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Future of TV in the DVR era in the New York Times

"Someone Has to Pay for TV. But Who? And How?" is an article in today's New York Times that has possibly the coolest PVR-related illustration to date:

It's a pretty standard "the sky is falling because no one watches ads anymore" article. It covers the current state of declining TV ad sales (TiVo reports its users skip 70% of commercials) and it covers experiments with online digital delivery of shows for a small price (like NBC shows in the iTunes Store and CBS selling direct). The article also mentions the Philips patent application for a feature that would disable the fast forward button and channel change button when ads are played, which is certainly a step backwards.

The success of show sales on things like the iTunes store definitely points towards the future of TV: make shows good enough that people willingly pay for it (sans ads).  Of course, cable outfits like HBO and Showtime have been doing this for decades so it will be interesting to see how the major networks compete in the future. I'm still hopeful the networks can create great programming worthy of purchase and adapt to this new world instead of the alternative: relying on lawsuits to block any technology that doesn't fit their current business model in a perpetual war between them and their own customers.

by Matt Haughey May 7, 2006 in News

Comments

Hey, I got a question. WTF am I paying $50/month for in my cable bill? I don't even have any premium channels, and that's not enough to cover what is essentially 99% tripe? How I wish there was an a la carte billing so I could drop the crap I dont watch. Cable was supposed to be about choices and no commercials.

Posted by: Ernie Oporto at May 7, 2006 5:53:19 PM

Yes; how much is TV really worth to people? I pay about $60 a month for a standard lineup + HBO, and would be paying more if I had not paid for a lifetime TiVo sub.

At any given point in the year, there are about 5-6 shows with 1 new episode a week that I watch. Typically, 1 is on HBO. So I'm paying about $10 per episode for the other 5 shows. The HBO shows are more entertaining (higher value) to me.

The "broadcast" model, bundled with all the the re-runs and channels I never watch is definitely not worth any more than what I pay now.

We want a la carte choice!

Posted by: Matt at May 8, 2006 12:14:51 PM

OTA is a dying horse. What they really need to do is to split the market into two segments: OTA and cable.

If you're watching OTA you're probably not going to have a DVR. You're going to watch the ads and you're barely getting anything to begin with. Keep the old model and support it with ads.

Networks could rather easily make a second feed available to cable companies that is ad-free. The rest of the cable networks can either adapt to the idea that they're no longer going to get us coming and going (ads plus the costs they charge to cable companies to carry their channel... AFAIK your cable bill is just to cover the costs for the cable company to buy channels and make a healthy profit as a middle-man) and go back to the way cable was originally (or so I'm told by the elders, but apparently, long ago when cable first came around it didn't have ads and this was a selling point... then they realized they could make more money by throwing up ads and as long as everyone did it there wasn't anything you could really do... same thing that happened to movie theaters).

Get with the times and realize that for a pay-to-enter medium being supported by ads is increasingly under attack and outmoded. Just as the free internet increasingly gets split into ad-heavy "free" and ad-free subscription content so too should cable. I mean, c'mon, HBO doesn't bitch about not having ad revenue!

Posted by: Belgand at May 8, 2006 6:18:04 PM

Two words: On Demand

They do it with movies. I want it done with TV shows.

I just want a box in my living room that has no channels and its only purpose is to recieve TV programming I have bought. Like the iTunes music store - only on my TV instead of a two inch iPod screen.

Posted by: MrBlank at May 9, 2006 9:50:24 PM

I love the idea of markers in commercials to turn off skipping. It would only be a day until someone modified your TiVo to not record during those times. :)

Posted by: Darrin at May 10, 2006 4:22:50 PM

How about this that the cost of making a TV show has priced them out of the ad ( Comercail TV) Market, and we the comsumer do not want to pay for TV shows that are not of the highest quility (Junk).

Posted by: devildog at May 29, 2006 1:47:36 PM

How about putting ads on the actual TV Show...Like a sports game they have all them banners, etc. on the court. But yeah we pay soo much for cable bill, let them white collar, corporate boys share the money.

Posted by: Tom at Apr 23, 2007 5:40:04 AM

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