"Ford's success has startled the country, almost the world, financially, industrially, mechanically. It exhibits in higher degree than most persons would have thought possible the seemingly contradictory requirements of true efficiency, which are: constant increase of quality, great increase of pay to the workers, repeated reductions in cost to the consumer."
It's sad to see "the best hour of television" come to an end. Honestly though, it's better to see the show end on a high note, rather than have storylines recycled for a couple of more seasons (see: Stargate SG-1).
What's next after removing the option to skip commercials for on-demand content? Will we find ourselves forced to listen to commercials as well, regardless of the volume (mute) setting?
I've been a paying consumer of underwhelming cable 'service' for 15 years and a happy TiVo owner for 3.5 years. I'm currently paying US$100/month for cable service, which includes a dozen or so commercial-free movie channels (HBO, Showtime, Cinemax). I can't help but think, why am I subjected to commercials when I already pay to watch content already? Technology has advanced; the television programming business model has not.
Content producers ('broadcasters' in the days of a world gone by) need to adapt with technology, else consumers will look elsewhere. Netflix/Blockbuster (movies) + iTunes (episodes) + CNN/Fox/etc (news) is a reasonable alternative to cable service. Given the amount of programming I and my family watch each month, the alternative is certainly cheaper. The major obstacle keeping me from adopting the alternative and dropping cable today is the lack of iTunes availability for some of the shows I watch. Day by day that barrier is dissolving.
Even if you don't consider recently service alternatives, content producers for the cable market are overdue to make changes to their tired, decades-old business model. Hollywood has demonstrated that embedding product placement in content to subsidize costs works well, with hits like The Truman Show drilling the point home. Product placement needs to be incorporated within the content, not as an afterthought, if content producers want to have a reasonable expectations that consumers simply won't skip over it.
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The comma delimited list of words are the first two sentences to "Ford Methods and Ford Shops" by Horace Lucien Arnold and Fay Leone Faurote, published in 1915: http://books.google.com/books?id=GFQxoO7qB7IC&printsec=copyright&dq=workers+repeated+increased+quality+ford's#PPR3,M1
"Ford's success has startled the country, almost the world, financially, industrially, mechanically. It exhibits in higher degree than most persons would have thought possible the seemingly contradictory requirements of true efficiency, which are: constant increase of quality, great increase of pay to the workers, repeated reductions in cost to the consumer."
The book appears to have been reprinted January 2007. One source says the '17th' (maybe it's really the 18th?): http://www.booksunlimited.ie/Books/Arnold-Horace-Lucien%7CFaurote-Fay-Leone/Ford-Methods-and-the-Ford-Shops/9781432506414.htm
It's sad to see "the best hour of television" come to an end. Honestly though, it's better to see the show end on a high note, rather than have storylines recycled for a couple of more seasons (see: Stargate SG-1).
What's next after removing the option to skip commercials for on-demand content? Will we find ourselves forced to listen to commercials as well, regardless of the volume (mute) setting?
I've been a paying consumer of underwhelming cable 'service' for 15 years and a happy TiVo owner for 3.5 years. I'm currently paying US$100/month for cable service, which includes a dozen or so commercial-free movie channels (HBO, Showtime, Cinemax). I can't help but think, why am I subjected to commercials when I already pay to watch content already? Technology has advanced; the television programming business model has not.
Content producers ('broadcasters' in the days of a world gone by) need to adapt with technology, else consumers will look elsewhere. Netflix/Blockbuster (movies) + iTunes (episodes) + CNN/Fox/etc (news) is a reasonable alternative to cable service. Given the amount of programming I and my family watch each month, the alternative is certainly cheaper. The major obstacle keeping me from adopting the alternative and dropping cable today is the lack of iTunes availability for some of the shows I watch. Day by day that barrier is dissolving.
Even if you don't consider recently service alternatives, content producers for the cable market are overdue to make changes to their tired, decades-old business model. Hollywood has demonstrated that embedding product placement in content to subsidize costs works well, with hits like The Truman Show drilling the point home. Product placement needs to be incorporated within the content, not as an afterthought, if content producers want to have a reasonable expectations that consumers simply won't skip over it.