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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."

4 of 306 comments (clear)

  1. 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.

  2. 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...)

  3. 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.
  4. 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.