How Could TV Survive Without Commercials?

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 Sure, you could say it's their fault for having an outdated business model, but there's a problem: these sources are where A LOT of the content for your PVR comes from.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.

The most obvious alternative is to send your favorite shows to you via broadband and have you pay by the show. But would you pay to watch Buffy, The News, Star Trek? Would you prefer pay by the show, subscribe to a show/network or be forced to watch commercials? I'm interested in hearing what system would bug you the least, or if you have your own ideas how it could work."

Comments

Video On Demand

[Brian_Ellenberger]

The magical "any day now" video on demand is here. On ATT Broadband in Atlanta I now have a certain selection of movies that are on VOD. It is $2.99 for an older movie and $3.99 for a newer one I believe. The coolest thing is that you can fast forward, rewind, pause, and stop and save for viewing later.

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:We already do pay for TV without commercials

[Afrosheen]

We pay a premium for these already because they braodcast with few or no channels.

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".

Well, the BBC has "survived," hasn't it?

[dpbsmith]

At the first of a) pointing out the obvious, and b) getting flamed, there ARE other ways in the world to support television besides commercial services sponsored by advertising.

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,

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.

that's not true either

[Trepidity]

If you can prove that you don't watch any television channels, you do not have to pay. If you watch television channels, but never watch the BBC, you still have to pay for it. So it's illegal to watch TV without paying for the BBC, even if you hate the BBC and never watch it.