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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 Sure, you could say it's their fault for having an outdated business model, but there's a problem: these sources are where A LOT of the content for your PVR comes from.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.
How about this one:
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.
PBS, digital movie channels, HBO, etc...
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.
** Sig-a-licious **
I don't. And I haven't found my life in any way worse off. In many ways, I have found life without TV a big improvement, in that I can now think.
www.tvturnoff.org is a good place to start if your interested in unplugging from the Plug in Drug.
catch (HumourFailureException e) { e.user.send("You, sir, are a humourless idiot."); }
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.
There is a noted increase in revenue when an ad campaign is put out. Despite what you _think_ you are paying attention to, ads DO have an affect.
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.
http://www.naildrivin5.com/davec
It is good - BBC produce some of the finest content out there, and I'm more than willing to pay the tax (actually, I don't have too... seeing as my house has a resident that is over seventy five).
BBC == darn good!
catch (HumourFailureException e) { e.user.send("You, sir, are a humourless idiot."); }
The adds work. We don't really know how, but the they do, as evidenced by finincial sucess that the companie reap by their effectivness.
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.
Moneyed corporations, non-working 'poor' and criminal prisoners are turning productive citizens into tax-slaves.
Quoth the Cowtard:
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.
The Mongrel Dogs Who Teach
Apart from shows like Monk on ABC and on the USA Network, and CSI, really, why should we pay for the crap on US television?
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.
Human nature is the same everywhere; the modes only are different. -- Earl of Chesterfield
Yeah, the dumb schmucks already pay $50+ per month for cable (i.e. over $600+ per year) in order *NOT* to pay a $150 TV tax.
Do the math. For $600+ a year, screw the advertisers. They've already been paid.
I'll gladly give up free television (how many people actually use antennas anyway) in return for access to the television airwaves.
Yeah, and even if you think the BBC is stupid and would never watch it, you don't have a choice.
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.
> 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.
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..
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.
The ads for BBC programmes are between shows not ever 10-15 minutes, so you can watch a show without interruptions. Which is very nice when the BBC runs movies on BBC1 or BBC2. I can't watch a movie with ad breaks, it ruins the experience. So I pay for premium movie channels like HBO.
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 or 8 1/2 again than Blue Crush.
One of the great advantages of having no ads is that there is no concept of ratings. With no advertisers you can concentrate on the providing quality content, as opposed to stuff that is meant to please the advertiser.
Jumpstart the tartan drive.
Besides, I already pay to listen to public radio where I can, so why not?
This sig no verb.
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.
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Try http://dotcrimeManifesto.com/
I don't watch Will and Grace, so I can't comment on that episode, but I'm assuming from the tone of the statement that you consider it to be a crappy episode. I'll give you that. Even very skilled writers have a hard time figuring out how to implement a story line similar to what I imagine the show centered around without a) selling out or b) pissing off sponsors.
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.
I have to agree - I used to find it a little annoying that I had to pay the TV tax for a couple of channels no matter whether I watched them or not. But recently I've worked out that the BBC channels are pretty good value for money.
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?
Code, Hardware, stuff like that.
The comparison to the BBC and licensing fees doesn't cut it. A couple of hundred bucks a year for under 10 channels would never fly in the US, where broadcasters provide, and consumer expect 10x that number of channels. For the economics to translate, consumers would have to pay thousands a year in licensing fees. Not gonna happen.
Love many, trust a few, do harm to none.
Your Jedi mind tricks will not help you here!
Hahaha... sales and marketing astroturfers =D
"No, no, ads really work! You pay attention to ads! You love ads!"
This sig is part of your complete breakfast.
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.
I've long harbored a fantasy about a television system that could be tailored to individual viewers. I became frustrated with both my cable company and DirecTV over the way they offer their services. In both systems, customers are offered "packages" of channels with names like "TotalChoice" and "Premium" that are, in fact, not choices at all. If I want to see Comedy Central, AMC, Bravo and the SciFi Channel, I have to also get the Food Network, Home and Garden, Lifetime, multiple ESPN channels and more than half a dozen religious channels. If I want to get TechTV or the Sundance Channel, I not only have to pay more, but I also have to get the Golf Channel, Oxygen, UniVision and TeleMundo.
I want to be able to pick and choose what I watch and not have to subsidize religious broadcasters or channels that I have no interest in seeing. I would gladly pay extra to get only those channels I want and not have to pay for channels I don't want. I'd even pay extra to not have to watch commercials.
I don't think I'm unusual, and I think lots of viewers would jump at the chance for this kind of service. Say you develop a cable or satellite receiver that logs everything you watch in a given month and charges you only for what you watch. Come up with a system of micropayments such as $0.005 per minute (which works out to $0.60 per hour) and people may be more discriminating in what the spend their time/money watching.
If I had to pay for every minute of television I watch, I might not spend so much time in front of the tube, but I'd be much more careful about what I watched. Current Pay-Per-View offerings of heavyweight boxing events or WWE Wrestling spectaculars charge anywhere from $15 to $65 for one to four hours of programming, and regularly make millions. Pay-Per-View movies have proven themselves a viable option for people who don't wish to subscribe to HBO, ShowTime or CineMax.
The business model is complicated because you can't predict that people would watch more TV if they had to pay by the minute, but if the billing system could be designed with incentives like frequent flyer miles where you paid less money if you watched more hours, then I think this could be a profitable venture.
Anyone interested in designing such a receiver? I'll be the first in line to buy one!
I think that subscription TV channels are probably a much better alternative than commercial channels. Ask yourself, what are the best TV shows on the tube? For me the best TV series and news are on HBO and my local public television stations. I know that HBO is highly profitable. So why have the networks clung to their old model? I guess it is because it's all they've got. If they were smart they would get the FCC to allow them to broadcast digitally encrypted shows that use decoders at the television. Then they could switch to the subscription model. I suppose that cable networks are somewhere in between broadcast network television and premium channels but they are obviously just as bad as the networks when it comes to intrusive advertising, low quality material, and bugs (the logos and watermarks on the screen that don't go away and usually animate once in a while).
1. Dump all commercials.
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.
- Jimbob
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.