - $1.30/episode
Easy (Score:3, Interesting)
Another possibility would be to do trailers like they do at the movies. I mean throw two minutes worth of ads for other shows before my program starts. Honestly the only ads I don't skip now are ads for other programming.
They can advertise on the Internet. They can release their shows to critics, and we can use them to measure whether they are good.
Honestly, I don't find good TV by skimming what's out there. I see ads for them when watching shows I already watch. I hear about them from friends or on the net. I'm fairly certain I found out about Battlestar Galactica on Slashdot and that's one of my favorite shows now.
Another possibility I could see would be an HBO like model. You could pay a monthly fee to get all of SciFi's shows for example. You could download however much you wanted whenever you wanted. Essentially allow me to do my television a la carte rather than getting a bunch of channels I'd never watch (FoxNews, for example