The Promise Of Future Revenue
I was looking for a transcript of this to write a rambling post with several interesting points of view. But then I though I’d just let you watch it (it’s 30 secs).
Is the Internet ready as a monetized distribution mechanism? The South Park people have put every episode, ever of their show online for all to watch (although apparently they don’t work in the UK), with three 10-15 second ads during the video, one at the beginning, one just before halfway through and one three-quarters of the way through, which can’t be skipped or forwarded. The ads seem to be on a random loop.
South Park Studios seem to have taken a traditional medium (ie, cartoons, on telly) and put it online in a way which makes money, without the major studios (or Cartoon Network specifically) making too much of a fuss about it, and with little or no reaction from the online news/tech people. This is the way forward. If you had the choice to watch Battlestar Galactica next week, on Sky One, with four 3-minute ad-breaks, or watch it tomorrow, on your computer, with 4 or five 10-15 second ad breaks, which would you do? I know what I’d do. And I wouldn’t be taking anything away from the content creators, as I would be watching it on their website, with money from their ads going directly to them. No torrents, no dodgy “rapidsharing” or whatever. Just TV programmes, on the internet, for free.
Discuss.
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Comments
I applaud South Park for the move. It's smart, and I agree will long term help them make more money. And it's Smart, because they realise there is no real threat to what they are doing. Unlike others (see the quote above).
But I disagree that this is the way forward. With the choice above I would still watch it on Sky. The quality is better, the screen is bigger, the sound is pumped through my amp, I can skip the ads. etc etc.
What people want is choice and flexibility. Some shows I want to watch on my iPhone, because I'm travelling. Others on my big screen TV and amp. Others on my laptop because it's bigger than my iPhone and I have space in my hotel room.
Steaming however necessitates an internet connection, which rules out the iPhone. And watching it on my computer normally means I'm sitting next to my big TV watching it 17 inches smaller.
Streaming works for some people, and it will have it's place in the portfolio of downloads, portable, apple-tv-esque appliances and what not.
Like I said, Broadcast TV is dead (or at least in it's current format). The way forward ultimately is being able to watch the content you want, when you want, how you want. And business models for this haven't been invented yet, and will change several times. TV on the internet is part of this. But not all of it.
Posted by: Adrian
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April 4, 2008 11:18 AM
The quality isn't actually better. You're watching Sky, I presume at normal resolution of 576i (PAL), or 525i (NTSC). This is the same resolution or thereabouts of the flash window on the South Park website. If you were to plug your Mac Mini into your TV and watch an episode of SP streaming from the the South Park website, and if they fixed it so that full-screen worked in FF or Safari, you'd be watching at exactly the same quality as standard resolutuion. So that argument is moot.
As for skipping the ads, that would require you to have pre-recorded the program with your Sky+ or whatever. It would take as long to fast forward through an Sky One ad break as to watch the ad (singular) on the South Park website (about 10 seconds). Again, moot.
Choice and flexibility is another thing altogether. Watching on your iPhone isn't an option on the South Park website at the moment. It may be in the near future, but this is only a presumption on my part. Again, if it does happen, the ads will definitely be there.
If Apple TV and other devices simply accepted streaming video (they do) from any source (they don't) and the content had short, infrequent ads in the stream, we could watch any TV program ever, any time we wanted, and the content creators would still get paid. This WILL HAPPEN, I'm 100% sure of this. The same goes for iPhone and other portable devices, but without the streaming, through RSS feeds or something similar.
Posted by: Matt | April 4, 2008 12:14 PM
The screen size might be the same, but the quality still differs. The stream on Sky (if I recall, and I could be wrong on this) is about 2mbs. I can't access the SP streams (not available in the UK, most probably due to rights issues, showing that SP can't just do what they want with their content) so can't work out SP's compression. But suspect it's higher than Sky's. And thats before getting into discussions about HD content. So not fully mute. But I'll accept the quality is good enough to not be a real issue here.
The real factor is ease of use. And for more people, a computer is not the platform they want to watch TV on. And most people don't. A TV commands a different position in most peoples living rooms to a Computer.
So like I said, streaming is part of the solution, and opens up more options to people. But in of itself, it's not the solution. It's just an aspect of the solution.
The ultimate solution will be delivery agnostic. So you might watch SP on your TV, your iPhone and your laptop at different times. You wont care how it's delivered, what you'll care about is having it to watch. That's the real change is access and breaking content out of the walled gardens of "broadcast" or "need to be online" or "what not".
However the concept of pure ad supported TV being free is also not necessarily true. This is one model and it's based on an extrapolation of broadcast TV and the net. But this isn't the only model. I currently pay for a Sky Subscription. I do so willingly and happily as I get value and ease of use for it. This could change where I pay for a content subscription to someone else (Apple for example). Some people may chose to pay more for less adverts. Some people might not choose to pay at all, and have an increase in product placement in their content.
And their might be new models we haven't thought about yet. A TV show is free, as it runs in parallel with a game which you have to pay for. I think their are lots of monitzation and business models, from free, top ad supported, to direct purchase, to TV licenses to new unthought of ones. Just as their are lots of consumers with different needs and wants.
I think though, no one has cracked it yet, and those not trying to be creative and invnetive and take risks, but trying to protect and be aggressive and short term minded about it are going to find tough going.
Posted by: Adrian
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April 4, 2008 12:53 PM
The quality on the SP website is perfect, afaik it's the same resolution as standard TV broadcast, perhaps not the same refresh rate though.
The TV does indeed command a different position in people's living rooms, but if you plug your computer into your TV the boundaries fall down. And things like Apple TV are only helping this.
No-one has indeed "cracked" multi-format platform-agnostic content distribution, but I think the dudes at South Park Studios are definitely going the right way about it by doing precisely as you say, being inventive and taking risks.
Posted by: Matt | April 4, 2008 1:05 PM
Most people turn on the TV and want it to just work. The apple TV and iPod docks are starting to bring other content to the TV, but mostly this is low take up.
The amount of people who plug computers into their TV are comparatively low.
Posted by: Adrian
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April 4, 2008 1:55 PM
#1 Most people turn on the TV, then their cable/satellite/freeview receiver, and it just works. Replace the cable/satellite thingy with something like an AppleTV, and it's basically the same. The take-up is low now, but this will change.
#2 At the moment, yes. In a few years, almost definitely not. Especially as you can already get 42-inch TV's with a computer built into them.
Soon we'll have all these riches, and all will be good.
Posted by: Matt | April 4, 2008 2:57 PM
1. Yes I agree, and the broadcaster who does a deal with iTunes (although they are trying to do it themselves too) will enable this further
2. Not in the way you think of a computer now. The same way the iPhone is a cleverly disguised computer.
You'll have a device to compute with and a device to watch media with and content might easily flow between the two, but the wont (in most cases) be the same device.
Posted by: Adrian
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April 4, 2008 3:26 PM
1. Totally.
2. Exactly. And the iPod Touch too, don't forget (and a few others we won't bother to mention because they're about 3 years behind).
I agree entirely.
Won't it be great though?
The future.
Really this time though, not like all those other times, with the jet-packs and whatnot.
Posted by: Matt | April 4, 2008 4:59 PM
Oh, and the day Apple bring out an AppleTV that also happens to be built-in to a 30" Apple display, with a couple of inputs on it like HDMI and Component, I'm totally, utterly getting one. I mean it.
Posted by: Matt | April 4, 2008 5:01 PM
Yeah ... I've mused on this myself
Posted by: Adrian
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April 4, 2008 5:20 PM