P2P and TV

Khuffie writes "According to Wired, Warner Bros. Entertainment recently passed on a pilot of a show called Global Frequency. However, due to a leak on bit-torrent the pilot episode has reached thousands of viewers who are clamouring for more, and has given the show a new lease on life. What's more interesting is what the show creator learned. From the article: "It changes the way I'll do my next project," said Rogers. If he owned the full rights, he said, "I would put my pilot out on the internet in a heartbeat. Want five more? Come buy the boxed set." Frankly, I'm all for this method of distribution, as I barely watch 'regular' TV anymore."

Comments

More Stupidity!

[AKAImBatman]

Hoffman added that the pilot's unauthorized distribution is "unacceptable and illegal ... no matter what the underlying motives" and said the company hasn't ruled out taking legal action "when it comes to stopping the illegal distribution of our copyright material."

Quick! Cover it up! People aren't supposed to know we're rejecting the GOOD shows in favor of more idiocy! God forbid that a television network pander to an intelligent clientele. After all, you're all supposed to slurp up the low cost, low profit, low intelligence, but HIGH MARGIN reality shows! Who wants to worry about actually pleasing customers? Just pander to the stupidity! That's the ticket!

Gah. And television networks wonder why no one is tuning in anymore. It must be because there isn't enough stupidity. Bring on Big Brother on Survivor Island where the worst singer is voted into fear factor stunts! In Dolby 5.1 no less! That'll bring in the ratings!

Re:More Stupidity!

[ghislain_leblanc]

You seem to have mixed up your role in this whole thing.

You are not the customer, you are the product. Advetisers are the customers, they are buying your attention (what's left of it) and the TV networks are selling it.

Re:More Stupidity!

[mrchaotica]

Who wants to worry about actually pleasing customers? Just pander to the stupidity! That's the ticket!

Viewers aren't the customers, they're the product. The networks do care about pleasing their real customers, the advertisers. I would guess that advertisers, in general, prefer stupidity -- it makes it easier to get idiots to buy their products.

Re:More Stupidity!

[Apreche]

That's right. That's why intelligent shows don't get produced often. It's because intelligent people aren't influenced as easily by advertising. So advertisers don't want to pay to get your attention. They want the attention of millions of idiots who will buy anything shiny.

If anyone wants to make a serious show they should just go direct to DVD with some Internet promotion. TV is not the place to go for quality video entertainment.

Re:More Stupidity!

[AKAImBatman]

Doesn't high margin imply high profit?

Nope. If I create a product that costs $10 to manufacture, sell it for $12, but sell 10,000,000 units, then I have made $20,000,000 profit on a 16% margin. On the other hand, if I create a product that costs $6 to manufacture and sell 10,000 unit for $12 a piece, I'd have made $60,000 on a 50% margin. Given the choice, most people would go for the 16% margin because it means more money.

The risk, however, is that you might fail to capture the market and only sell a small number. Any up front costs (which can be considerable in high profit dealings) are lost. Now if you consider that the 16% margin has an upfront cost of $100,000, but the 50% margin has an upfront cost of only $1,000, how do you think that effects the risk/reward ratio?

Re:More Stupidity!

[doormat]

You also forgot the MASSIVE egos of the people who run these places. Look at shows like Futurama, Family Guy, Firefly, etc. These were done as more or less "independent" projects. Not a lot of intervention on behalf of those running the studio (the execs). They want to justify their existance by saying "look, we help these shows get better, etc". When a show comes along and it is a total hit on its own without any help from the higher-ups, it makes them worry... "If they can make good shows without my help, why am I here?". So they constantly insert themselves into the process, in order to try and make themselves look needed. And sometimes that includes killing off really good shows they have no hand in to prevent the perception problem and to reinforce how much Fox or NBC needs them around.

Two words:

[winkydink]

Viral marketing

And Paramount's response?

[schon]

Legal posturing.

This is *precisely* why Copyright law needs an overhaul. The supposed goal of copyright law is "to promote science and the useful arts".

How is allowing a company to stop this from seeing the light of day a promotion?

If you make something, and don't release it, you shouldn't be allowed to stop someone else from distributing it for no charge.

Re:And Paramount's response?

[m50d]

Did you even read the post you replied to? The only legal basis for *copyright* is to promote the progress of science and the useful arts. So if people taking your Awesome-o-matic would in the long run promote science and the useful arts more than letting you keep and sell it, that's what should be done. If you don't like it you can move somewhere else, because that's the *constitution*.

Re:And Paramount's response?

[Fallingcow]

Way to totally misunderstand the GP.

He's just saying that if the point of copyright is to encourage more content to be created and released (which it is), then we should consider the copyright system a bit broken if it causes large amounts of good stuff to get suppressed. It's possible that tweaking the copyright system would result in more content getting created and released, which would make it better. GP said nothing about giving stuff away for free.

The choice of what to do with it is in the hands of the creator, not what the masses want.

The construct of "intellectual property" is created by the masses for their own benefit. If it happens to benefit creators, that's great. If the creators get in the way of benefit for the masses, fuck 'em. Copyright is about benefitting society; that the best method of instituting it happens to help out the creators in most cases is incidental. The system can help creators a bunch, that's fine, but the second that interferes with the benefits for the masses it needs to change, because that's not why the masses invented copyright. The creator can choose not to release anything at all; however, if they do release and then seek copyright protection, society better damn well better be getting something out of it for granting them such protection.

We're talking about optimization here. Best possible good for the masses. Odds are the solution gives the creators of content a pretty damn good deal, too, but that's just a happy coincidence.

Heh

[OverlordQ]

Frankly, I'm all for this method of distribution, as I barely watch 'regular' TV anymore.

Only on slashdot is stealing* encouraged and applauded when it involves Television, music, and movie copyrights, but God forbid anybody violates the GPL.

*Yes i know it's not technically stealing.

It makes you wonder...

[EvilStein]

How many really cool TV show pilots are sitting on a shelf collecting dust, never to be seen by the public?

Why? Corporate interests? Copyrights? It's sad how copyright law lets something be shoved under the carpet like that.

I'd like to see media companies do something cool: if the product is no longer generating revenue, turn it loose on the web. Maybe that's just a dream, because they're hoping TV Land will pay royalties to air old TV shows, so since there's a *potential* revenue stream, the shows sit on the shelf.

Hey, here's another idea. Put the pilots on the web, and have a contest to see which one folks like best. *gasp* Imagine that! Having the *viewing public* help you pick out what shows to work on next! Oh, the humanity!

Torrent

[Anonymous Coward]

Torrent of mentioned show.

The future of Podcasting here?

[Dark Paladin]

I think guy now "gets it" - he doesn't *need* the studios anymore. Get some funding, put together a pilot and a few episodes, and then do it himself. He could sell DVDs. He could do it via hostageware (until X amount of money or DVDs are sold, we won't make any more). He could make it, get it popular, then have a major network pick it up. Tell people that if he can raise X amount of money he can film a pilot episode (and if they're someone such as the producer/director of "Firefly" or "Battlestar Gallactica", maybe the fans would do it - look how much people raised to try and save "Star Trek").

Makes you wonder if Podcasting might not take this route. I once listened to the "Catholic Insider" (not because I'm Catholic, mind you, but I liked his reporting on the death on the last Pope), and he had a joke Podcast about podcasting in the future - where people all around the world online edit the video, set up production, then distribute it online with the ads built in (or people pay for certain individual content).

It's rather optimistic, and I'm not saying the major networks will "go away", but if gentlemen such as this guy can go "Woah - wait - now I have an option on how to promote my work", then there's a chance that it will bring a new level of pressure onto the networks. Which would mean more competition. And that is always good for the customer (I don't like using the word "consumer" for myself, sorry).

Of course, this is all just my opinion. I could be totally wrong. But I hope not.

Re:Then how is the production funded?

[AKAImBatman]

You're watching no ads. I'm not sure you realize how much money advertising brings to the table here.

There's nothing stopping Internet distribution from including ads. Sure, some people will remove them, but the majority wouldn't bother. There are also other models that can be explored, such as BitTorrent-like streaming where the final file is really not accessable to the user.

Want five more? Come buy the boxed set.

This is the "first hit free" model. It's based on the idea that most people aren't going to bother running around trying to find another free hit. They'll just pay for it. There will always be a small group trying to game the system, but they are insignificant.

Reading the article, my gut feeling is that this is nothing more than a grass-roots effort to get a show into production. Just like the fan-base of FireFly was built through BitTorrent, so will the fan-base of this show be build. I don't think it really has anything to do with the P2P aspect other than the fact that P2P technology was used for distribution. Similar things happened prior to the Internet with leaked tapes, whereupon copies upon copies were made.

Re:Then how is the production funded?

[Maxo-Texas]

Assume just a million people pay 10 bucks a piece for your DVD set of 5 shows (i.e. 1 DVD).
You are looking at a gross of 10 million dollars. You only pay taxes on the profits. So first take off your costs. Actors- Figure 50k per episode for the Stars and 10k per episode for all bit actors. But they might go for a percentage of the gross. Techs- Figure another 100k per episode for editors, etc.
Music- Another 100k per episode. Costumes and Sets- 300k one time setup plus 10k per episode- so say another 60k per episode.
Easily 200k per episode profits after the cost of producing quality dvd's. Take off 50% for the government and you have 500k profits.
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Part of the reason it is expensive now is that you are paying for a HUGE overhead of hollywood, distributers, and local outlets. All of that expense goes away.
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Check out "Star Wreck" or "Star Trek the new Voyages" for an idea of what you can do with merely 15 grand- upscale that by about 500 grand and imagine how much better it would be.
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A lot of junk will be produced- but a lot of good stuff too. Once you build up street cred that you won't rip people off- you produce a "pilot" and put it out. Tell folks "The nut for this is 500,000 viewers at 20 bucks a piece. If we get it- we will produce 5 episodes on DVD for those folks. We'll make another 6 episodes as long as the actors and the audience can agree on a price for more. We'll stop when they can't agree."
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The cost of making things like this is dropping like a stone. You don't need 150 million dollars to do it if you don't go through hollywood.

Re:Then how is the production funded?

[daveschroeder]

Assume just a million people pay 10 bucks a piece

Just a million?

Just a million?

I think you vastly overestimate the number of people you could get on board for something done exclusively in the non-advertising, P2P panacea you envision.

Even the article used for this supposedly shining example says:

"Now I have an extra 10,000 hits a week on my website, and I've got to figure out what to do here."

Rogers, who said he had nothing to do with the leak, has already received 350 e-mails from people praising the show. He said he would like to release the pilot as a DVD.

Wow, a whole 350 people emailing praise? Holy smokes! And assuming all those people would pay, only $9,996,500 to go! And 10,000 extra hits a week? How do you quantify all this stuff? More realistically, you've got maybe 10,000 people willing to pay $10/show, lowering your gross by a couple orders of magnitude.

It's easy to lay out a best-case scenario.

What's hard is for someone to actually execute on it. And, P2P aside, if it were that easy, it would already have been done.

I'd love to see it succeed, and I'm sure some will. However, none of this justifies any of the rationalizations used for taking things funded by advertising in the meantime.

Already tried & failed

[dazedNconfuzed]

We'll make another 6 episodes as long as the actors and the audience can agree on a price for more. We'll stop when they can't agree.

Stephen King tried it. He started a new book and gave the first chapter away for free, putting subsequent chapters up for sale; when enough people bought a chapter he would write & publish the next one (all on-line). It was a dismal failure: the second chapter was bought by few and re-distributed by many; as a result, chapter three was never published. Author and audience couldn't agree on merely chapter 2.

Piracy!

[sterno]

Don't you understand? They are losing viewers because of the evil pirates who distribute their hard work for free on the Internet. This allows the terrorists to win. Please think of the children.