Can iTunes Resurrect Old Time TV?

An anonymous reader writes "With iTunes selling a couple of popular TV shows now there has been significant hesitation from other television producers to follow suit and put their content on the Web. It has also sparked activity from the actors unions who want additional compensation for what appears online. But there is also existing content that stands to be revived in this new context, older television shows from the 50's and 60's that have been squeezed out of the traditional broadcast by popular shows of more recent vintage. It was suggested to a producer who is presently digitizing 27 episodes of a 1950's show called Captain Zero to offer it up on iTunes for a buck an episode. Is this an opportunity for these old shows to strike while the iron is hot and while the owners of more contemporary content are caught like deers in a headlight? As the Captain Zero article points out purveyors of old time radio programs have enjoyed a significant revival by embracing web-based technology. Why not old time TV?"

Comments

What I want:

[Seumas]

If you want me to be a customer, you need to offer me several things:

+ I don't want to view it just on my ipod.

+ I don't want to be able to view it only with Quicktime.

+ I don't want to have severe DRM limits that hamper my ability to store and watch the content any time I want on any device I want.

+ I don't want to pay through the nose for the content.

+ If I watch it on a non-iPod device, I want higher quality downloads available.

+ You should have at least the selection that Netflix does. Even if you're just the "Netflix of television".

I'm one of those consumers who is not opposed to paying for information/entertainment/data on any real basis other than I want it to be affordable and flexible. Don't place silly restrictions on me that hamper my enjoyment and don't charge me so much that I have to seriously think if each download is worth it.

Also, isn't most of the content they're talking about already public domain? Hell, some of it can be downloaded from the Internet Archive already.

Re:Public domain, et al

[Seumas]

Have you seen the bargain DVD rack at your local Wal-Mart?

No, I've never actually been inside of a Wal-Mart.

However, even at bargain bin prices, it's not worth it. $5+ for a movie that's 20, 30, 40, 50 or even 60+ years old is not worth it.

Another example of The Long Tail

[The Mutant]

I see a market for this, driven by the need of someone, somewhere, who wants to see an episode of some older TV show, or even a current TV show that doesn't have mass appeal. Appeal that's in the upper 20% of overall demand that is.

iTunes is a very effective distribution medium, and has helped the careers of many a smaller label / band, and even moved significant amount of back catalog.

Currently the networks are marketing to the top 20% in terms of demand, and ignoring the remaining 80% because they don't have the broadcast capacity.

Teaming up with iTunes they do. Another example of The Long Tail .

I see this working.

Let me know when

[Fahrvergnuugen]

I can download all of the Wile E. Coyote episodes uncensored. It kills me that they see a need to hack the shit out of the classic looney tunes cartoons to protect kids from viewing violence. It was okay for a whole generation of children and adults alike and now suddenly it's not okay, so they need to censor them.

Re:M*A*S*H

[henni16]

if I could buy the whole seriese sands canned laugh.
Having the seasons 1-8 (9 will be released in Dec, IIRC) on DVD behind me on the shelf:
you can have that right now.
I don't know about the RC1 release, but for the RC2s (1 or 2 seasons of mine are the German DVDs, most are from the UK) I can assure you that they all contain a "laughless" audio track.

Each RC2- season box contains 3 discs with 8 episodes each (sadly, no bonus materials) and sell (at amazon) around 25 pounds(UK) or 20-27 Euro (German, also cotaining laughterless English track).
Judging from the comments at amazon.com (20$ a season) you can turn off the laughter on the RC1s too; at least on the early ones (I checked season 1,2 and 7; BUT 7 didn't list two english tracks so you might want to take a closer look).

So you can get them already for 0.85$-2$ per episode,.

Re:Public domain, et al

[laffer1]

And you lose more quality than the DVD. Why? Apple uses an incredibly small resolution for ipod videos.. 320 x 240 or so (from memory). My first computer did 640 x 480 for christ sake. I bought a music video on iTunes adn when i went full screen on my iBook it looked worse than the quicktime file i made from an old vhs of u2 videos. Apple needs to offer a high quality version at higher resolution. I'd even be willing to pay more for it.