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ABC Affiliates Grapple With TV-Show Downloads
Carl Bialik writes "By making an episode of 'Lost' available for download last week just half a day after it aired, for a $1.99 charge, 'Apple may have helped open a Pandora's box for the media business,' the Wall Street Journal reports. The president of the association representing ABC's affiliate stations sent a letter to the president of ABC, reading in part, 'It is both disappointing and unsettling that ABC would embark on a new -- and competitive -- network program distribution partnership without the fundamental courtesy of consultation' with its affiliates. While the extent of Apple's TV downloads is limited, the Journal parses the potential impact: 'if downloading episodes over the Internet proves popular, analysts believe Apple will get permission to offer shows with better-fidelity pictures. Any success Apple has won't go unnoticed by other online media powerhouses with expanding video initiatives like Yahoo Inc., Google Inc. and Microsoft Corp., which could all help extend TV downloading to more viewers.'"
Thank you Apple! Once again this company (along with ABC this time) has the stones to step up and offer a service that is a market primed to explode. The iTMS has proven to be a good long tail business model for the distribution of music, offering popular and otherwise out of print or hard to find (Indie) tracks that are simply unavailable in the large retail outlets. I have not watched much TV in the past while, but having the iTMS model of distribution for TV shows that are out of syndication or are otherwise hard to obtain would be a tremendous boon. And if Ted Turner would get on the ball, all sorts of older movies could also be made available via this model, that would increase revenues over what they are making by the current limited access to the media. Documentaries, "foreign" (to the US) films, and indie films could make it truly big by talking to Apple. Sundance Channel and TCM, you are the big guys in this market......So, are you paying attention? And for you TIVOheads out there, in essence, if this propagates to the rest of the industry, this will be a centralized TIVO allowing you to pick and choose without having to take the time to program, and like the article said, this could make the ala carte system moot. Who knows, this could even open up the option of letting us pay for content that is without commercials or get it for "free" if we agree to watch the commercials. It's could simply be our choice.
P.S., Ted, thanks for the buffalo ranching, but there is more money to be made still in media. Don't give up.
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Exactly how is this bad for the affiliate stations? For a nano second I can't imagine this didn't help these affiliates. How much you wanna bet the viewership was up for the episode of Lost following the announcement of the video iPod? Peoples' normal reactions would be along the lines of:
I don't think any of the above are off-the-scale guesses of peoples' reactions and I think the viewership because of the video iPod could actually increase!
But, let's assume the death star, end-of-the-universe scenario the affiliates and others see this as. They see this as a threat rather than an extension. So, if it is true, boo-hoo!
Thank goodness the lobbyists and power brokers circling the wagons today for the hapless industry wasn't present in the late 19th and early 20th century to protect the horse and buggy industry in the same way... We'd have no cars today (since that would have threatened the established travel industry).
(So, for the record, does anyone know what the comparison was for Lost pre- vs. post-video iPod announcement? I don't really care, but it'd be interesting to know.)
Business models change over time. Companies can either attempt to adjust their business models to take advantage of those changes or try to fight those changes (RIAA). If the TV companies were smart and downloading shows of the internet proves to be the "wave of the future" they need to find a way to take advantage of that instead of trying to stop it.
They can stop crying and start getting ready for it. If they don't fill the demand, someone will. As soon as I can have a high speed internet connection without the help of either the local cable company or telephone company then I'll be free of both.
At that point, any content I can't get online, I simply will do without. Sell me entertainment online, or sell me nothing. It makes no difference to me. There's plenty of free and legal clips of amusement here and there at least as worthwhile as the junk they air on TV anyway.
Besides, I find reading books and doing technical reading online is a better use of my time than watching television in the first place.
"Everything you know is wrong. (And stupid.)"
Moderation Totals: Wrong=2, Stupid=3, Total=5.
People love Tivos. But if you look at why, it's simply because it takes a broadcast show and turns it into real digital media that you can do the normal things digital media allows, like scnaning or random access.
It makes no sense any longer for people to do ANYTHING but download shows and access the contents as they please, when they please. That's what Apple is opening up to the mass market for current TV, and what people will most naturally except. Fighting this migration is a loosing battle.
I really feel like as cool as Tivo is, it's trapped between a rock and a hard place. The rock are media companies that are unsure about people being able to record anything. The hard place is when people discover they like random media so much, they'd rather just download everything and use it that way. Apple is taking over the space Tivo could have if they'd started looking at a downloadable TV market.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Yes, Thank you Apple! Finnally someone has done what the consumers have been screaming for for years! So many nay-sayers look at the iPod Video and say it is some gimmick, but what they dont realise is exactly this pandoras box being opened!
The day when I can download my latest episodes of SG1 or my girlfriends O.C for $1.99 rather than wait 6-9months for it to come on TV in the UK is the day that I stop using eMule!
Thank you Apple you found the only way to stop priacy.
That particular episode of Lost is irrelevant in the big picture. The issue is whether the network is going to undercut its affiliates by building an alternate distribution model.
Because for many consumers it is simply too hard to set up the computer to record the show, edit out the commercials, compress it in a suitable format and copy it across to the player. Then there is even a subset of geeks like me that can easily do it but just couldn't be bothered.
It's TV after all; a bit of entertainment after a hard day at work. I just want to watch the show, not muck around with recordings, having to preview it by editing out commercials first etc. For $2 - I'll pay that!
With the same logic, why spend up to $5 at Starbucks to buy a coffee when I could just buy some beans, grind them myself, brew, froth the milk, and serve for next to nothing?
There will always be smart people like yourself willing to go the extra mile to save a buck, but the majority simply don't care.
ABC has chosen to act as an independent agent in a free market, rather than subjecting its decisions to cartel politics.
Don't for a moment think that affiliate demands on the network are all one-sided. Maintaining affiliate status means a station has to comply with all kinds of rules set by the network too.
ABC is not simply acting as an independent agent, they are, in some sense, unilaterally re-writing their contracts with their affiliates. I would be damn pissed too if one of my clients decided that they could get away with rewriting our contract, in their favor, with no negotiation.
I agree that the net has changed things and it is high-fucking-time the television industry started to catch up, but don't go thinking ABC or even Apple is the white hat in this episode of the drama - its a lot more complex than that.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
...you're going to tell me how Apple is going to cram a 35 inch screen inside your iPod case.
OK, so you can take your episode of Lost with you, and watch it on your pocket TV. Pocket TVs have been around for...what, more than a decade? How many people do you know stopped buying 25, 32, 50 inch TVs for their house, and multi-thousand dollar sound systems to plug those TVs into, because, well golly gee, now they can put their TV in their pocket.
iPod TV downloads and TiVo solve different problems related to TV viewing. The new iPod service lets you take portable TV shows with you. TiVo lets you time shift, search and archive, and if you have the personal motivation to set up TivoToGo and upgrade your PocketPC handheld with the right WMP software, take portable TV shows with you.
So really, the only thing the new iPod/ABC service does is remove the requirement that your TiVo be available at the time the show comes on the TV. Of course, it's not like you actually have to do anything to make your TiVo record...just set up the season pass, and they'll be there, assuming the show aired in the first place.
All the iPod/ABC service does is remove the requirement for the show to have aired at its original time. And it still has the shortcoming of only being watchable on a screen that, at it's best, is less than a quarter the size of the smallest laptop I've used in the last 5 years.
I wouldn't start the funeral dirge for PVRs and PVR services yet. Not unless that's a TV in your pocket, and not just that you're happy to see me.
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"Why, what Apple is doing is being done today! Anyone who has cable - well that is digital cable - well that is digital cable with VOD - can do the same thing today. Although if they want to keep it I guess they have to figure out how to hook up a compute rto the cable box."
Apple has never been about doing things that are totally new. They just take things people would like to do and make them inviting for everyone to actually partake of.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley