4 ms·

What happens if TV goes the way of music and newspapers?

32 points by Jaigus 14y ago

pixie_ 14y ago
I'd say, "don't let the door hit you on the way out."
IheartApplesDix 14y ago
The same content will be pretty much available on the web in some places. Take a look at the daily show.com, It's almost a carbon copy of the broadcast version complete with five minutes of commercials between sections. Networks will take advantage of the web audience when it's financially feasible. Comedy Central has a young audience so it makes sense for them to embrace the web earlier.
rdtsc 14y ago
We mostly use Netflix and Youtube for things we watch. I don't remember last time I wanted to see something (a show, a move) and then followed through and watched something on TV. Of course I don't look for it and I don't know what is playing. And I don't know what is playing because I don't watch TV to begin with. Also, Netflix has trained me to not be able to stand commercials. When I am at a relative's house or catch a glimpse of TV in the background, commercials stand out like a sore thumb and irritate the heck out of me.
- goostavos 14y ago
  I completely agree about the commercials. I watched all of the available seasons of breaking bad on netflix. When the new season started, I was super excited, and didn't want to wait the 24 it takes to show up online. So, I watched the first episode of the season at my girlfriends house on her TV, and... It was awful! I couldn't get past the interruptions -- and by the way, I thought they passed a law that required commercials to not be 105db louder than the tv shows, no? I digress.. It's an absolutely terrible way to watch a dramatic series. I could only stomach that first episode. For all the rest, I just waited till they popped up on amazon and paid the $2 so I could watch them without interruptions.
rabidsnail 14y ago
Cheaper does not mean lower quality. [Insert snide comment about 24 or Downton Abbey here]
- maxmcd 14y ago
  Maybe not I'm every instance, but I think it's easy to assume that lower overall budgets lead to lower overall quality.
  - mistercow 14y ago
    Technology has greatly reduced the cost of filming. If you look on YouTube, you'll see that tiny budgets allow for production values well above typical network television even ten years ago. TV and movies may die by the sword of technological changes, but they also get to live by it.
  - rabidsnail 14y ago
    Lower overall budgets lead to less spectacle. Personally I'm not that interested in spectacle.
  - InclinedPlane 14y ago
    Production quality and artistic quality are not the same things. Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon was a low budget film, for example. It's budget was about 9% of the budget of Waterworld.
aufreak3 14y ago
"So now, ESPN Watcher, the price you have to pay to watch the same network you love has to cover all those lost homes and all that lost advertising." That's assuming no alternative revenue streams in the "TV is dead" world are worked out. Failure of imagination?
- IheartApplesDix 14y ago
  Artificial crisis. On digital networks they can control the content even more. if they can't make even more money then they are just not trying.
- briffle 14y ago
  Exactly.. Ads could be much more tailored or personalized to the individual. When your blasting out the same commercial to 60 million homes, you have to be bland, and generic, and figure a large percentage won't be watching, or not in your target demographic.. If you can only show your commercial to people you are actively trying to target, you would pay much more per impression for that ability.
EricDeb 14y ago
Is it possible ESPN will just make less money? The article assumes ESPN will charge an individual subscription rate such that it will make the same revenue as it would via cable bundles. If TV is like music or newspapers, it's entirely possible ESPN or similar cable channels will just make less money.
- billirvine 14y ago
  "Just make less money." How many YC startups would accept that compromise? The legacy of the massive broadcast entertainment ecosystem will take some time yet to unravel, but will do so quite quickly when it happens. Then there will be a void for more agile content creators to step in. Until that void appears, expect pain and horror.
- prostoalex 14y ago
  You're spot on. What are ESPN's expenses? It's the royalties it shells out for the rights to broadcast specific events and leagues. They will have a better leverage now against NFLs and NBAs of the world, who would have to accept lower rates, passing the savings onto consumers.
  - waterlesscloud 14y ago
    It's not just the royalties, the cost of the production itself is significant. I suspect you would lose a lot of the smaller events that simply would no longer be cost efficient.
    - seanalltogether 14y ago
      I would disagree. In a world where all sports broadcasting goes through the net, someone will be willing to watch smaller venue games, which means someone will find a way to broadcast it.
      - waterlesscloud 14y ago
        I suppose. At the level of high school football on public access cable, maybe. Single camera, single commentator, one devoted to the team. That has a certain appeal, I guess.
skennedy 14y ago
Sites like Hulu and Netflix generate money from content that has already been created. The budget was found to create the initial content and publishing sites like these create residual income from targeted advertising. Great. The content providers know the direction things are heading and probably know $20-30 a month for one channel from each subscriber is a tough pitch. So what's the ingenious model to offset the loss of big money cable television advertisements?
- pyre 14y ago
  Why does it have to be a channel? For example, why can't I pay $30 for the next season of Game of Thrones, and get episodes as they come out? Sure, it's different from a monthly subscription, because I'm paying for 10 ~ 12 weeks of content (1 ep/week), but it seems like there's a model there somewhere.
richardjordan 14y ago
This is quite simply nonsense. Will the cost of channels rise for some of the reasons he says, sure. But one of three things will happen: a) total spend/investment (in aggregate of time and surplus attention arbitraged to ads) across ALL channels will rise - this will hit us all in the pockets, but also raise the overall budget for content production... this doesn't lead to his conclusions. b) total spend and therefore the same amount will be available as is available now for content c) total spend will go down. This might superficially appear to support his conclusions but it doesn't if you think about it. If ESPN rises but other things fall in price and I lose a few things I virtually never watch, and my overall bill is lower - which it will be on average if the total spend is down - then I don't CARE that ESPN is $20 per month instead of $5. What will happen is called a market! We'll have a marketplace for content. There will be a certain amount that people are prepared to spend on content, and how much surplus attention they're prepared to pay for ads which will subsidize content. The allocation of these resources will be made more efficient by a more efficient market dynamic. We'll invest more in things we value, less in things we don't. So the BBC and NFL Network will make money out of me for Dr. Who and the football season. But I'll no longer be squandering monthly bills in shit I never watch. Plus as content moves to apps on TV the playing field is leveled for independent producers to rise up and the barriers to entry will be much lower than they are today for a show to garner - or KEEP - an audience and revenue stream large enough to sustain it. Imagine if Firefly had been able to say: Fox has bailed on us, but if we can get a million of you to pay just $20 a year we can keep it on the air and send you a copy of the season on DVD after it's over... or something to that effect. This article is garbage. It's amazing how much ink old media dedicates - even on their new media sites - to trying to argue against the inevitable changes ahead. Perversely it also highlights why old media doesn't have some natural right to survive and have us all protect it against this onslaught. Their content is often mediocre, like this. (And yes I know the Atlantic has a ton of great content, that's not the point.)
- richardjordan 14y ago
  The real problem that is skewing his thinking, that he's misdiagnosing IMHO is content fragmentation - huge numbers of options necessarily diluting spend/quality. But that's a trend the same networks, cable companies and content producers crying foul today have initiated and continued. They made this bed. Lie in it and quit complaining.
dm8 14y ago
His blog shows an image of shot from The Big Bang Theory. TBBT has done excellent job for on-demand content. The minute their weekly show ends, they post that video on their website (http://www.cbs.com/shows/big_bang_theory/ http://www.cbs.com/shows/big_bang_theory/) for week. I haven't watched a single episode on TV since they started doing this. It's currently free and supported by pre-roll video advertising. I don't mind ads as I'm getting content on-demand and free. I don't buy that TV is going to be dead. I'd love to watch TV along with my family in our living room. However, I also want flexibility that on-demand offers. I'm sure TBBT is getting lot of money with this experiment. The question about Netflix is complicated one and I hope author goes into unit economics in his future column. I also agree, at the current rates (for netflix subscription), it will be hard for Netflix to show latest on-demand content. I imagine we will have premium fees for such feature.
codeka 14y ago
"If the universe changes and they [viewers] want us to bring the content directly to them, then we can." What does he mean if the universe changes? I'm also not entirely sure that people would continue subscribing to "ESPN" in this new world. More likely, you'd subscribe to individual sports or sporting events. Similarly, I don't think you'd be subscribing to "CBS", you'd be subscribing The Big Bang Theory, or whatever individual show you're actually interested in. To be honest, though, I don't think he really means what he says there. They're going to fight tooth and nail to keep the status quo.
- robryan 14y ago
  I think they mean that the majority of their current audience wouldn't pay for the content in a per channel or per show way. Basically the same stuff that comes up with Game of Thrones, for HBO the traditional model is still bringing in more money than would be made adding the per show subscription model.
elpool2 14y ago
"And that's before we get into paying the cost of delivering the video in high quality to your HDTV or iPad, since it's hardly cheap to house and stream hi-def to tens of millions of homes". Except it IS cheap to distribute content on the Internet. Shows are already being distributed to millions of homes without costing the content owners a dime (It's just currently being done illegally using bit-torrent).
- InclinedPlane 14y ago
  1080p, 10hr limit per video, youtube.
mistercow 14y ago
This analysis completely ignores the fact that producing a TV show is (or should be) far, far cheaper than it used to be.
- seanalltogether 14y ago
  Once the monopoly over distribution is broken, I suspect the unions down the chain will be broken as well leading to lower overall cost. Marketing is usually a different story however.
prostoalex 14y ago
If only there existed some channels not subsidized by cable industry to give us a clearer picture of what's possible. If only those channels existed as for-profit enterprises in the US. If only they charged subscribers and covered the costs of productions through paid television and merchandise sales. If only their costs also included the cost of HD streaming, maybe they would name such venture with channel name + the word "Go" to drive a point that it's available to subscribers on the go. But alas, outside of HBO, Starz, Cinemax, Showtime and The Movie Channel none come to mind, so let's engage in theoretical discussions.
- mayneack 14y ago
  What about TYT [1] ? It's not exactly what you're describing, but it's close. They have a live Free broadcast every day, then put clips on YouTube and offer no-drm downloads of the video or just audio for a monthly subscription fee. They've been doing this for many years and I have recently been big enough to get a tv show too. 1 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Young_Turks http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Young_Turks
rorrr 14y ago
This article makes no sense. I predict 1) TV will merge into the internet 2) Channels will go away, and there will be individual shows/event broadcasts that the viewers will choose to pay for. 3) There will be bundled packages of the best shows. 4) Most profits will go to the people who produce the shows, unlike now. You can actually see it in action right now - look at the top Youtube channels (which should really be called "shows"), and multiply by $2 per 1000 video views. http://socialblade.com/youtube/top/500 http://socialblade.com/youtube/top/500
jtoeman 14y ago
file under: yet another piece about "the future of TV" as written by someone from the outside looking in. it's quite a different world from the other side...
InclinedPlane 14y ago
It's when not if. This is the same old romantization of the status quo that always occurs. Is TV really so fantastic today? For every gem that manages to squeek its way through the byzantine television production system there are a thousand bombs. Most television is horrific. Badly written. Badly premised. Badly executed. Badly acted. Bad. Being cut loose from a ready stream of massive advertising revenue will affect some of the production values of video content, certainly, but will that be such a bad thing? Modern television is a product of committee and bureaucracy. And it shows. Bowdlerization is commonplace. Mediocrity is the norm. A more democritized, more guerilla, more individual "television" landscape offers the possibility of raising the medium to a true art form. Movies have been around for over a century, television for half that, but both mediums still have trouble grappling with serious subjects. Consider the fundamental difference in gravitas between an emmy, an oscar, and a pulitzer or nobel prize in literature. Why is that? I would contend that it's because up until now creating a movie or a tv show has been inhibited by being beholden to commercial interests and established publishing powers. Perhaps the brave new world of more individualized video production will result in a revitalization of that medium.

32 points by Jaigus 14y ago

I'd say, "don't let the door hit you on the way out."

The same content will be pretty much available on the web in some places. Take a look at the daily show.com, It's almost a carbon copy of the broadcast version complete with five minutes of commercials between sections. Networks will take advantage of the web audience when it's financially feasible. Comedy Central has a young audience so it makes sense for them to embrace the web earlier.

rdtsc 14y ago

We mostly use Netflix and Youtube for things we watch. I don't remember last time I wanted to see something (a show, a move) and then followed through and watched something on TV. Of course I don't look for it and I don't know what is playing. And I don't know what is playing because I don't watch TV to begin with. Also, Netflix has trained me to not be able to stand commercials. When I am at a relative's house or catch a glimpse of TV in the background, commercials stand out like a sore thumb and irritate the heck out of me.

goostavos 14y ago
I completely agree about the commercials. I watched all of the available seasons of breaking bad on netflix. When the new season started, I was super excited, and didn't want to wait the 24 it takes to show up online. So, I watched the first episode of the season at my girlfriends house on her TV, and... It was awful! I couldn't get past the interruptions -- and by the way, I thought they passed a law that required commercials to not be 105db louder than the tv shows, no? I digress.. It's an absolutely terrible way to watch a dramatic series. I could only stomach that first episode. For all the rest, I just waited till they popped up on amazon and paid the $2 so I could watch them without interruptions.

rabidsnail 14y ago

Cheaper does not mean lower quality. [Insert snide comment about 24 or Downton Abbey here]

maxmcd 14y ago
Maybe not I'm every instance, but I think it's easy to assume that lower overall budgets lead to lower overall quality.
- mistercow 14y ago
  Technology has greatly reduced the cost of filming. If you look on YouTube, you'll see that tiny budgets allow for production values well above typical network television even ten years ago. TV and movies may die by the sword of technological changes, but they also get to live by it.
- rabidsnail 14y ago
  Lower overall budgets lead to less spectacle. Personally I'm not that interested in spectacle.
- InclinedPlane 14y ago
  Production quality and artistic quality are not the same things. Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon was a low budget film, for example. It's budget was about 9% of the budget of Waterworld.

aufreak3 14y ago

"So now, ESPN Watcher, the price you have to pay to watch the same network you love has to cover all those lost homes and all that lost advertising." That's assuming no alternative revenue streams in the "TV is dead" world are worked out. Failure of imagination?

IheartApplesDix 14y ago
Artificial crisis. On digital networks they can control the content even more. if they can't make even more money then they are just not trying.
briffle 14y ago
Exactly.. Ads could be much more tailored or personalized to the individual. When your blasting out the same commercial to 60 million homes, you have to be bland, and generic, and figure a large percentage won't be watching, or not in your target demographic.. If you can only show your commercial to people you are actively trying to target, you would pay much more per impression for that ability.

EricDeb 14y ago

Is it possible ESPN will just make less money? The article assumes ESPN will charge an individual subscription rate such that it will make the same revenue as it would via cable bundles. If TV is like music or newspapers, it's entirely possible ESPN or similar cable channels will just make less money.

billirvine 14y ago
"Just make less money." How many YC startups would accept that compromise? The legacy of the massive broadcast entertainment ecosystem will take some time yet to unravel, but will do so quite quickly when it happens. Then there will be a void for more agile content creators to step in. Until that void appears, expect pain and horror.
prostoalex 14y ago
You're spot on. What are ESPN's expenses? It's the royalties it shells out for the rights to broadcast specific events and leagues. They will have a better leverage now against NFLs and NBAs of the world, who would have to accept lower rates, passing the savings onto consumers.
- waterlesscloud 14y ago
  It's not just the royalties, the cost of the production itself is significant. I suspect you would lose a lot of the smaller events that simply would no longer be cost efficient.
  - seanalltogether 14y ago
    I would disagree. In a world where all sports broadcasting goes through the net, someone will be willing to watch smaller venue games, which means someone will find a way to broadcast it.
    - waterlesscloud 14y ago
      I suppose. At the level of high school football on public access cable, maybe. Single camera, single commentator, one devoted to the team. That has a certain appeal, I guess.

skennedy 14y ago

Sites like Hulu and Netflix generate money from content that has already been created. The budget was found to create the initial content and publishing sites like these create residual income from targeted advertising. Great. The content providers know the direction things are heading and probably know $20-30 a month for one channel from each subscriber is a tough pitch. So what's the ingenious model to offset the loss of big money cable television advertisements?

pyre 14y ago
Why does it have to be a channel? For example, why can't I pay $30 for the next season of Game of Thrones, and get episodes as they come out? Sure, it's different from a monthly subscription, because I'm paying for 10 ~ 12 weeks of content (1 ep/week), but it seems like there's a model there somewhere.

richardjordan 14y ago

This is quite simply nonsense. Will the cost of channels rise for some of the reasons he says, sure. But one of three things will happen: a) total spend/investment (in aggregate of time and surplus attention arbitraged to ads) across ALL channels will rise - this will hit us all in the pockets, but also raise the overall budget for content production... this doesn't lead to his conclusions. b) total spend and therefore the same amount will be available as is available now for content c) total spend will go down. This might superficially appear to support his conclusions but it doesn't if you think about it. If ESPN rises but other things fall in price and I lose a few things I virtually never watch, and my overall bill is lower - which it will be on average if the total spend is down - then I don't CARE that ESPN is $20 per month instead of $5. What will happen is called a market! We'll have a marketplace for content. There will be a certain amount that people are prepared to spend on content, and how much surplus attention they're prepared to pay for ads which will subsidize content. The allocation of these resources will be made more efficient by a more efficient market dynamic. We'll invest more in things we value, less in things we don't. So the BBC and NFL Network will make money out of me for Dr. Who and the football season. But I'll no longer be squandering monthly bills in shit I never watch. Plus as content moves to apps on TV the playing field is leveled for independent producers to rise up and the barriers to entry will be much lower than they are today for a show to garner - or KEEP - an audience and revenue stream large enough to sustain it. Imagine if Firefly had been able to say: Fox has bailed on us, but if we can get a million of you to pay just $20 a year we can keep it on the air and send you a copy of the season on DVD after it's over... or something to that effect. This article is garbage. It's amazing how much ink old media dedicates - even on their new media sites - to trying to argue against the inevitable changes ahead. Perversely it also highlights why old media doesn't have some natural right to survive and have us all protect it against this onslaught. Their content is often mediocre, like this. (And yes I know the Atlantic has a ton of great content, that's not the point.)

richardjordan 14y ago
The real problem that is skewing his thinking, that he's misdiagnosing IMHO is content fragmentation - huge numbers of options necessarily diluting spend/quality. But that's a trend the same networks, cable companies and content producers crying foul today have initiated and continued. They made this bed. Lie in it and quit complaining.

dm8 14y ago

His blog shows an image of shot from The Big Bang Theory. TBBT has done excellent job for on-demand content. The minute their weekly show ends, they post that video on their website (http://www.cbs.com/shows/big_bang_theory/ http://www.cbs.com/shows/big_bang_theory/) for week. I haven't watched a single episode on TV since they started doing this. It's currently free and supported by pre-roll video advertising. I don't mind ads as I'm getting content on-demand and free. I don't buy that TV is going to be dead. I'd love to watch TV along with my family in our living room. However, I also want flexibility that on-demand offers. I'm sure TBBT is getting lot of money with this experiment. The question about Netflix is complicated one and I hope author goes into unit economics in his future column. I also agree, at the current rates (for netflix subscription), it will be hard for Netflix to show latest on-demand content. I imagine we will have premium fees for such feature.

codeka 14y ago

"If the universe changes and they [viewers] want us to bring the content directly to them, then we can." What does he mean if the universe changes? I'm also not entirely sure that people would continue subscribing to "ESPN" in this new world. More likely, you'd subscribe to individual sports or sporting events. Similarly, I don't think you'd be subscribing to "CBS", you'd be subscribing The Big Bang Theory, or whatever individual show you're actually interested in. To be honest, though, I don't think he really means what he says there. They're going to fight tooth and nail to keep the status quo.

robryan 14y ago
I think they mean that the majority of their current audience wouldn't pay for the content in a per channel or per show way. Basically the same stuff that comes up with Game of Thrones, for HBO the traditional model is still bringing in more money than would be made adding the per show subscription model.

elpool2 14y ago

"And that's before we get into paying the cost of delivering the video in high quality to your HDTV or iPad, since it's hardly cheap to house and stream hi-def to tens of millions of homes". Except it IS cheap to distribute content on the Internet. Shows are already being distributed to millions of homes without costing the content owners a dime (It's just currently being done illegally using bit-torrent).

InclinedPlane 14y ago
1080p, 10hr limit per video, youtube.

mistercow 14y ago

This analysis completely ignores the fact that producing a TV show is (or should be) far, far cheaper than it used to be.

seanalltogether 14y ago
Once the monopoly over distribution is broken, I suspect the unions down the chain will be broken as well leading to lower overall cost. Marketing is usually a different story however.

prostoalex 14y ago

If only there existed some channels not subsidized by cable industry to give us a clearer picture of what's possible. If only those channels existed as for-profit enterprises in the US. If only they charged subscribers and covered the costs of productions through paid television and merchandise sales. If only their costs also included the cost of HD streaming, maybe they would name such venture with channel name + the word "Go" to drive a point that it's available to subscribers on the go. But alas, outside of HBO, Starz, Cinemax, Showtime and The Movie Channel none come to mind, so let's engage in theoretical discussions.

mayneack 14y ago
What about TYT [1] ? It's not exactly what you're describing, but it's close. They have a live Free broadcast every day, then put clips on YouTube and offer no-drm downloads of the video or just audio for a monthly subscription fee. They've been doing this for many years and I have recently been big enough to get a tv show too. 1 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Young_Turks http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Young_Turks

rorrr 14y ago

This article makes no sense. I predict 1) TV will merge into the internet 2) Channels will go away, and there will be individual shows/event broadcasts that the viewers will choose to pay for. 3) There will be bundled packages of the best shows. 4) Most profits will go to the people who produce the shows, unlike now. You can actually see it in action right now - look at the top Youtube channels (which should really be called "shows"), and multiply by $2 per 1000 video views. http://socialblade.com/youtube/top/500 http://socialblade.com/youtube/top/500

jtoeman 14y ago

file under: yet another piece about "the future of TV" as written by someone from the outside looking in. it's quite a different world from the other side...

InclinedPlane 14y ago

It's when not if. This is the same old romantization of the status quo that always occurs. Is TV really so fantastic today? For every gem that manages to squeek its way through the byzantine television production system there are a thousand bombs. Most television is horrific. Badly written. Badly premised. Badly executed. Badly acted. Bad. Being cut loose from a ready stream of massive advertising revenue will affect some of the production values of video content, certainly, but will that be such a bad thing? Modern television is a product of committee and bureaucracy. And it shows. Bowdlerization is commonplace. Mediocrity is the norm. A more democritized, more guerilla, more individual "television" landscape offers the possibility of raising the medium to a true art form. Movies have been around for over a century, television for half that, but both mediums still have trouble grappling with serious subjects. Consider the fundamental difference in gravitas between an emmy, an oscar, and a pulitzer or nobel prize in literature. Why is that? I would contend that it's because up until now creating a movie or a tv show has been inhibited by being beholden to commercial interests and established publishing powers. Perhaps the brave new world of more individualized video production will result in a revitalization of that medium.