An Essay On Subscription Television 306
dpu writes "Who would pay $1.99 to download a television episode that only costs about $0.0014 to see on cable? This is a short essay on the current and past state of subscription television, and a hope for the future. It skips a lot of points that the thinkers among us might care about, but it does the math and drives a nail into Big Content's pinky toe."
Well, when you put it that way... (Score:4, Insightful)
Why pay $14.99 for a novel when you can walk out of the library with it for free?
Content creators need to be assured of recompense for their work. Until someone comes up with a better way of assuring payment for digitally-reproduced work, the system we have is...all we have.
Three reasons (Score:5, Insightful)
1. You're paying not to see commercials
2. You're paying for the convenience of seeing whenever you want
3. You're paying for the infrastructure needed
The prices are high as they are with any "new tech". As I see it, this is still an "early adopter" price.
I also question the maths involved here. Is he watching cable 24/7 to get those prices?
Re:when did we start paying for advertising? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:when did we start paying for advertising? (Score:5, Insightful)
Bogus calculations (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Well, when you put it that way... (Score:5, Insightful)
If someone were to watch TV for 18 hrs/day, 7 days/week, that's ~540 hours/month. Skipping commercials, that's about 800 hrs/month of programming, or 1600 episodes. At $0.0014 per episode, this guy must be paying only $1.12 per month for cable. He would be nuts to pay $1.99 for a single show.
Meanwhile, in the real world, someone who is paying $60/month for cable and watching TV for 40hrs/month, might find $1.99 for a show quite reasonable.
Re:Three reasons (Score:5, Insightful)
Apparently he can't do the math either.
Fundamentally, it's yet another "I want it my way at my price" rant, and since the "content providers" don't see it his way, becomes a rationalization for piracy.
Re:Three reasons (Score:5, Insightful)
Skipping commercials or viewing whenever you want can be done with a Tivo.
The main problem with pay per view is that you have to be dead sure you want to watch something before you watch it. You can't channel surf, you can't browse, you can't tune into the middle of a show to see if it's any good. You're pretty much restricted to watching shows you really like.
Well, let's see (Score:5, Insightful)
Oh wait, it's called buying it on DVD.
And until these newfangled methods of obtaining TV can provide what those shiny coasters can provide, I'll stick with buying the shows I want to watch repeatedly on DVD, and PVRing the ones I only want to see once.
Re:Bogus calculations (Score:3, Insightful)
36000 episodes per month at a mere $0.0014 each! If they take my suggestion, I'll be paying nearly 100 times more than that! How can they possibly go wrong! The maths don't lie!
The author assumes all TV programming is of equal value. People generally assign vastly different values to different shows. An individual could easily consider his favorite show to be worth more than $1.99/episode while still assigning a very low value to the same amount of programming selected randomly.
Not that difficult (Score:4, Insightful)
It's shocking news to both content providers and pirates, but most people have money in their pocket and they don't mind spending it on things that they like when it is made convenient to do so. They are particularly happy to spend more when it saves them time and gives them a guarantee of quality, both of which are major motivators of buying songs/TV shows rather than simply getting a radio or cable hookup.
Keep in mind that if you want to watch particular shows and don't have an infinitely flexible schedule, you'll need to include the price of a TiVo or something similar to make sure you're recording all those "cheap" shows. And you'll have to wait for a rerun or a DVD to be released if you missed an episode.
Re:Well, let's see (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:when did we start paying for advertising? (Score:2, Insightful)
We Bitch But Prefer Commercials (Score:4, Insightful)
I suspect others will point out that the amount the advertiser is paying per viewer is much smaller than the cost of say an iTunes download hence it should be economical to have relatively cheap commercial free download, e.g., each downloader just needs to cover the total amount an advertiser would have paid to get commercials to you. From my quick google research [everyonecounts.tv] it seems likely that the cost per impression in the male 18-34 age group (also the download group) it is about
If you are willing to watch commercials in your download then it's a different story but if you aren't you have to ay to replace the money the commercials would have brought in.
Also these sort of pay per show model is only ever going to be an alternative to the normal model never a replacement. Sure we will pay for commercial free versions of our favorite shows we follow but most TV watching is done casually (I wonder if there is anything on) and no matter how much you bitch about commercials I doubt you would pay to watch a show just because you had 30minutes to kill but you will watch a show with commercials for that reason. We vote with our actions and those say we want a flat rate model that lets us watch shows for no extra cost when we feel like it.
It's just the same way that people bitch about ads at the start of movies but no matter how much people bitch they never go spend an extra $2 to go to the theater with less ads.
Re:when did we start paying for advertising? (Score:5, Insightful)
Ironically, you've always paid for advertising. So now you're both paying for the advertising (if you buy the product), and then you get to pay to watch the advertising (on TV).
So basically you're paying to watch something you dont want to watch, which you yourself paid to get produced, just so you can watch something else you didnt pay to get produced (well, except you did pay to get it produced when you paid for the advertising by buying the advertised product...).
Somehow I suspect that this may not be the most optimal method of funding the things you do want to watch... (which might be a tangent to the articles point...)
Numbers are stupid. (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Well, let's see (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:when did we start paying for advertising? (Score:2, Insightful)
How to compete with free (Score:3, Insightful)
The second thing big content needs to do is get the price right. People pay for their internet connection, cable TV, maybe a premium Usenet account etc. because they want to download content. So, like it or not, they already paid and can get TV for no extra cost. If you want more money out of them, it had better not be too much and you had better make the buying experience damn good (i.e. very high speed downloads, no special software required). It has to be simultanious with the first showing on TV too.
Oh, and never forget, just because you spent a lot of money making it doesn't mean it's worth a lot. Your content has to be good, not expensive. Make old BBC Horizon programs from the 80s available for 20p, and I'll bite.
'nuf said. (Score:3, Insightful)
*blink*
OK - of all the content on a full menu of cable or sat, this is the sum total of what you find compelling?
I know there's no accounting for taste, but you're hardly their typical demo.
Most of us are paying full price for a house and really only using three rooms and reallly only for a half the day at best. What's up with that raw deal?
You pay the $1 or 2 to listen or watch whenever you want, as often as you want. No one's holding a gun to your head, and it's an alternative to buying DVR etc. This is a vaguely similar argument to the music sedction, usually pointed at Apple - thet they're "forcing" you to adopt their model. Wrong. There are many music providers. being the market leader is not the same as being an unregulated monopoly.
Which leads us to the cable company. They deregulated cable AFTER the wires were laid down, and unlike the local telcos who are merely the custodian of the infrastructure and must let anyone send their info over the copper, the cable companies have no established way of letting anyone else down the coax. The satellite system is similar - as long as the financial agent owns the pipe, it's their ball and they can go home.
About the only thing I'd change about any video delivery model is make sure it's a la carte, for the sake of scaling down rising cost. The industry is claiming that it will cost a bajillion dollars per person to do this, but that's what they said about seat belts, air bags, ABS, flying car^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H personal cell phones and DVD players.
Re:Three reasons (Score:4, Insightful)
You still have to watch the content you have recorded, and you still have a limited ammount of time to do that.
Sorry to break it to you but you are never going to watch tv 24/7 even with added help, it just aint possible.
Re:when did we start paying for advertising? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:missing options (Score:2, Insightful)
Personally I would gladly pay $2 per show directly to the producer in order to be able to watch it when it is 'aired' in good quality.
Re:Well, let's see (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:A La Carte can be cheaper than All You Can Eat (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Three reasons (Score:4, Insightful)
The math changes again when you take into account the following:
1) A full season of a TV show is $35 on iTunes, not $2/episode.
2) With satellite, you're paying for the 6 months of the year when the networks are only playing re-runs.
Assume your family watches 20 different shows over the course of the year.
iTunes: 20*35 = $700/year
Satellite: 40*12 = $480/year
iTunes is still more expensive, but not "way more expensive." Plus, you don't have to skip around commercials or leave a computer on 24/7.
box set vs download price (Score:1, Insightful)
in the words of dave chapelle........ "greedy bastards!!!"
Re:when did we start paying for advertising? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Three reasons (Score:4, Insightful)
Apple's sold 500 million of them at that price, so apparently a few people don't share your viewpoint.
And as long as you doing the math with myth you probably should deduct the price of a dedicated PC with tuner cards. With Tivo you should factor in the $15/month service and initial purchase. Heck, even with Comcast's HD DVR box you're adding $9.95 a month.
There's also the fact that a lot of older content on iTMS, that's not currently on TV and available to be recorded. Example, about a month ago I bought the "shimmer" episode of SNL, along with the pilot episode of Land of the Giants. No particluar reason, just nostalgia. If those hadn't been available at $2 each I'd never have gotten them, since I wans't going to pay $40-50 for the set of DVD's. I was interested, but just not THAT interested.
Although, looking at the top seller's on iTMS, it seems that most are popular programming, like Galactica or The Office, which leads me to believe that they don't have myth or a DVR, and probable that many are simply picking up "missed" shows.
Re:when did we start paying for advertising? (Score:3, Insightful)
at least the movie itself is continuous and lacks adverts. oh wait, what about product placement? go look up how much it costs to have one of your products made highly visible in the latest Bond movie.
and don't get me started over the merchandising. my son is into Pixar's Cars; he has the dvd, t-shirt, pyjamas, models and even napkin/serviettes! At least we held off buying most of it until it was no longer premium priced.