How Could TV Survive Without Commercials? 1122
Milo_Mindbender asks: "I'm sure many of the readers of this site know the joy of skipping commercials using a TiVO, Replay or other form of PVR box. I'm sure it has occurred to a lot of us that if someone produced a schedule of commercial stop/start times the PVR could easily make all commercials instantly vanish from a recording. While this would be really cool, if it got really popular it would KILL all the local TV stations and TV networks who depend on ads to survive. Sure, you could say it's their fault for having an outdated business model, but there's a problem: these sources are where A LOT of the content for your PVR comes from. If they die, there's nothing for your PVR to record. My question for this crowd is: 'If the commercials stopped tomorrow, what business models can you come up with that would keep TV content flowing to your PVR?'"
"I've heard a few interesting ideas such as:
- having people pick a few ads from a list and watch them before each show...
- ...giving advertisers a profile of your interest and let them show you a (smaller number) of unskippable ads for things you are really interested in...
- ...ahaving the products show up in the show itself (product placement). For example: Buffy, after killing a vampire, could then slam down a Mountan Dew.
Um, how would anything change? (Score:2, Interesting)
Mostly, because they don't either. Human brains tend to veg out when the damn things come on.
Re:Um, how would anything change? (I'm heading OT) (Score:2, Insightful)
It's the same for weather forcasts. It's quite funny to ask somebody who has just seen the weather forcast what the weather is going to be like tommorow.
It really makes you see how sedated you are when you're watching telly.
Re:... (I'm heading OT) [farther] (Score:3, Offtopic)
It's the same with people looking at their watch. Ask someone who checked their watch what time it is, and see how many have to check again.
It's a matter of getting from the medium what you need. In the case of your watch, it's usually "how long until the next thing I have to do?" Most people don't need the information provided by commercials so that information is quietly discarded. PDHossRe:Um, how would anything change? (Score:4, Insightful)
I used to work on the Toyota website, and when they ran an ad campaign, site traffic would increase dramatically. They also reported increased sales.
Plus, think about it logically, if ads didn't generate revenue or alter spending habits, they wouldn't be cost effective and wouldn't exist.
Re:Um, how would anything change? (Score:5, Interesting)
Ad campaigns tend to coincide with a new product. Those genuinely interested in it, tend to find it on their own, regardless. That marketing firms never point out that ad campaigns are carefully launched when interest would go higher anyway, is the most devious scam of all.
Re:Um, how would anything change? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Um, how would anything change? (Score:4, Interesting)
Anyway, where I *don't* like advertising is when it's just there to jump in your face and say "Hey I just wanted to remind you to buy buy buy buy buy yet a-fuckin-nother Whopper!"
A better example for the first kind of advertising is when you have a product that people won't know how to use without being shown. Like let's say that Transformers Toys were brand new and being released for the first time. if you saw the box in a toy store would it have occurred to you how insanely kick-ass they were for little kids as toys if you hadn't seen *why* they were worth noticing?
or what about some company's super-cool new windows that make your heat efficiency in your house better? ... anyway... I hate seeing McDonald's and Coke commercials but if it's a new product from someone then I generally don't mind them if it's sufficiently informative. i guess it sounds hypocritical written here, but ... whatever. ;)
Re:Um, how would anything change? (Score:4, Insightful)
One theory is such:
The goal of repetitive TV advertising is not to get your to get off your cush chair, run out, and immeidiatly purchase the product - it's to just get know and consider the advertised product the next time you purchase, and to forget that other viable products exist.
Here's an exapmle of how this works, answer the following question:
What's your favorite refreshing drink?
You probably answered Coke or Pepsi. 95% of the people will answere with one of these two - even though that are litterally tens of other choices: RC, Shasta, Jolt, STORE-BRAND$ etc.. in the cola catagory alone, let alone plain water or real lemonade.
Re:Um, how would anything change? (Score:2)
Re:Um, how would anything change? (Score:5, Insightful)
Blockquoth Lord Leverhulme:
Moral: Companies pay millions of dollars because they think they work. That does not in fact mean that they work. Entire industries have spent decades or more laboring under shared misconceptions. In the case of advertising, the measurement tools are so coarse and the data pool so vast, I think very little is demonstrable of cause-and-effect.
Re:Um, how would anything change? (Score:3, Insightful)
Hell, how did you first ever find out about the Tivo itself? probably from an ad. And don't give me 'from a friend who heard from a friend' etc., most likely that chain, however long, started with an ad.
Face it, ads are as much a source of information as they are meant to invoke a direct response.
To say that 'ads don't work' is to say that you can make a killing even if nobody knows you're selling anything, but (obviously) nobody ever sold anything if the public never knew it existed..
Re:Um, how would anything change? (Score:3, Interesting)
Well, there are. They just tend to give the same results as the accounting department that says "Hey, sales are up". One is a lot cheaper, so the detailed tracking is usually only done as an academic exercise.
("Eat GeneriFlakes -- they're cooool")
That is an excellent example of a marketting strategy which works extremely well with children. Keep repeating that statement with big pictures of the front of the cereal box - and kids will identify with the product and Mom will buy GeneriFlakes.
Re:Um, how would anything change? (Score:5, Insightful)
However, consider something like dishwashing detergent. I don't give a damn about dishwashing detergent. I have ZERO brand loyalty there.
When I buy diskwashing detergent, I am most likely to simply buy the one that seems most familiar and isn't too much more expensive than the ones I've never heard of. In short, the one that has advertised the most.
Re:Um, how would anything change? (Score:2)
Here's an example of how TV affects my buying habits: Freshman year of college, I watched much less TV than I did before. When I came home for Christmas vacation, I went to see a movie. When I got to the theatre, I was surprised to find that I had never heard of *any* of the movies there, except the one I was going to see. The reason was that I hadn't been watching any movie ads on TV. When you watch TV, you are educated about the movies that are coming out through commercials, and occasionally you see one that looks interesting. This is only one of the many ways commercials affect how you spend your money.
Re:Um, how would anything change? (Score:2)
BlackGriffen
We already do pay for TV without commercials (Score:4, Insightful)
We pay a premium for these already because they braodcast with few or no channels. This is a non-issue sort of question because the niche for non-commercial TV is already filled and doing fine.
Re:We already do pay for TV without commercials (Score:4, Informative)
What? Few or no channels? I think you mean few or no commercials, and I agree. Pay tv is the way to go, 99% of 'network tv' sucks ass and there's nothing worth watching. I'll take a handful of cable channels with no ads over 100 free channels any day. Obviously Tivo owners agree.
I think Springsteen said it best "57 channels and nothin' on".
Re:We already do pay for TV without commercials (Score:4, Interesting)
Speaking of paying a premium, how about this strategy: Would you pay one cent to skip a commercial?
Have an account linked to the PVR and subtract 1 cent each time an ad is skipped.
Of course, having an account implies a link to a credit card and a unique identifier. This allows for some detailed profiling.
There should be an option to turn profiling on and off, with various benefits to the user if they turn it on (because the profiling is valuable marketing information.)
When profiling is turned off:
Skip an advert: subtract 1 cent from your account
Don't skip an advert: do nothing to your account
When profiling is enabled:
Skip an advert: subtract 1 cent from your account
Don't skip an advert: plus 1 cent to your account.
The people with profiling turned on would have some interesting powers too. For example, if the profiling revealed that 90% of people are willing to pay 1c to skip the Mazda Zoom-Zoom kid ad, that #%)*&#% 'Buck-a-day' or similar computer sale ads, the Dell Kid ads, etc, you would essentially be telling the advertisers to change their tune.
Re:We already do pay for TV without commercials (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:We already do pay for TV without commercials (Score:4, Interesting)
Just don't watch it... (Score:2, Insightful)
www.tvturnoff.org is a good place to start if your interested in unplugging from the Plug in Drug.
doubtful (Score:4, Insightful)
> In many ways, I have found life without TV a big improvement, in that I can now think.
If you can't think watching tv, you probably can't think without one, either. Get a grip.
People who categorize all tv as evil or stupid are guilty of stupidity themselves. There's _plenty_ of well-done, educational, and inspirational programming on tv (if you count cable channels). Shows like West Wing, Buffy (despite the lead character & actress, this show is amazing. Easily among the best writing around.), and others. When you toss in shows on PBS, channels like Discovery, History Channel, hell, even the Cartoon channel, you've got a lot of great stuff available. It's not all 'Full House', and hasn't been for many years. No matter what you're into, there's something, probably several somethings, somewhere on a cable channel for you. Now, that said, is it worth the money? Depends. Basic cable, or expanded basic, is a great deal. Pay channels usually aren't. Sure, they show uncensored movies, but considering how many times they repeat the movies, I dunno. Most movies aren't worth watching more than once, to me. I'm more likely to watch things on Turner Classic Movies than I am to watch the latest thing on HBO or Showtime. I'm not really into HBO's "original programming", so it's not a big draw for me. I'd be willing to pay for channels like BBC America, though, if it were offered here in Kansas City (which it isn't), and the same goes for Sundance Channel and some others.
Re:doubtful (Score:3, Insightful)
Watching TV regularly makes you accustomed to its cliches and idioms. You learn to take them for granted and they disappear. Buffy may be good TV, it doesn't approach good writing. Neither does the suffocating majority of what passes for entertainment - or information - being broadcast. I stopped watching about five years ago and start swearing at the tube after twenty minutes now. It's not violence or sexuality or anything like that, it's the unbelievably insipid and disingenuous mindset of almost every show and commercial. I'm no longer accustomed to its 'badness'.
If you grew up in abject poverty and part of every day, from earliest memory, was spent rummaging through the dump for food, you'd naturally learn to differentiate between bad trash, acceptable trash and excellent trash, but it's still TV.
Re:doubtful (Score:3, Insightful)
Sheesh. By this logic reading a book is also a complete waste of time. I mean, you're just STARING at a PIECE OF PAPER covered with INK SPOTS talking about THINGS THAT NEVER HAPPENED! Don't even get me started on nonfiction - there's no such thing - every writer comes at book with a viewpoint decided beforehand. It is all a TISSUE OF LIES! Stop reading now!
Seriously though, there's a disturbing puritanism about the anti-TV people. Of course spending 4-8 hours a day staring at the tube is a waste of your life. Duh. That being said, I don't really feel guilty for sitting down to the odd documentary, or even something funny once in a while. In the end it's all about what you decide to watch, and about knowing when to turn it off.
Re:Just don't watch it... (Score:3, Interesting)
I used to watch some TV while living at my parents' place -- Peter Jennings, local news with Paul Linman (of exploding whale fame) and Steve Dunn, and then Jeopardy. Now I'm in my own apartment. I have a small TV and a tuner card, but reception is crap so I don't even watch that anymore. I've found that it's FAR quicker to read the news I'm interested in on the Internet than listen to those guys blather about things I'm not interested in, not to mention the commercials. I do miss Jeopardy a little, but can live without it.
Those things aren't worth $9.99/month for basic cable. I do kind of wish I had regular cable for FOX News and the Travel Channel. But $40/month for that is OUTRAGEOUS. No thanks, at least not until I have a roommate and/or more of an income.
$45/month, OTOH, for cable Internet is a no-brainer.
Re:Just don't watch it... (Score:3, Insightful)
I spent a nice weekend out of town a month ago, and didn't see a computer or television the whole time. Was I a better person because I spent my time browsing record stores and sitting in bars with people? Not really. TV is entertaining, and I'll be damned if you're going to get me to give mine up with football season starting.
Ad agencies will find a way... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Ad agencies will find a way... (Score:4, Funny)
What's old is new again...
I'm old enough that I (vaguely) recall watching TV shows with one primary sponsor whose products (or images of them) were featured prominently in the shows. There were "commercial breaks", but nothing like the 18-20 minutes per hour we're subjected to these days.
Personally, I'd rather watch Captain Archer suck down a can of Pepsi while munching on a rehydrated Pizza Hut pizza than sit through these insipid, pretentious "barrage of images" adverts, or the stupid drug ads with the elevator-music rendition of some Who tune (what's up with this? "Side effects are similar to sugar pills: dry mouth, diarrhea, hemorrhaging, brain tumors, schizophrenia..." are sugar pills really that dangerous?).
If only subliminal ads weren't illegal... (Score:3, Insightful)
I expect pop-ups, watermarks, and adspaces will be more popular. Especially adspaces, once the powers-that-be realize that when you film for HDTV widescreen and then broadcast it letterboxed, you've got two big fat black bars begging to be filled. And as a side benefit, it will get people upgrading to widescreen tvs to get rid of the damn ads in the near term. In the long run as video-by-subscription and video-on-demand become a reality, pay-per-view by meta-network (a specialized selection of channels or broadcasts throughout the day, which will be small to keep costs reasonable) and even by show (thanks to integrated PVRs in digital recievers) will dominate, with huge changes in the industry.
In show ads (Score:3, Informative)
I think this may provide some hope, but I think without traditional commercials they'll be in a tough spot to make ends meet.
Some Business Models Still Work (Score:4, Interesting)
It works for me.
Re:Some Business Models Still Work (Score:2, Insightful)
BBC == darn good!
Re:Some Business Models Still Work (Score:5, Insightful)
It works out that you pay just over 10 quid a month for the BBC, with zero adverts and mostly original programming. Contrast this with Sky which is almost 100% repeats, and 30% adverts (there's roughly 5 minutes of adverts every 10-12 minutes it seems) for the same price.
Plus, unless it's a mere coincidence, most of the satelite channels switch to adverts within seconds of each other, probably to stop channel switching, but I always flip to one of the BBC channels when the ads start for 5 minutes while they're on.
If the beeb can make it pay with no ads, why can't the other satelite channels?
Re:Some Business Models Still Work (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Some Business Models Still Work (Score:3, Interesting)
What bugs me at the moment is, if the licence-fee payer has already funded the production of TV programmes, why does the BBC try to fleece people some more by selling the shows to pay-TV channels in the same country? Why isn't it freely viewable?
Paying a flat fee is much better than pay-per-view just as flat rate internet access is preferable to any AOL walled garden or dodgy micropayment system. And while advertising has its place, in practice you don't seem to get good TV when adverts are the _only_ source of funding.
Re:Great if you're socialist (Score:5, Interesting)
I would certainly pay $150 a year to can the commercials. I fail to see how this is socialism-- as I understand it, the British TV license is optional. Don't want to pay? Don't watch the BBC channels.
that's not true either (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Great if you're socialist (Score:3, Insightful)
Granted that in 'libertopian capitalism' protectionist measures of this sort never never exist, just like libertopian capitalism itself. But in the real world the US today has heaps more protectionist measures of this sort than the UK has - the $190 billion farm bill, the steel tarifs and the trillions spent on military boondogles like Crusader, Start Wars, etc.
The comercial driven US model of network television is entirely a creation of government. As Ithiel Pool noted in technologies of freedom the US government got control of TV by controlling access to the airwaves. The network TV model suits politicians because it allows them direct access to their constituents in TV adverts. Individual politicians don't have campaign ads in most countries for a simple reason, the TV systems are national, the coverage areas are too large to be used for an individual politician's campaign.
Fortunately the network model is already collapsing under pressure from satelite and cable. Cable TV in theory offers the possibility of targetted local ads but in practice this only works well on the older analog systes with a small number of channels. When we had AT&T cable the 45 theoretical channels became 8 in practice once you eliminated the home shopping channels, religious channels run by child molesters, Fox NAZI news etc. So a politician could still get an audience with a buy on a small number of channels. With 100 odd channels that gets harder.
Re:Great if you're socialist (Score:3, Informative)
That is where you are wrong. The BBC was from the very start conceived as a television and radio broadcasting company. Considerable sums were spent on research into television and a substantial amount of the technology used in modern TV was developed by the BBC.
The BBC was formed as a corporation in 1922 and received its royal charter in 1927. The first television signals were broadcast in 1936. The Hansard records of the House of Commons debates demonstrate that the potential of television was fully understood.
It does not take a great leap of imagination to realize the potential of combining the movies and radio. The newspaper barons understood correctly that TV would threaten both their power and their revenues.
Re:Great if you're socialist (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Great if you're socialist (Score:3, Informative)
You can provide content which will please the programmers. You will, however, have little indication of what pleases the public and honestly little reason to care. Stuff like that tends to carry fairly esoteric material, aimed to a narrow subset of the public (not nessecarily your subset!), instead of widely popular content.
Re:Some Business Models Still Work (Score:2)
Subscription-based (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Subscription-based (Score:2, Interesting)
I moved recently and when I thought of the cost of cable, I just cancelled it. Now TV stations are getting no money from me (but local book store owners can now afford luxury cars).
Banner Ads (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Banner Ads (Score:2)
Ah, but you pay more than just your 8 minutes. People rarely count the additional cost of (a) reduced attention span; (b) extended flight-or-fight triggering; and (c) artistic compromises due to the demands of the "5 act" hourlong TV format.
I'd pay for the shows (Score:3, Interesting)
Syndicated shows would be cheaper. Half hour shows cheaper, 2-hour specials more expensive, etc.
Networks could "give away" episodes of newer shows to get people interested. Perhaps there could be ads for shows before and after paid-for shows (but not in the middle).
It would probably result in less content, but it would be better content.
Pay-Per-Channel (Score:2)
And yes, I realize this leaves non-cable subscribers in TV-less land. I don't have an answer to everything!
Why should I pay for somthing that they don't own? (Score:2, Insightful)
The goverment does.
The goverment only allows them to utilize those airwavs because in part they are doing a public service (such as news, election coverage, goverment anouncments, etc.)
There will never be pay per view, because those airwaves have allready been payed for by tax dollars.
Broadcasters are aloud to make money, of course, but they are not and should not, be aloud to charge us directly, in any way shape or form, for their services.
Re:Why should I pay for somthing that they don't o (Score:3, Funny)
Are you saying that before the FCC, the Earth's atmosphere was unable to carry electromagnetic transmissions? Wow, now, that's one heck of a public-works project!
Here's a Solution (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Here's a Solution (Score:2)
Video On Demand (Score:5, Informative)
I believe TV shows can fall under the same model. Maybe the first show (the pilot) is free and each show afterwards is some cost. The cable companies can of course run package deals and such (50 shows a month for X dollars) and the cost may be pretty low if many people watch.
Interestingly, this model bypasses both TiVo's and commercial television's revenue models.
Brian Ellenberger
Re:Video On Demand (Score:2)
Or the first 10 mins are free and then the scrambler sets in, if you don't insert coin.
For those of us who don't have PVRs, something occured to me. If I'm really into a show, I may want to pay for the commercials not to come up. Interrupt the show with a "Do you want to pay $0,01 now or endure these commercials"-message.
Re:Video On Demand (Score:5, Interesting)
Cut out the middlemen... (Score:2)
If each channel encrypted their signal and got a licensing fee from each local provider based on each subscriber the had enabled to receive their signals, then they would be making money. The real problem about this way of making money is that it would actually give the networks a concrete metric of how many people are actually using their service. The high-paid news anchors, Nielson, and high residuals to voice and screen actors would go away. There are a lot of side-industries that don't want to see this happen.
Now that we are in the "information age," it is possible that the interests of the general public have changed. I personally don't find a lot of stuff on TV very interesting, so I don't have cable. This may be because of the increased amount and length of ads, or the lack of content networks can air now. (Yeah, we can't offend these religious idiots, so we have to make everyone else suffer.)
Maybe TV won't be around that much longer. Who knows.
Survivor Anyone? (Score:2)
As for commercials, I don't see them going anywhere soon. When TV goes digital, there will prolly be a new encryption or something or other that makes them unskippable to the general public. The general public, having never bought a TiVo in the first place won't notice any changes and it will return to buisness as usual.
I seem to recall... (Score:2)
Anyway, I'd be willing to tolerate commercials for things I'm interested in. That'd be computer hardware (But no Dell, Gateway or AOL commercials) and never EVER under any circumstances Old Navy commercials or commercials for feminine hygene products. The PVR is the perfect platform for launching such endeavors. Just keep a cache of commercials that fit the profile and play them during the commercial breaks. PVRs such as replay TV could probably also replace commercials with their own (if they wanted to get sued again...)
Television Stations as Middlemen (Score:2)
Right now, most people who have PVRs also pay anywhere from 50-150 dollars a month for cable or dish service. CableCo gets some of that money. The goes to basic cable producers such as Viacom, Disney/ABC, etc... for making stations and programs to watch on those stations.
Instead of advertisements, jack up the price for cable or wireless internet a little and let people download those shows over the internet in Mpeg2 or Mpeg4 format.
For local stations (and I won't make the argument that programming on local stations sucks...) the deal would be similar. What small amount of original programming they produce, (mostly news) would be made available to download in exchange for a small cut from the cable/dish companies expanded internet revenues.
By cutting out the middlemen, advertising-supported television stations in this case, the people and companies who produce television shows make more money that is not dependant on the whims of advertisers. They can be more explorative, provocative, sexual, etc.. without fear of their advertising getting cut by a company who's CEO objects to that kind of stuff. The people who watch television will probably pay slightly more to the cable and dish companies, but that price will be balanced by the time they *don't* spend watching commercials.
Pay-Per-Channel (Score:2)
I'd pay, say, $20 a month for basic cable (which is $34.99/month) which would give me, say, the TV Guide channel, CNN, the Weather channel, and all the public access channels (PAX, C-Span, C-Span 2)
Beyond that, I'd be willing to pay $2/month for additional channels. Fox, UPN, FX, MTV, MTV2, ABC, NBC, and CBS. That's $20 + $16 = $36 right there. So it's a big more expensive.
Then, if I wanted to watch something else I wasn't subscribed to, charge $0.10 an hour to watch that channel on top of the regular subscription rate. That'd add up to $6 a month for 2 hours/day. THIS is where the distributers would make their money -- people who don't subscribe to channels, but want to watch say an hour a day of a channel they're not subscribed to.
People would click the "accept charges" button, switch off to another network...it'd be maybe $0.20 to $0.50 a day...but even at that amount, if you watch 2 shows you're not subscribed to 10 times in a month (easily doable) you've got a monthly channel subscription right there.
Not only would this model allow you to customize your cable service to the degree you wanted, because you're paying for the content above the basic service, they could show it with less adds, or perhaps allow targeted adds for a %10 reduction in your monthly fee.
If the local cable company (Adelphia) adopted this method, I would definately switch to it. Simply because I, personally, would end up paying a lot less monthly than already...about $25 instead of $35.
Its funny... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Its funny... (Score:3, Insightful)
If I had to pay $150/yr. and see another stupid UPN/Fox comedy show that was just a bunch of in-jokes or racial put-downs, or another prettier-than-anyone NBC comedy, then I'd demand my money back.
However, an entire network showing nothing but L&Os, I'd pay for that, indeed.
Re:Its funny...(BBC and CBC) (Score:3, Insightful)
I use to get a kick out of American shows on BBC, they would insert "signs" like "end of part 1", "end of part 2" so that the pause in the footage, designed for commercial break, still worked. I think it also helps timing, but that is secondary to the viewer.
CBC in Canada use to be commercial free, but without a TV license, their budget was too small. So now their budget is still too small and they have commercial. Mainly to afford to buy cheap American sitcoms and movies.
I watch less and less "commercial" television. When I can, I prefer to go to an independent cinema, and watch an independent film. On average, I am fall less disappointed with indie films, see a broader range of cultural material (not just sitcoms from LA and NYC), better stories, and save money. I mean I would far rather see Amelié [imdb.com] or 8 1/2 [imdb.com] again than Blue Crush.
Re:Its funny... (Score:3, Insightful)
Fair point, but I don't know anyone who owns a TV and doesn't watch BBC at least some of the time. Even those who own cable or satelite. I've never yet met anyone who complains about the license either.
Re:Its funny... (Score:3, Informative)
already happens (Score:2)
*
This already happens. Pay attention during TV shows and movies (which, by the way, we *are* already paying to see) - there are tons of product placement. A few that come to mind: iBooks and iMacs in several prime time shows, and Seinfeld used to have a Klein mountain bike prominently displayed in his apt.
People aren't watching commercials - they either skip them if they have a TiVo, or switch channels. Stations know this and will have to change the way they advertise. It's been said before, stations are going to start playing ads during the show. Think of how CNN and ESPN have news/scores scrolling across the bottom of the screen during the broadcast - it's only a matter of time before this is used by shows for advertising.
MLS does this in a less annoying way now. The score in the corner of the screen is usually displayed with coke, nike or some other company's logo.
Don't need a new business model (Score:2)
Those without PVRs or VCRs will simply watch the ads or change the channel as they do now.
I don't see a technology that will universally eliminate the commercials, simply lower their value to the advertisers purchasing that commercial time.
With lower revenues, stations do not need to change their business model, they simply need to adjust their compensation to employees like executves and the actors. There is no reason that the cast of Friends gets like $2M per year except that the statation/network has the cash to pay it. If the stations have less income they will simply lower the exorbatant saleries of the actors to be more in-line with what is available.
Lower outlay for advertisements on television will also mean lower product prices, as we the consumers will no longer have to pay a premium for having products pitched at us in commercials that cost $100,000 per half minute.
Pay your TV Licence! (Score:3, Interesting)
Paying for shows (Score:2)
I would gladly pay by the show for the programs I watch, but only if they were commercial and DRM free. However paying by the show would absolutely subvert the point of this article, because the television studios wouldn't want you recording it. And forget about sharing television shows, that would amount to DVD and music piracy (i.e. vehemently gone after and prosecuted, unlike TV shows now[1]).
No, right now the best solution for the consumer and the producers is the ad in the middle of the show. Clearly it does work to some extent, just getting the name out there. And for those who don't care/don't want to watch the commercials, they can "steal" the content by going to the kitchen/bathroom/whatever until the commercials are over.
Sancho
[1] Yes, sites that distribute TV content are still shut down, but not with the force and money that's thrown at the various music and movie sites.
Not a big threat IMHO (Score:2)
A little about VBI (Score:3, Informative)
Much like spam filters, there are a few approaches that can be taken to apply statistical data and pattern recognition to the VBI data, which could then be used to skip commercials automatically. There are a few hobbyists doing this.
Since time data is also included in the VBI, the TV stations have exact lists of when commercials are to be inserted by their parent networks. This information, if obtained, could be useful when used in conjunction with the time data in the VBI.
Here's a good place to start reading if you want learn about your VBI... http://www.robson.org/gary/writing/nv-line21.html
New business model concept (Score:2)
The idea of stretegic product placement "sounds" good, but what about those personal injury lawyers? I'd hate to see one of those become a regular on Friends. George on Seinfeld is already "too lawyery" for me... (I still have images of that actor being the lawyer on 'Pretty Woman')
Some ads could work as strategic placement and others could not... Who on the cast of friends would plug ads for hemmoroid creme? I can sorta see Phoebe doing that... singing "Bleeding butt... bleeding butt... What have they been sticking in you?"
Actually, how about this? Fire all the over-paid actors and let the people who want to do it for free do it!! It couldn't get worse than it already is anyway. There are lots of people who would do TV just for the fun of it so forget about commercial sponsors entirely. We can call it "Open Source TV." Who says there has to be advertisers backing creative works to guarantee quality anyway?
"TV just wants to be free!!"
Integrated advertising (Score:2, Interesting)
Read some trade rags. (Score:2)
This was an interesting article that I stumbled across earlier today, when looking for PVR software:I'm guessing that rags like Advertising Week [adweek.com] would have a similar perspective on things.
PayPerView after evaluation period (Score:2)
Movies: payperview
News: they are capitalized already anyway, the one featured in news, pays
Who cares (Score:2)
I will pay for decent TV, I rent a lot of movies, because I don't like what is on TV.
Something I've thought was interesting (Score:2)
If you watch some of the old shows, it's interesting how they phrased the advertising: "The Shadow Knows! Brought to you by Johnson's Floor Wax! Keep your floors sparkling clean with Johnson's Floor Wax!" or some such.
The thing is, the way they phrased it, they made the relationship about who's paying the bills much more up-front, rather than the typical modern "We'll be back after a few messages" (translation: "We'll be back after wasting some of your time"). It's like the people on whatever show don't even respect the advertisers.
It seems like in the old days, people actually appreciated advertisers paying the bills, and responded by trying the product. Nowadays, it's almost an adversarial relationship. People go out of their way to get as far away from them as possible. Maybe it's just because there are so many more advertisers, and the advertising is much slicker. Personally, I think people just don't conciously make the connection between advertiser money and how these multi-million dollar productions get made.
I wonder if there is a way to make advertising a bit more of a "sponsorship" type of thing.
Why should I pay? (Score:2)
And whatever happens, don't go to the PBS/NPR model of subscription drives. Even though they only happen one week per quarter, they are infinitely more annoying than a constant but gradual stream of commercials.
Take a lesson from the internet (Score:2)
In the long run though, simple things like product placement should do it. This would allow them correct the percieved losses as a rusult of PVR tv viewing (which is a small majority that likely won't be large enough to impact anything for quite some time).
Well, the BBC has "survived," hasn't it? (Score:5, Informative)
I don't say you have to like the BBC. I don't say I would like this as a solution in the U. S. I just say, here is an existence proof. Here's one way television can and has "survived" without advertising.
As it says here, [bbc.co.uk]
The BBC's domestic radio and TV services are financed by the television licence fee.
The current licence fee (from 1 April 2002) is £112.00 for colour and £37.50 for black and white.
Anyone aged 75 or over is now entitled to a free TV Licence for their principal address.
If you are registered blind you only pay 50% of the full licence fee.
For less than 30p a day (colour), the licence fee pays for:
The television channels BBC ONE, BBC TWO, BBC Choice, BBC FOUR, BBC News 24 and BBC Parliament;
Five network radio services, plus the BBC Asian Network, and new digital radio services launching in 2002;
Regional TV programmes and Local Radio services in England;
National Radio & TV in Scotland, Wales & Northern Ireland;
BBCi.
Re:Well, the BBC has "survived," hasn't it? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Well, the BBC has "survived," hasn't it? (Score:3, Insightful)
Almost all of the US cable channels just do reruns, while the BBC produces a huge amount of original programming. And with about five times the population of the UK, similar funding levels could pay for five times the programming, all other things being equal.
Who cares about TV? (Score:3, Insightful)
ALL ADS! ALL THE TIME!! ADTV IS NOW AVAILABLE!!! (Score:3, Funny)
Seriously, I'm sure advertisers would love to pay people to watch their 30 second films. And you could choose which "kind" of commercials you wanted to watch by special interest, language, product type, etc.. I have found that the better commercials tend to be a lot more entertaining than your average Friends episode (I'm thinking best commercials in the World here, not just North America).
There might be some weird splash-over of people watching commercial for products that aren't available in their area (watching a stylish commercial for a Europe-only car or a funny Japanese toy commercial, for example), but the programming becomes REALLY simple when all you are doing is showing one 30 second spot after another... this might mean we now need Ad Jockeys (grimace).
The purpose of these channels (which could actually be fun to watch), would be to pay for the non-commercial channels bundled with them. So, if you watch x commercials, your cable is free (or cheap, rather).
Don't want to watch the commercials? Just pay the difference. Poor white trash? Make a little money while you sit on your ass. Everyone is a winner. Or not, as the case may be.
Product Placement/Place-over (Score:4, Interesting)
I do watch a lot of European Soccer, particularly English Premiere League. Soccer's a great way to show how to work around an advertising problem: The game is played for two continuous 45 minute halves. No TV Time-outs like (american) football/basketball, no injury time-outs. It just goes for 45 minutes, then stops for ~15 for half time, then goes again for another 45. So Advertisers have a few problems: no commercial breaks in-game, and the big-ol' 15 minute break in the middle is enough time for me to go grill myself a hamburger, grab a beverage, go to the bathroom, change the oil, etc. (although not at the same time).
So there're a couple of strategies employed. First, the obvious, that "this game is brought to you by so-and-so: slogan". You'll also find that the score display in the upper-right of the screen is "brought to you by so-andso", who just display their logo under the score constantly. Then, of course, the teams have logos on their jerseys, something which I am amazed American companies/sports teams haven't jumped on.
But as I ramble, I come to the ACTUAL idea. I started noticing that company logos are displayed in the center circle and corners of the field, in a manner that makes them appear to have been mowed/rolled into the grass. Of course, it isn't mowed/rolled in, it's digitally added, which makes it appear as though, say, budweiser has mowed the center of the pitch, when in reality it was simply added in later.
Let's take a couple of examples, which would be wildly easy to insert:
1) The friend's appartment has some poster on the wall, which, say changes week to week. Maybe it's a movie poster this week, maybe a pseudo-vintage coke ad.
2) The TV in a scene is playing some sort of advertisement. This would be especially amusing.
3) More mention of stores, and in particular, cars. Outside of the Seinfeld Black Saab, and Joe Suburbs shining up his vintage 60's muscle car while chatting with his neighbor, cars don't get a lot of play on your average sitcom or drama (knight rider/Viper excluded). For example, I know that in Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Cordelia drives a Chrysler Sebring, but that's only because I'm a geeky car guy. She never mentions it by name, but does indicate an attachment to it and how cool it is. Why not a few exterior shots as character X gets into his new Subaru, or as Jane Doctor on Medical Drama Du Jour pulls up to the hospital. Car Geeks like me can identify the car by the look of a fender, but if the public knew that Jane Doctor drove the new Toyota Camry, maybe that's a good motivating reason for them to own it. Heck, they make the Acura NSX look cool as hell in Pulp Fiction, and they don't ever even tell you what it is.
So, to summarize: product placement, but in different methods than are currently used. Instead of a stupid pepsi billboard, have the characters order a pepsi at the amusement park's drink stand. Instead of a commercial about the new Buick Rendezvous, make it obvious that the wholesome soccer mom love interest drives a Buick Rendezvous. Instead of "movie guy" telling us in 30 seconds about X-Men 2, make it seem that X-Men 2 is so cool that Joe Cool-Character would want to have the movie poster in his apartment. Creative integrity isn't really spoiled, instead of a character at the bar saying "lemme have a beer" he says "gimme an MGD". What's changed? Nothing really. Frame up a shot so that Suzy is walking toward the screen, with the rear of the new BMW Z4 visible on the right side and Suzy on the left. What's changed? One camera angle, which an assistant director would likely have taken care of anyway. Then maybe dump a solid five minutes worth of advertisements in between shows, so that people watching it "live" still catch some other ads. Not exactly a 'problem solved' but it does implement the ad in a different manner entirely.
Re:You can't get enough of that wonderful Duff (Score:3, Insightful)
But take, for example, the Kenny Roger's Roasters, Drake's Coffee cake, or Black Saab episodes of Seinfeld (episodes for which the studio and writers received no compensation at all). Kramer was conflicted because the neon sign of the Kenny Roger's place was keeping him up, but the chicken tasted so good. People can laugh at Kramer's misfortunes and still get the idea that Kenny Roger's makes a tasty chicken (for the record, it is pretty good). Had KRR paid the writers/studio for that episode, it would've been a perfect example of what I'm describing. For the record, Seinfeld fans consider the Drake's Cake and Kenny Roger's episodes to be some of the funniest around, not to mention that the season arcs about Jerry getting his own show on NBC (a show about nothing) would've worked wonderfully as an NBC self-ad.
The Simpsons (social satire) used to be rife with Fox insults ("wow, Fox turned into a hardcore porn station so fast", "I'm sure there's something better on from those fine folks at ABC", "Friday's just another day between NBC's thursday night must-see TV and Saturday's CBS crap-o-rama"), which I'm sure would do as good a job as "you're watching Fox".
Insidious? It's not a global conspiracy; it's just the way TV's business model works, and it's likely the way it always will work. For all the talk of $2 per show with free previews, it plays out a hell-of-a-lot like the micropayments idea that web comics wish they could implement. It sounds great, but really, the public would simply be too lazy to engage in it. Oh, and I'm sure Visa will love to handle $1 and $2 charges all day long (and the credit disputes customers will bring when 'this show sucked').
Fact of the matter is that advertising is what pays for TV. Until they can prove that a micropayment system works reliably, they're probably gonna stick to the same plan that's been working for the past 50 years. Sure, they may modify it a bit if PVRs start allowing large amounts of people to skip commercials, but they'll make their money somehow. I currently own two DVD television show compilations: Buffy Seasons one and two. It's a grand total of about $70 worth of television shows. Now assuming my apartment complex didn't include extended cable by default, the cable I get right now (extended basic) would cost me about $40 a month. That price is partly subsidized by advertising dollars, as the $10/month for a single channel of ad-less HBO would indicate. Assuming an ad-less TV setup (and interpolating that $10/month tag for ease of math/estimation), I'd need to spend a good, solid $80/month to see the television shows I enjoy: I'd need UPN for Buffy, Fox for Simpsons, NBC for Friends, The History Channel for the cool stuff that comes on it, HGTV for the girlfriend, TNN for their Next Generation re-runs (for the girlfriend; am I the only geek who DOESN'T like Star Trek?), Cartoon Network for the occasional anime that I enjoy watching, and the Food Network (Iron Chef). I'd rather deal with Iron Chef using Ginsus, Bart getting the latest Eidos videogame instead of Blood Warrior 3 (although the fake videogames are always funny), or a plug for Home Depot during an HGTV remodeling show than shell out a smooth $80 for the eight channels we watch at my place. If it comes to that, then I'll decide at that point if $80 is worth it, but until then, I'll deal with the subtle insidiousness.
Just as an aside, I do try to help out those things that I enjoy. I bought the Buffy DVDs despite the fact that I have every season already archived on CD-Rs. And no, it isn't the "incredible picture quality" that motivated me (the tape to DVD transfer on those DVDs is wretched, particularly the first season). I just like Buffy, and I hope to encourage further seasons. I've bought T-Shirts from Thinkgeek and comic compilation books from Bob the Angry flower. There's a fine line between "being a good little consumer" and keeping the companies (or programs) I like in business/on the air.
It depends what TV can do for me... (Score:3, Informative)
Sure, these channels provide much better TV (well, for me anyway) rather than the commercial channels, which broadcast the same average bull as the US channels do.
I think there are several questions you might ask yourself when creating a business model. What can TV do for its audience?
Once, four of the 8 commercial channels here in Holland, who own the best watched soap opera, announced that they would go behind the digital decoder. They made a gamble that people's addiction to this soap would force people to accept the new system. But what happened, a smaller national channel announced that they would never go behind the decoder and they owned a soap opera which was less popular, but still. So in the end, nobody went behind the decoder.
So what is TV for people? Education? Entertainment? There's one little problem with TV : forcing the customer to do anything that they're not doing now and which costs them more money will end-result in a competitor giving the same service without the force. People want freedom, not watching Buffy does not mean you're gonna die.
Just simply thinking of a business model is not enough. There's enough TV around anyway - you must have a good reason for me to watch your stuff.
By the way, both education and entertainment have substitutes: go to a theatre or a concert or perhaps read a good book. No TV does not mean no fun.
I guess you really have a problem.
Product Placement (Score:3, Funny)
"Before we investigate and inevitably arrest the prime suspect, why don't we relax and enjoy the soothing, refreshing taste of a Vanilla Coke?"
"Your honor, I request a recess so that we can try the new Subway Select Sweet Onion Chicken Teriyaki sandwich, only $2.99 for a limited time."
"The jury is hopelessly deadlocked, your honor. Half of the jury believes that the the defendant's beverage tastes great. The other half is convinced that it is less filling."
Slashdot vs. TV (Score:3, Funny)
Mindless drivel vs. um, mindless drivel.
I think I'll stick with TV and commercials. At least with TV, I'm not tempted to waste even more time responding to the mindless drivel.
-Rick
Since nobody's mentioned it... (Score:3, Interesting)
Why not buy TV content the same way we buy music and movies? At the video store. I don't see a reason why there need be advertising involved. The real question is: how do we support the creation of the content consumers want to see? The answer is pay for it. I refuse to support television in its current form, so I don't watch anything (except for Enterprise, which I usually download cuz I miss the timeslot).
But I will happily pay for stuff that makes me laugh or smile, tweaks my anticipation for the next installment, etc. What I expect for the service is to either receive a DVD in the mail with the show every couple of weeks, or be able to tune in to a server on the internet and download it either directly to my PVR (which I don't own--yet) or via my cable box. If there's advertising, I want it to offset the cost of the show, and be tuned to my interests, and NOT be in the middle of the show. It ruins the flow of a story and destroys all the suspense and tension that might be built by a good story.
The way I figure it, as a subscription-based model, you'll see fewer shows being produced, but those that are produced will be of higher quality and greater depth. People would be highly attached to the stories, reminiscent of the radio serials of the 1930's-50's. Life would change. Channel surfing would cease to exist; regular TV would be useful only has a news-delivery mechanism (this is a Good Thing, as local stations can barely do that well); people might be enticed to do outdoorsy things that are free, rather than stay inside and be advertised to constantly. Best of all, shows could very well be targeted towards more mature audiences with fewer complaints from the puritanical extremist groups. A little nudity hasn't hurt European audiences any.
Subscription television (Score:3, Insightful)
A not so simple solution (Score:3, Insightful)
2. TV stations start charging cable providers for content.
3. Cable providers charge us for the service.
I think a model like this would only work for satellite providers, not land based cable. The costs to lay/maintain coax is probably significantly more then it would be to plunk a bird in the sky.
Number one problem with this? Money. People will only pay so much for cable. Therefore the cable companies will only pay so much for content, and the stations will only pay so much for shows. Therefor the whole industry needs to live with a smaller profit margin. And this leaves us pretty much back where we are since we live on a very capitolistic continent.
Re:I got one... (Score:3, Funny)
Aren't there bears "outside?"
[/PA]
Re:I got one... (Score:5, Insightful)
What about not thinking yourself better than others because you don't choose to partake of a particular form of entertainment they might enjoy?
You smug, self-important assclown.
Re:I got one... (Score:5, Funny)
Food for thought - I watched *too* much tv. 6 hours a day.
I threw the bugger our and took up reading crappy scifi and posting on Slashdot. Same 6 hours wasted.
I've substitued one entertainment for another - and truth be told, I'm not more productive for it. However, I highly recomend to others that they make the switch:
After the switch, I've notices several good chainges in myself:
For some reason I don't consume as much goods, I'm less prone to inappropriate emotional outbreaks, and my vocabulary has improved. My spalling has remains attrocious as ever...
One thing that I won't do, is be a snob about it. I've only substitued one vice for another - I diden't acieve enlightenment or anything.
Re:product placement (Score:3, Informative)
Close, but actually not at all. Abercrombie is over 100 years old link [abercrombie.com]... and it became "trendy" for young folks way before that one hit wonder wrote a song about it.
Re:product placement (Score:3, Insightful)
A&F, 20 years ago was a cool place - you went there to outfit yourself for a Safari. They have fold up canvas bathtubs, heavy duty trunks, fold up elephent gun, portable teak boats that folded up. Expensive, but fun, stuff.
Now it's just a crappy upscale GAP for image cosumers. Sigh.
Re:product placement (Score:2)
Say Buffy does slam a Mt. Dew after killing a vampire. What does she drink in the summer when they're playing reruns? What does she do ten years from now when it's on Nick At Nite? Is Mt. Dew supposed so keep paying for every use, or does their responsibility end when the producer cashes their check?
I really hate the idea of product placement, probably because I watch the news. It gets annoying to see tonight's TV features plugged on CNN's little news ticker. It's even more annoying when Bush's crony working for FOX News decides to call a toss-up election for Bush because that's who he wants to win.
It's bad enough that the news media are a bunch of whores. Do you really want our entertainment to be the same? Ask yourself: would you watch Buffy if the writers were more concerned with selling Mt. Dew than they were with entertaining you (you know, being "artists")?
Re:Transparent overlays (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Wow. So many minds, zero answers (Score:4, Insightful)
All of the production costs, including the advertisements themselves, distribution costs (cable systems and satellite systems), plus exorbitant celebrity costs are being covered by consumers at large under the current business model.
This model exploits the network effect. A product heavily promoted on television will garner a larger display and back stock at the local retailer, because enough idiots out there think they are one glove or one shoe or one shirt away from being Tiger Woods or Michael Jordan. This reduces the stock of alternative products. If you don't want television, you just want the best shoe, there's a nice $50 shoe only they don't stock size 12. What happens? You walk out of the store with an $80 Nike, and one more slab of god awful television has just earned its commission.
It's not much different than the MS model. Those of us who don't watch television end up paying our tithes nevertheless. You can escape the net occassionally by buying your local eco soap, if you are spry enough to pull products off the floor shelf (which you have to crouch down to even see).
Let's suppose you set up a market to commission shows based on user contributed fees (supposing you can collect the $100,000 per episode it would take to make this work). In this model, the audience effectively owns the show. If the show ends up being really good, people who didn't participate in the commission will want to watch it. You would have to set up a fee system which returns profits to the original backers (the audience members with the foresight to commisssion the show).
Now we have a very interesting situation. Sally wants to see a show and she knows Bob is entitled to view the show because he participated in the initial round of funding. Sally asks Bob to tape the show so that she can avoid paying the fee. At one level this is ripping Bob off of a few microcents. On another level, if Sally bakes him a single chocolate muffin out of gratitude, he comes out ahead having ripped himself off.
What we have here is a P2P version of tragedy of the commons. It would be extremely difficult to make any system work where the backers of a show are not conceptually distinct from the audience of the show.
The reason the current system endures is because it creates a very high barrier to defection. Sure you can skip the commercials with a little bit of vigilance, but chances are you still get dinged at your local retail outlet, best intentions notwithstanding.
It internet groceries (and retail in general) had actually succeeded, it might have been possible to break this model. It would be great to be able to purchase dry goods via a web interface with user controlled filters. Transfatty oils? Click, gone. More sugar than fruit juice? Click, gone. MSG? Click, gone. Lifetime RDA for sodium in one sip? Click, gone. It would be like having your own supermarket with the top shelf on the bottom and the bottom shelf on top. That would have seriously impacted the existing television model. Which is precisely the reason this form of retail never had a snowball's chance in hell. If they nuked their ties to the marketrons, they would have to charge more up front to the end consumer than the same basket would cost in the grocery store. The average consumer is incapable of realizing that the average trip to the grocery store doesn't produce the same basket of goods (unless you spend an extra hour in the store filtering out all the surface crap).
There's a lot in life that gets paid for by nickle and diming people in subtle ways that are very difficult to add up at the end of the day. If you take the same sum of money, explain up front that they can direct this money to a project of their choosing (such as commissioning a television series of their favorite genre), or putting that same lump of money right back in their pocket, guess which choice people will make 90% of the time.
I think a narrow culture of micromedia will emerge for those of us willing to spend an hour with some content that some clever weirdo hacked together for $5000 on top of some open source modelling software, with all of the imperfection and absence of celebrity which that entails. Small groups of people will eccentric tastes are much more likely to succeed than large groups of people.
For example, I could see myself contributing $20/year to the Battlebot Foundation, which as just one of many activities, could put together a half dozen episodes a year of battlebot competitions. On the other hand, I doubt I would have forked over $20 to keep The Simpsons alive, even though I often find it entertaining.
One of the great advantages of the existing model is the absence of marginal cost. All you have to do is calculate your belt size and contribute that many dollars a month to your local cable company, which covers most viewing plans. Then you have a built in excuse for zoning out on the sofa whenever you feel like it: it isn't costing me anything.
Now think about a competing model where the content costs you real money every time you turn the TV on, and the double daggers you will have to endure from your spouse every time you collapse on the couch.
When it comes to apathy, narcissism, and denial (the three foodgroups of television) it really doesn't matter how many great minds you throw at the problem.