ABC To Offer Full Shows Online

vitaly.friedman writes to mention an Ars Technica story on the ABC's newest bid to stay relevant in the Information Age. As of the end of this month the network will be airing certain popular television shows on the ABC website, starting the morning after their first broadcast. From the article: "All programs will be shown in their entirety, including commercials which cannot be avoided. That's a smart move on ABC's part, as it ensures that advertisers will get another shot at hawking their wares to an audience that might otherwise change channels during commercial breaks or fast-forward through them if recorded. Aside from being unable to avoid commercials, watching the programs will be similar to watching timeshifted content in that viewers will be able to pause, fast forward, and rewind."

Comments

Available the day after?

[RunFatBoy.net]

If ABC is really looking to make a splash, maybe they should offer some of these episodes the day *before* they air. Given how quickly buzz becomes stale after the fact, people would jump at a chance to get a preview of their favorite show.

Jim http://www.runfatboy.net/ -- A workout plan that doesn't feel like homework.

Re:Available the day after?

[Daniel_Staal]

This way more people are likely to watch it twice.

Also, this way they aren't stepping on revenue streams for their local affliates. (Who may be able to show some local ads during the regular broadcast. Or at least share revenue.)

What you are talking about is a whole different business model. It could well work, but I wouldn't want to give up a currently working business model to try it.

Re:Available the day after?

[DaoudaW]

What you are talking about is a whole different business model.

How is this a whole new business model? Sounds like the same old same old to me...

Now I'll admit I'm not much of a TV watcher anyway, but I'm not particularly interested in web-content that turns my PC into a small, lo-res television complete with 16 minutes of ads per hour. What's new about that???

What would be cool is if the site remembers exactly where I was when I last watched. Dynamically generate a short recap of my last session to remind me of the highlights of what I last watched. Allow me to link to excerpts from previous episodes when they're alluded to. Maybe even have a writer's forum where they can go deeper into background and get feedback from the audience as the show unfolds.

Just using TCP/IP instead of cable or radio waves doesn't begin to constitute a new business model.

Re:Available the day after?

[TheRaven64]

I live in the UK, so I am used to about half as many adverts as you (a 42 minute program takes 42 minutes on the BBC, 50-55 minutes on the other channels and 60 minutes in the USA). Last year, I pretty much stopped watching broadcast TV because there were too many adverts. There are many other forms of entertainment where I don't have to waste 20% of the time watching advertisements, and so TV could not compete. The only series I watch are those which are released for rental on DVD (I have a subscription to a NetFlix-like service).

If any TV provider wants to re-gain my custom, then they will have to provide an ad-free delivery system. I don't mind paying for what I watch (although I do prefer a fixed fee, watch whatever you like system), but I do object to wasting my time.

Commercial Skipping

[lax-goalie]

Maybe if advertisers stopped making commercials that are crap, they wouldn't need to lock us out of fast forward during commercials.

It can be done. How many Super Bowls have had commercials better than the game?

Re:Cannot?

[badasscat]

What exactly does "Cannot be avoided" mean? do they actually think they can prevent people from skipping the commercials?

Um, yes?

It's very easy. Encode the video in Flash and do a php call so the file name is never revealed - not even the url to the directory where the file *is* is revealed. Can't be downloaded (even by workaround methods), and controls can be set in the embedded player so you can't fast-forward (my guess is the last part of the article submission is wrong - you can maybe rewind and then ff to the last point you were at in the video, but you won't be able to skip ahead).

The big video sites don't do this right now, but it is possible, and a lot of smaller sites do do it. We'll see if ABC is smart enough, but judging by the way they describe this, it sounds like they've figured it out.

I've been saying TV stations should do this exact thing for years. You want to stop "piracy" of your shows? Put them online for free. Show the ads; we know you've gotta make money. But don't force me to pay 2 bucks just because I wasn't home at the time the show was on and presumably don't have (or can't afford?) TiVo.

Now you've got a choice, at least with the bigger shows. Pay 2 bucks and watch them ad-free, or pay nothing and watch with ads. Pretty much the way it should be, if you ask me.

The only question left is what sort of quality we'll get. I mean considering HDTV is free, then ideally the online version should match that quality - but no way it will for reasons of bandwidth. Hopefully it'll at least match what you can find on file sharing sites, though... if they really are serious about doing away with that sort of thing, especially.

Re:It's Corporate Greed, nothing else.

[TheSkepticalOptimist]

I agree to a certain extent, why should we pay for cable AND watch the commercials too, but television shows are costing ten's of millions to make, and many of them are sad sad failures. I would rather watch some commercials that generate revenue to create both the good and bad television then to have to pay $500 a month for 100 commercial free channels that are still filled with lots of garbage and I can't possibly watch all the content anyways.

Also, ABC doesn't get a dime from your cable bill. Cable companies are making huge profits by charging you to view ABC in digital or HD. Only those specialty channels like HBO that you pay extra for get revenue from your cable bill. Again, I would prefer if MOST television was not a premium channel because I don't think 100 HBO like channels would survive or offer the same quality of content as HBO.

Do what I do. I never watch TV in real time anymore. I record all the shows I want to watch on my PVR, and this way I can fast forward through the commercials. It saves me time (up to 12 minutes per hour of programming), and I am not annoyed by all the advertising.

If you don't like commercials, then don't watch TV. Its almost hypocritical to complain about commercials but expect to still watch television for free or cheap. The two have gone hand in hand since the beginning. Pick up a book or rent movies or play video games if you want cheap commercial free entertainment.