I can see a point in the future where I can my broadcast subscription. Not because I don’t watch a lot of TV, but rather because I. Ironically it’s Sky (a broadcasters) own device (Sky+) that is the cause of this downfall.
And not because Sky+ is bad, but rather because it’s very good.
Actually it is bad. it’s a lousy iPod. it’s a very good PVR.
I barely watch live TV anymore with the possible exception of sports and MTV. Sports are sports and I’ll watch them on whatever gives me the best coverage. MTV sucks because it has too many adverts, but I do like music videos. If someone can create MTV2 and MTVDance without the frigging adverts, I’d switch in a heart beat.
Now the bulk of what I watch now is TV Series. Heroes. Scrubs. Weeds. House. etc. Check my facebook profile for a vague selection of what I watch. And this in around about way highlights the problem.
Since I got Sky+ I record everything. And I watch it when I want to. I don’t even mind the fact that their is a schedule. It stops me just watching TV and becoming one of those people who gets so big from not moving they need a crane to remove their dead corpse from the house.
In the internet world, everything I do gets monitored. Last.fm calls this “attention data”. It has a lot of uses. It lets me make iPod playlists, it lets me export the data to facebook (or would interface directly if facebook was open). It also lets me know when there is new content I might like that is similar to old or existing content.
Sky on the other hand has no idea what I watch. I keep missing the start of new shows or new seasons of shows I like because I have no idea they have started. If I don’t watch the promos on the channels (which when I’m busy I miss) or I have to read the Sky TV Guide which more crappy advertising than anything else.
So I have started BitTorrenting shows I want to see. I missed half of Scrubs S5, so I just torrented it. I mean I paid Sky to watch it right. It’s not my fault I missed it. So whilst technically illegal, I feel I’m not doing much wrong.
But what I can see is between getting used the simplicity of the iPod and preferring to watch to TV when I want to, broadcast TV is dead. Well dead to me. The death knoll isn’t quite there yet, as there only exists a DVD model for shows, and I barely rewatch things on TV. Aside from 24, I don’t buy any TV shows on DVD as paying £40pm for Sky is a lot cheaper than paying £20-£40 a show.
A music subscription model doesn’t work for me. I like to own music. I like to relisten to it. I like to play if for my friends. But TV and movies are the opposite. I want to watch what’s current when it’s current, and once I have watched it, 99% of I never watch it again. I want to watch my serieses (what is the plural here) I want to be told when the new season of something I have watched before is out, and I want recommendations based on what I like and watch before. And I want to watch it on my laptop, my iPod, my TV or wherever I want. And I don’t intend to pay for it more than once.
Of course I think it’ll be a few years before we see this. The movie and TV studios are the few people making the music industry and labels look smart and future thinking. Till then I’ll stick with Sky not being quite what I want and if I start Bittorrenting more and more, it’s the fault of those people running the TV, Film and Music industries for being idiots.
1. Dragon
I don’t even know where to begin on this. While I agree that the Film and TV studios are generally idiots (hence the current Writer’s strike in the US at the moment), it’s for different reasons. Other than that, this seems very petulant and naive.
And they’d make their revenue how? A monthly/annual subscription? Would you be prepared to pay that?Let’s see. 24 runs for 24 weeks which is, let’s say, 6 months. 6*40 = £240. That’s 6 seasons of worth of DVD boxsets right there if they’re 40 quid a pop. If you wait until they’re reduced, you could get them for £20 a pop. Then you can eBay them. I hear it’s good for things like that.
Alternatively, you could rent the DVDs for not very much at all.
Um, yes, yes it is. Especially on Sky which shows the same damn thing at the same damn time each and every goddammned day. This is absurd in so many ways I just can’t bring myself to even being going there. See aforementioned comment about advertising revenue and perhaps read a bit about the current writers strike to learn more about issues that are related to this. What you’re asking for is a downloadable equivalent of the DVD model. If/when this is implemented, expect to pay the equivalent of DVD price for what you want to download and watch. The only alternative is micropayments for streaming content and a “pay-per-view” or subscription model. “Free” content, as ever, will earn revenue through advertising - as it currently is on any of the sites which already let you watch their shows online (but only after they’ve aired).2. Adrian
This is what you get when you’re working like a dog and you’re ability to write thoughts down is rubbish. I think you’re missing some of my points, mainly because I wrote them badly.
Although you weren’t far off on being petulant. Naive IU’m not. I’ve worked in for the cable TV guys. I designed TV internet systems because they thought it was what people wanted, and it only was a few geeks who wanted broadband. Trust me it’s not me who’s being naive.
I do pay a monthly subscription. I pay Sky extra for MTV. They pay MTV. However their product has become unusable (unwatchable?). There are more adverts virtually than music videos. The adverts are essentially wall to wall ringtone adverts (press 5 for bouncing happy monkey - god kill me). I actually have no problem with adverts (per say) but MTV which used to be ok has descended into a channel of crappy adverts with music video breaks.
I now have to watch it by live pausing it for 10 mins so I can just flip past the adverts. But their are so many adverts even that is a hassle.
If their business model is breaking down, that’s not my fault. If I stop watching it because they have degraded their product so much, that’s also not my fault.
If iTunes had a MTV equivalent where I clicked a button to buy songs I liked (thereby monitising it) I would ditch MTV.
MTV sucks at the moment, because they have stopped producing quality shows and have stopped being about music videos (MTV normal barely has music videos on it), and instead are about shifting adverts. Adverts without the content is not going work long term.
In 6 months I watch about 5 shows a week (give or take). That’s £8 a show. That’s a lot cheaper than DVD. Factor in the fact I get lots of sport as well, and a bit of crappy MTV, and movies I record onto the box I’m probably paying more like £2 a show.
Sorry you missed my point here. Shows I’m watching I don’t miss. Because SKY+ just records every episode.
But when the new season of a show starts (Say Scrubs Season 5) I missed it until the last few episodes, because ER had come off E4 and I wasn’t watching E4 so didn’t know they had started screening scrubs.
Since Sky, and all the channel’s websites are basically designed to push a lot of corporate objectives but do very little useful, and that’s when they’re really good. Most of them aren’t that good, I either have to spend half my life looking out of new seasons or make sure I’m watching all the major channels for promos.
Even when the show is on things can go wrong. I just spent 4 weeks trying to torrent Murphy’s Law Season 5. I watched the first episode that was brilliant. Sky plus wouldn’t do series link so I made a note to watch it the following Monday. Of course being a mini series it was screen three days in a row and not week on week like normal series. Nothing told me this, so I missed it, and had to torrent it find out what happened.
Yeah the iPlayer is meant to solve this, but I (a) run a mac and (b) couldn’t find any info on the iPlayer that as useful at all and (c) it was two weeks in by the time I figured out what has happened.
I don’t watch adverts. I Sky+ everything and fastforward past the adverts. I pay Sky. Sky pays for the programs. I’m all for the writers getting more money. I’m not all for missing programs I paid to see, but didn’t know were on.
Nope. Not at all. I’m not really asking for a change in the business model but the user model. Although this would probably need a change in the user model.
A DVD is something you can keep forever. You can lend to your friends. I don’t want this. I rarely rewatch TV. Although I do occasionally do the digital equivalent of video taping it and sending it to a friend.
What I do want is something where I can pay for my shows, and they just show up when available. I have this with Sky+ right now for shows I’m currently watching.
What I don’t have is a system that does this for shows I used to watch when the start up again. Sky can’t do this on the STB because the STB can only hold 7 days worth of data. I’ve been in the industry I know why this is. It’s a technical limitation.
However if Sky was user driven, a website that lets me put in the shows I want to watch and have it tell my box to record the new seasons when they start … now that would go half way to solving the problem and make things a lot more useful. Even better would be the site that configures itself automatically from the saved data of what I am watching on my Sky+ PVR.
Not only would the data of what people are watching be very useful for the production and broadcast companies, they could easily suggest programs based on what I am watching.
But they wont. They’ll continue to spent marketing budget on mediums I don’t interact with or just try shove everything on me. Good recommendation engines are based on the users desires. The broadcast companies don’t have the user in mind, they have the advertisers and other people in mind. Anyone but the user.
I suspect the true end result will be some sort of workable pay per view (i.e. pay per view that works how users do, and doesn’t expire content after you’ve watched a few minutes of it, and lets me watch that content where and when I want to).
This will take a while as the production companies are busy trying to screw the writers and the broadcasters are, like the music industry threatened by change.
But the idea that someone else controls my viewing times is dead. It’s not user driven. And the more people get used to PVRs and iPods the more people will demand more.
I demand more. Sky is not delivering. When someone does, I’ll be jumping ship.
3. nrgza
Dude,
You need to re-read your post, lots of words missing/strange sentence construction.
That aside, apart from not having the rights to important shows like 24 and some sports, Virgin Media is doing something that sort of solves your problem of missing new series’s that you want to watch - I think they have a system where what they deem as ‘interesting TV’ (the equivalent of 24, Scrubs, etc I imagine) is automatically accessible on your set-top box for 7 days after airing. So people are thinking about different ways of doing it, just not directly tailored to YOUR individual needs.
4. Adrian
NGRZA, thanks. I’m struggling to write well at the moment, and being quiet tired as well is not helping. I’m not overly surprised I’m not making sense. My head is a bit of muggy swamp at the moment.
What Virgin is doing (I surmise) is trying new ways of people to get to take up new shows. It’s interesting but it’s still marketing.
The internet is changing things from being pushed and marketing driven to pull and user driven. Long term things need to work around me for success. It’s all good putting shows on the box that you (being Virgin/Sky/Broadcasters) deem as interesting and might be something I want to watch. But if you can’t get the shows on the box that I am watching, have watched and do want to watch then it’s all useless.
5. Dragon
Your comment makes more sense than your post. Unfortunately, I can’t be arsed to discuss it.
2 things though: Virgin Media - from what I’ve seen - does give you the option to watch what you want, when you want (I think - had it demonstrated to me but was quite drunk at the time). That’s new shows, old shows and so on. The limitation, obviously, is that it doesn’t have the rights to everything.
Secondly - the writers strike is not about wanting more money. That’s quite important. What it is about centres on pretty much what we’re talking about here - namely being paid residuals for content that will be available for viewing/download via the internet. Everyone’s aware that this is the way forward but the AMPTP are essentially trying to screw writers out of what they’re owed.
6. Adrian
I’m totally for the writers. But it is about money. It’s just about paying them their dues and not screwing them over.
Virgin can’t let me play those shows on my iPod … so whilst broadcast TV has some life in it yet … cracks are appearing.
7. Destructor
I said the same thing like two years ago (and I don’t even have Sky+, I skipped right to the second stage) and you said, quite rightly, that you and I are not really normal users. A hell of a lot more people watch TV than have the internet. It’ll be around for a while.
8. Adrian
I think it will be around for a while, but it’s fraying at the edges.
And now with a generation of people who have always had an iPod, and PVRs and on demand, they will be used to it and expect more.
I see lots of blogs where (admittedly geeks) kids go to friends houses and don’t understand why they can’t rewatch the tv program instantly.
9. Dragon
The technology is obviously going that way - already digital TV is giving people far more options than they had before (although it will still be another 5 years before analogue is totally replaced. When TV and the Internet are totally tied in and high speed data transfers provide both services, that’s when more choice will be availble by my reckoning.
Also, you are probably in the minority too. I don’t own an iPod, I have a pretty standard phone, I get terrestial television and that’s about it. But whereas you want to own your music, I want to own movies and tv series and I will rewatch them. Of course, TV on demand is the way forward and that’s where we’re heading, slowly but surely. A lot of things have to be changed first though. Like the whole nature of broadcasting and channels and services and suppliers and advertising and all the other associated stuff.
10. Adrian
I’m not sure technology is as much as fault as the business models.
And their is place for multiple models meeting multiple needs.
Broadcast TV will server some peoples needs. PVRs another set of people. People will still buy DVDs and people will start downloading to own (the DVD market will slowly largely move to this as we are seeing in the music industry)
However their is a PPV model that isn’t quite pay per view. Pay per view tends to be watch it and it’s gone. Their is a hybrid model of “download and watch it when you want to, and after a while it will expire”.
But currently when the studios are obsessed with DRMing things to death I don’t see much forward thinking or user based business models coming out of the big media industries.
11. D
Damn it… want to comment and can’t, I just don’t know how I truly feel. I’ll come back later…