5 ms·

Folks do not want to pay the amount commercial free TV would cost. Full stop. If the "investment money" ever stops supporting youtube/hulu/(insert profitless

Folks do not want to pay the amount commercial free TV would cost. Full stop. If the "investment money" ever stops supporting youtube/hulu/(insert profitless service here), then goodbye web substitute. Even The Daily Show has gone into full annoyance mode lately.

rhizome 15y ago
Folks are already paying the amount that commercial-free TV would cost, but the money is eaten up by ESPN's multi-channel presence in basic-cable packages. Yes, your cable dollars subsidize ESPN.
- jpdoctor 15y ago
  > Folks are already paying the amount that commercial-free TV would cost Not even close. Take the entire amount of advertising $$ spent on TV ($100B+) and divide by the folks watching. That is the money that people would have to shell out one way or another.
  - rhizome 15y ago
    By my top-of-head calculations: $100B advertising / ~160MM households = $625/household/year, or about $50/mo. You're right, I wasn't even close. I was way over.
    - jpdoctor 15y ago
      I said people watching. You chose to interpret that as households/year. Good luck.
      - rhizome 15y ago
        99% of households have a TV, and that number is probably from the 2000 census. What numbers do you think are more accurate?
  - hythloday 15y ago
    Eh, do you have a citation for it being $100B or more a year? I can only find figures for about $60B: http://articles.businessinsider.com/2011-07-07/tech/30048336_1_ad-spending-online-advertising-ad-business http://articles.businessinsider.com/2011-07-07/tech/30048336... (The UK's is about $2.5B, despite it having around 20% of the US's population. Quite a stark difference.)
    - brigade 15y ago
      Another question is what percentage of that $60B actually funds TV content and how much is spent on producing ads and other advertising-specific overhead that would presumably vanish if we payed for completely ad-free TV.
      - rhizome 15y ago
        Here's an article that describes a $77.5B TV advertising market in 2008: http://www.adweek.com/news/advertising-branding/can-google-crack-tv-ad-market-96740 http://www.adweek.com/news/advertising-branding/can-google-c... Here we see a 750MM subscriber base in the US: http://www.bgr.com/2011/05/19/internet-and-telco-tv-eat-away-at-cable-tv-market-share/ http://www.bgr.com/2011/05/19/internet-and-telco-tv-eat-away... So, that's what, ~$100 per subscriber...PER YEAR, to compensate for zero commercials? I hope my math is wrong!
        hythloday 15y ago
        I have a feeling I'm being terrifically dim, but how can there be a 750 million subscriber base in the US?
        rhizome 15y ago
        That is a good point! Old numbers of ~160MM households as below, with 58% subscribing to basic cable[1], gives us ~93MM 77.5B / 93MM = $833/yr, or $70/mo. [1]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cable_television_in_the_United_States http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cable_television_in_the_United_...
fluidcruft 15y ago
tvbythenumbers had a link to an analysis somewhere about a year ago (sorry for no source, I was interested but not interested enough to bookmark it or email it to anyone--I think it was adweek) that concluded that in aggregate advertisers pay something like $25/month per viewer.
gibybo 15y ago
Netflix is quite profitable without commercials.

rhizome 15y ago

Folks are already paying the amount that commercial-free TV would cost, but the money is eaten up by ESPN's multi-channel presence in basic-cable packages. Yes, your cable dollars subsidize ESPN.

jpdoctor 15y ago
> Folks are already paying the amount that commercial-free TV would cost Not even close. Take the entire amount of advertising $$ spent on TV ($100B+) and divide by the folks watching. That is the money that people would have to shell out one way or another.
- rhizome 15y ago
  By my top-of-head calculations: $100B advertising / ~160MM households = $625/household/year, or about $50/mo. You're right, I wasn't even close. I was way over.
  - jpdoctor 15y ago
    I said people watching. You chose to interpret that as households/year. Good luck.
    - rhizome 15y ago
      99% of households have a TV, and that number is probably from the 2000 census. What numbers do you think are more accurate?
- hythloday 15y ago
  Eh, do you have a citation for it being $100B or more a year? I can only find figures for about $60B: http://articles.businessinsider.com/2011-07-07/tech/30048336_1_ad-spending-online-advertising-ad-business http://articles.businessinsider.com/2011-07-07/tech/30048336... (The UK's is about $2.5B, despite it having around 20% of the US's population. Quite a stark difference.)
  - brigade 15y ago
    Another question is what percentage of that $60B actually funds TV content and how much is spent on producing ads and other advertising-specific overhead that would presumably vanish if we payed for completely ad-free TV.
    - rhizome 15y ago
      Here's an article that describes a $77.5B TV advertising market in 2008: http://www.adweek.com/news/advertising-branding/can-google-crack-tv-ad-market-96740 http://www.adweek.com/news/advertising-branding/can-google-c... Here we see a 750MM subscriber base in the US: http://www.bgr.com/2011/05/19/internet-and-telco-tv-eat-away-at-cable-tv-market-share/ http://www.bgr.com/2011/05/19/internet-and-telco-tv-eat-away... So, that's what, ~$100 per subscriber...PER YEAR, to compensate for zero commercials? I hope my math is wrong!
      - hythloday 15y ago
        I have a feeling I'm being terrifically dim, but how can there be a 750 million subscriber base in the US?
        rhizome 15y ago
        That is a good point! Old numbers of ~160MM households as below, with 58% subscribing to basic cable[1], gives us ~93MM 77.5B / 93MM = $833/yr, or $70/mo. [1]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cable_television_in_the_United_States http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cable_television_in_the_United_...

fluidcruft 15y ago

tvbythenumbers had a link to an analysis somewhere about a year ago (sorry for no source, I was interested but not interested enough to bookmark it or email it to anyone--I think it was adweek) that concluded that in aggregate advertisers pay something like $25/month per viewer.

gibybo 15y ago

Netflix is quite profitable without commercials.