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An Essay On Subscription Television

Posted by kdawson on from the wishes-and-horses dept.

dpu writes "Who would pay $1.99 to download a television episode that only costs about $0.0014 to see on cable? This is a short essay on the current and past state of subscription television, and a hope for the future. It skips a lot of points that the thinkers among us might care about, but it does the math and drives a nail into Big Content's pinky toe."

9 of 306 comments (clear)

  1. Three reasons by repvik · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I haven't RTFA, but I could give three reasons.

    1. You're paying not to see commercials
    2. You're paying for the convenience of seeing whenever you want
    3. You're paying for the infrastructure needed

    The prices are high as they are with any "new tech". As I see it, this is still an "early adopter" price.

    I also question the maths involved here. Is he watching cable 24/7 to get those prices?

    1. Re:Three reasons by shmlco · · Score: 4, Insightful

      No, he's counting on the fact that "thousands" of programs a month are potentially "available". Of course, if you watched TV 24/7 you could only watch 720 hours worth, assuming, of course, you never slept, went to the bathroom, etc..

      Apparently he can't do the math either.

      Fundamentally, it's yet another "I want it my way at my price" rant, and since the "content providers" don't see it his way, becomes a rationalization for piracy.

      --
      Any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so.
    2. Re:Three reasons by drsquare · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Well let's assume you have a four-person household, and each person watches an average of 30 hours a week of TV. That's 6240 hours a year. If your cable bill is $720 a year, then that's about 11c per hour, or 6c for a half-hour show. It's effectively a 1700% markup.

      Skipping commercials or viewing whenever you want can be done with a Tivo.

      The main problem with pay per view is that you have to be dead sure you want to watch something before you watch it. You can't channel surf, you can't browse, you can't tune into the middle of a show to see if it's any good. You're pretty much restricted to watching shows you really like.

  2. Re:when did we start paying for advertising? by AuMatar · · Score: 4, Insightful

    How about- just not get *any* advertising.

    --
    I still have more fans than freaks. WTF is wrong with you people?
  3. Re:Well, when you put it that way... by paeanblack · · Score: 5, Insightful

    "Who would pay $1.99 to download a television episode that only costs about $0.0014 to see on cable?

    If someone were to watch TV for 18 hrs/day, 7 days/week, that's ~540 hours/month. Skipping commercials, that's about 800 hrs/month of programming, or 1600 episodes. At $0.0014 per episode, this guy must be paying only $1.12 per month for cable. He would be nuts to pay $1.99 for a single show.

    Meanwhile, in the real world, someone who is paying $60/month for cable and watching TV for 40hrs/month, might find $1.99 for a show quite reasonable.

  4. Well, let's see by Dachannien · · Score: 4, Insightful

    If I could pay $2 per episode for content that was guaranteed to be ad-free, DRM-free (or free enough that it doesn't hinder my fair use efforts), persistent (meaning it doesn't get deleted out from under me), and included added-value content like commentaries and behind-the-scenes features, I would.

    Oh wait, it's called buying it on DVD.

    And until these newfangled methods of obtaining TV can provide what those shiny coasters can provide, I'll stick with buying the shows I want to watch repeatedly on DVD, and PVRing the ones I only want to see once.

    1. Re:Well, let's see by repvik · · Score: 5, Insightful

      If I could pay $2 per episode for content that was guaranteed to be ad-free, DRM-free (or free enough that it doesn't hinder my fair use efforts), persistent (meaning it doesn't get deleted out from under me), and included added-value content like commentaries and behind-the-scenes features, I would.

      Oh wait, it's called buying it on DVD.
      Yeah, if only DVD's didn't come with annoying ads, trailers and "do-not-pirate-shit infomercials" that I can't skip, that'd make what you say true.
  5. Re:when did we start paying for advertising? by Znork · · Score: 5, Insightful

    "when did we start paying for advertising?"

    Ironically, you've always paid for advertising. So now you're both paying for the advertising (if you buy the product), and then you get to pay to watch the advertising (on TV).

    So basically you're paying to watch something you dont want to watch, which you yourself paid to get produced, just so you can watch something else you didnt pay to get produced (well, except you did pay to get it produced when you paid for the advertising by buying the advertised product...).

    Somehow I suspect that this may not be the most optimal method of funding the things you do want to watch... (which might be a tangent to the articles point...)

  6. Re:when did we start paying for advertising? by The+PS3+Will+Fail · · Score: 5, Insightful

    "We don't pay for content. The advertisers do."
    My cable bill begs to differ.