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An Essay On Subscription Television
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."
I remember a time when having 'cable' meant that we didn't have to watch commercials. It seems difficult to avoid them these days.
Who would pay $1.99 to download a television episode that only costs about $0.0014 to see on cable?
Why pay $14.99 for a novel when you can walk out of the library with it for free?
Content creators need to be assured of recompense for their work. Until someone comes up with a better way of assuring payment for digitally-reproduced work, the system we have is...all we have.
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?
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.
The same reason people are willing to pay 99 cents for a music file they could download free from Kazaa, or willing to pay $3.99 for a gallon of milk at the gas station they could buy for $2.50 at the grocery store just a few blocks away.
It's shocking news to both content providers and pirates, but most people have money in their pocket and they don't mind spending it on things that they like when it is made convenient to do so. They are particularly happy to spend more when it saves them time and gives them a guarantee of quality, both of which are major motivators of buying songs/TV shows rather than simply getting a radio or cable hookup.
Keep in mind that if you want to watch particular shows and don't have an infinitely flexible schedule, you'll need to include the price of a TiVo or something similar to make sure you're recording all those "cheap" shows. And you'll have to wait for a rerun or a DVD to be released if you missed an episode.
Recursive: Adj. See Recursive.
Of course a big part of the reason that cable is so cheap per show is that they show advertising. To answer all those people who are bitching about having to pay for cable when it has commercials I want to point out that you pay a relatively small amount for quality (and many not so quality) cable shows because of these commercials. Sure you can argue that the locally inserted commercials by the cable company are a needless waste (but remember cable has far fewer customers than phone so they must split up the cost of their network over fewer people) but if you want big budget shows with high production values you either need to charge the way HBO does (10-15 bucks per channel per month) or fund them with commercials.
.2c. Given a 30minute program has 6 minutes of commercials that means about $1.20 of commercials (I suspect this might be a hit high but still roughly on target). Throw in the costs of the lost commercials from reruns (how frequently have you seen the same program a second time?) and the $1.99 price begins to seem relatively reasonable. Remember the viewers that are being lost to download aren't the people who are leaving their TV on while they do something else, they are the valuable viewers who are watching closely.
I suspect others will point out that the amount the advertiser is paying per viewer is much smaller than the cost of say an iTunes download hence it should be economical to have relatively cheap commercial free download, e.g., each downloader just needs to cover the total amount an advertiser would have paid to get commercials to you. From my quick google research it seems likely that the cost per impression in the male 18-34 age group (also the download group) it is about
If you are willing to watch commercials in your download then it's a different story but if you aren't you have to ay to replace the money the commercials would have brought in.
Also these sort of pay per show model is only ever going to be an alternative to the normal model never a replacement. Sure we will pay for commercial free versions of our favorite shows we follow but most TV watching is done casually (I wonder if there is anything on) and no matter how much you bitch about commercials I doubt you would pay to watch a show just because you had 30minutes to kill but you will watch a show with commercials for that reason. We vote with our actions and those say we want a flat rate model that lets us watch shows for no extra cost when we feel like it.
It's just the same way that people bitch about ads at the start of movies but no matter how much people bitch they never go spend an extra $2 to go to the theater with less ads.
If you liked this thought maybe you would find my blog nice too:
Whether you agree that $1.99 or $2.99 per show is a good deal, directly paying for shows allows something amazing to happen. * It allows audiences to pass money DIRECTLY to television creators. * And that model is more honest and fairer than the advertising model which currently dominates broadcasting. It is a way better model, and better TV would be the outcome. It has the power to transform the type of shows being made because it makes television-makers directly accountable to their audience. Program makers would not have to pander to the needs of the network or the advertisers, but would put the audience first. Shows which have a small enthusiastic audience would not be dropped. Reality shows would have to stick in advertising land, because no-one would pay for that crap. Of course the networks and advertisers are fearful of being cut-out of the market. So while they still have power, they'll attempt to drive the prices of download TV ever higher. This is going to get interesting. C
Yikes! That's over 1/2 million PT Barnums born per year!
I'd have thought the number would be much smaller...
In any case... I can watch my boxset of Firefly DVDs without seeing any ads, and there are several episodes in it which were never aired. I own several other series on DVD as well.
Fun fact: the most expensive DVD boxset I own costs less than (the hours of time I would have lost watching ads) * (my hourly wage).