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CBS, NBC to Offer TV Shows for 99 Cents
According to an AP report. "CBS and NBC have announced deals to offer replays of prime-time programs for 99 cents per episode, shifting television toward a sales model that gained popularity with downloaded music." But the shows will only be available over Comcast on Demand, not for download.
For the cost of fifty shows you can just get a Tivo.
First comes mainstream TV on the net.
Then comes internet only TV.
On-demand, lower broadcast costs, and the replacement of 'public access' with equal opportunity online broadcasts all push internet video over it's ancient predecesor.
It's only a matter of time until the TV joins the newspaper in it's slow walk to the grave.
Mooniacs for iOS and Android
I'm willing to bet they will push DC to enact laws that may recording TV illegal. Kiss your Tivo goodbye. This is just them being able to tell everyone, look people can get the TV show after it plays for a fair price, they shouldn't be able to record it on their own.
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you can watch your ipod show over and over. The Comcast deal is $0.99 per play.
Channels like HBO and Showtime offer all of their programming free to subscribers on Comcast In Demand.
What makes time-shifting Survivor worth 99 cents when I can time-shift The Sopranos for free?
or until DirecTV cancels MPEG-2 service, but i tell you what, i'm going to run my hacked DirecTiVo until the wheels fall off - screw everyone else and their lameastic ideas.
My Hacked DirecTiVo works 1 step simple to get any show i want with my iPod (now, with Video), doesn't cost me per play, works great with my Mac, and doesn't have any DRM.
These things are going to be insanely valuable in years to come because of their incredible feature set, lack of DRM, and compatibility with so many other devices.
meanwhile, newer systems are going to be less and less useful and less interesting to me. HDTV doesn't make my skirt fly up compared to a well written show or good coverage of a hockey game... neither of which requires higher resolution.
guns kill people like spoons make Rosie O'Donnell fat.
CBS and NBC have announced deals to offer replays of prime-time programs for 99 cents per episode
I remember when cable TV first appeared, and nearly every channel that existed did this for a monthly fee instead of per-episode. It was
called "syndication".
shifting television toward a sales model that gained popularity with downloaded music
Minus the entire computer this time.
Unless they're willing to strip out the commericials, which is how they get paid in the first place, then I'll just stick to P2P.
We have secretly replaced these Slashdot mods' sense of humor with a rusty nail. Let's see if they notice!!
This is proof that the Networks still don't understand this whole "internet" thing at all.
1. While downloading for iPod is mentioned in the article, NBC and CBS are referring to OnDemand (same ol' crap that cable companies have been pushing for years) with their set top boxes.
2. The article says that 99 cents is the cost, but it includes commercials. So you're paying $1 to watch a free show WITH commercials.
3. NBC still believes there "aren't enough protections" to put their content on the internet.
These guys don't realize that their shows are mediocre at best and placing any higher threshold on watching them will actually DECREASE viewers, not increase it. I'm not going to pay extra to watch a show with commercials (which you probably can't skip).
Apple's solution for $1.99 adds the benefit of watching it where you want and without commercials. It's great for the occasional missed episode that I can catch up with while traveling.
I've never used OnDemand TV (whether Cable or Satellite) and this won't be any different.
I pay for cable, which technically pays for all the shows that are broadcast during the month when I have access. And then if I miss a show, they want me to pay again to see it? Like people are actually going to pay twice to see a show, rather then buying a PVR or hacking up a free one themselves?
Honestly, I have no idea how the cable industry can explain how this business model will work now that PVRs are becoming popular.
It doesn't even make sense. People know they don't own the shows they watch, unlike they do with the music they download. If the cable industry wants to copy the music industry, then they would have to let people pay for shows al la carte, and give them access to that same episode as many times as they want. But then the industry wouldn't be able to charge for those huge DVD episode packs, nor if people recorded movies would people ever need to buy DVDs in general. That's not going to happen.
But then again, the point may be to simply capitalize on the millions of people out there who forget to do things. HUGE amounts of money are made from people who forget to cancel subscriptions, who return rented movies late, or who don't know anything about how simple it is to same money by using a free program on their computers. I guess if they really think this is going to work, then there must be a LOT of people who don't own PVRs and who forget to watch shows, that they would be willing to pay 99c to be able to see.
Honestly, this looks ready to fail. Why don't these guys ever get it?
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While this is a step in the right direction, I think they still miss the big picture.
"My" DVR box is very convenient. I time shift shows and then erase them.
But when it comes to movies, I'm one of those people that likes to own the movies I very much like, just like books or music. I like to have it close at hand for reference, entertainment, whatever.
Now I realize that they're not selling movies yet, but maybe at some point they will.
The question is, why would I pay for a show twice, if I'm not gonna own it?
I pay for it with my cable subscription, and then again to rent it. That's not a very good value proposition (if I understand the buzzword correctly).
With iTunes I at least, get to keep my shows and some day hopefully movies.
They're not thinking "How can we increase our value to the consumer" but rather "How can we extract even more money out of them?" (Notice that these shows are not downloadable over the net, they go directly to your DVR.)
And that brings me to the second point. I like storing stuff on my PC. I've got all of my data there, my music, pr0n, whatever. I don't want to keep track of different devices for my collections...
If you don't know what AltaVista is (was), get off my lawn.
I don't think this is what the poster is referring to --
I believe the hardware used for this "on-demand" process is a DVR. Shows are "pushed" onto a seperate part of the hard drive for play back at a later date, if you pay the price. However, the show was still on tv the night before it was pushed. Does this system keep you from recording CSI when it was aired on TV? Because otherwise this seems to be a fee for someone who can't remember to set their DVR.
Why pay to watch it once when you can just TiVO it and be done? Maybe this is what the broadcast flag thing is all about. All TV will become pay-per-view.
DUH!
2 cents,
Queen B
HDGary secures my bank
I am getting excited about the shift towards internet viewing, and would actually prefer cheap rental over buying for video, and as a consumer don't really care about rented material being highly DRM'ed (purchased is anothering).
But this particular service isn't all that exciting. You need to have DirectTV's or Comcast's DVR already in order to use the service. That means that I could have been recording these shows and watching them whenever I wanted.
The price wouldn't be too bad on it's own. I figure that reasonable internet rental prices prices are $0.50 for a 20 minute show, $1.00 for a 40 minute show, and $2.00 for a movie. But this is on top of the $50-70 dollars that you are already paying for cable or satelite. I have already payed to watch these shows, I am not going to pay again.
Seriously, this is just a marketing move by these networks. In no way is this service different than what subscribers could already do with the equipment necessary to participate in the new service, except now they have the option of paying for it. I really hope people don't take too much advantage of this, so that the iTunes version of business can shine more brightly. Then again, there are a lot of idiots paying ridiculous prices for digital cable these days, what's a few more $0.99's tacked on top?
I think its entirely possible either these deals were in the works before the iTVS went public, so they just seem late, or else they are bids by these networks to have firmer footing in negotiations with Steve Jobs to offer their content through iTunes. Although why they would go with a lower pricepoint, I have no idea. I guess this scheme would have made more sense if they'd gone for a larger price. The article I read did not indicate how DRM'ed to death the episodes would be (as far as expiration and portability) but that might be a factor for negotiations. They may be opting for a 'but we already have an on-demand contract that works just fine for us' approach in order to get a larger percentage cut of the profit.
You say you got a real solution
Well, you know
We'd all love to see the plan
(The Beatles)
Oh how wrong you are.
They're turning alright... Just in the other direction. This is the first step towards requiring payment for timeshifting. Want to record that show to your DVR or VCR? You have to pay. This is the beginning of the networks trying to get people back in their seats watching only one show in any particular prime time slot so their current ratings and advertisment rate paridigm will continue to work. You're *not* the customer, you're the product, and your eyes are being sold to the advertizers.
It's arguable (though I don't necessarily agree) that DVRs make it too easy to bypass commercials so the networks don't really make any money off of them. The reason I don't agree is because I routinely stop fast-forwarding and watch a commercial if something catches my eye. in my scenario the networks may make $0.10 rather than $0.39
But I don't agree at all that advertising _should_ pay for content. I much prefer my content to be ad-free. I'd much rather buy HBO or DVDs than watch mind-numbing, repetitive ads. A lot of people agree with me on this too.
The thing I like the least is when people try to double-dip you. Ads in a $50.00 video game? Ads in my ISP (still don't know why people stood for this with AOL)? Ads when I go to the movie theater? I don't mind paying for ad-free content, but when I get "charged" twice, well, that pisses me off.
TW