TV Industry Using Piracy As A Measure Of Success 173
mrspin writes "Last100 has an interesting post from Guinevere Orvis, a web producer who works in the broadcast industry, who describes the way in which 'unofficial' but sanctioned BitTorrent leaks are being used as a measurement of a TV show's likely success. Orvis writes: 'Broadcasters aren't posting their shows directly on PirateBay yet, but they are talking informally and giving copies of shows to a friend of a friend who is unaffiliated with the company to make a torrent ... it's partially an experiment, but the hope is that distribution of content this way will lead to new viewers that wouldn't have been reached through traditional marketing means.'"
Makes Sense... (Score:5, Interesting)
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I could always ask Microsoft, I guess. Their answer seems to be a simultaneous slackening of WGA lock-out behavior with a grand marketing announcement as to how well their anti-piracy efforts are going (50-some-odd-percent, was it?). Not exactly sure how to translate that for the TV industry, though...
Re:Makes Sense... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Makes Sense... (Score:5, Insightful)
Commercial Radio and Commercial TV suffer from the same things: crap scheduling, a lot of crap content with few gems buried among said crap (e.g. the occasional song that plays during "The Morning Zo0!!!11!111" on the radio, or conversely, television jammed to the gills with lame sitcoms and reality shows with the occasional "oh shit that was cool!" show wedged in there)... things like that.
They both suffer from being packed to the rafters with commercials.
Now, not all of either industry is like that - for instance, 94.7 FM (in Portland, OR) doesn't do morning "shows" at all - they play music all morning, with a couple of blurbs for "The Jon Stewart Minute" and a short 5-minute episode detailing how an alternative-type band or singer's career came and went. The closest they come to any kind of thing is what they call "The 8 at 8", where they play 8 songs in a row with a common theme... sometimes lame, but sometimes pretty inventive. They keep the commercials to a minimum (less than most, anyway), and even in the evenings on weekdays, the most you see that isn't straight-up music playing is a two-hour-long program of techno/alternative/industrial mixes by local DJ's (most of which aren't half bad).
Rattled on too long there... sorry. Now by contrast, broadcast commercial TV networks suck as a rule, but occasionally something decent shows on it. Their problem isn't the media format or technical means of delivery - it's the way the medium is being strangled for every last drop of revenue it has, and to the detriment of the folks watching it. I'm not even really talking show content here, which also suffers greatly from this. As a producer, if you've only got 36 minutes to tell a story (or at least some of it) in a full 60-minute slot --not counting time spent on intro and credits-- you tend to drop subtleties and intricacies in a hurry - as a result the show quickly becomes crap unless carefully constructed).
Little wonder that people are drifting away from television in general, truth be told...
8 at 8 (Score:2)
A common musical theme?
Or a common poetical theme?
Let me guess... it's the poetry?
Music education: a huge success for North America!
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Re:Makes Sense... (Score:5, Insightful)
No commercials, good music, streaming over the internet if you don't live in Seattle.
Re:Makes Sense... (Score:5, Insightful)
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1 hour slots on HBO/Showtime tend to have less than one hour of show in them, by several minutes, though its not as far short of the full hour as on commercial networks. And the filler is in institials at the ends of the time slot, rather than interruptions in the flow of the show.
would we be better off without TV ads? (Score:4, Interesting)
Personally, I get most of my TV shows (BSG/Dexter/The wire/Sopranos/the office/30 rock) from bittorent. And speaking as somebody who just recently gave up my cable TV, I can't help but wonder if we'd be better off if the whole TV advertising industry went the way of the dodo.
Nothing's really been proven, but there's been some psych studies that have suggest that the deliberate manipulation of your emotions/unconscious motivations by the advertising industry may not be good for society as a whole. I mean, can it be good for a democracy to have regular doses of messages telling you to not trust your own judgment, and that you'll be happier if you just buy [product X]?
And that's without even discussing the impact that the huge high cost of TV advertising has on elections. I can't remember where I heard this (or verify it's veracity) but the statistic I heard was that a US senator needs to raise $10,000 a day every day he's in washington to pay for his re-election. So there's definitely a relationship between the high cost of TV advertising and how beholden politicians are to monied interests.
Re:would we be better off without TV ads? (Score:4, Insightful)
Your opinion is based on a perverted perspective - you're getting the stuff for free by doing something illegal and immoral. Not everybody can take the route of downloading TV from bittorrent because then nobody would be paying for the shows to be made so no shows would be made. If you want a real taste of an advertising-free world then buy the DVDs. OK, DVD is only a not-very-heavily-advertised-on medium, but it's the closest we've got.
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I have to take exception to that assertion, because, like everybody else in Canada, I'm paying for this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Private_copying_levy#Canada [wikipedia.org]
And, according to the Competition Board (sort of the Canadian equivalent of the FTC) private non-commercial downloading is perfectly legal in Canada.
And whether or not it's immoral is a matter of opinion, not a matter of fact
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Reference: your own damn law [justice.gc.ca]
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Really, on an ethical/moral level, what's the difference between somebody downloading last week's episode o
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So your idea does present an interesting perspective and a sound reason for ending copyright. So no more copyright and no more drunken drugged up minstrals, no more media executives demanding BJs in limos, sub
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They did, it was called "The Bionic Woman".
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Just like Fansubs of Anime (Score:3, Interesting)
Where are these new tv shows? (Score:2, Offtopic)
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The list of hurting shows [wikipedia.org]
Re:Where are these new tv shows? (Score:4, Funny)
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They have, but they're few and far between. Despite popular belief, it's not easy to make a good TV sho. Writing and acting actually require a good deal of talent. Set design and construction require a good deal of money and labor. Funding requires faith in your product. It's not like there was a hoarde of independent TV show makers simply waiting for a delivery mechanism. They've had that for a
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Cost of Piracy (Score:5, Insightful)
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As far as I've heard, TV companies haven't been so vicious at hunting down pirates. Not as bad as the movie companies, and certainly not as bad as the RIAA.
It's probably that their product goes out free to all anyway - ad-supported, sure, but there's no revenue coming in directly from people watching the show. A heavily pirated show is clearly
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"In the latest survey of revenue leakage over the last 12 months to the regional pay-TV industry, conducted by the Cable & Satellite Broadcasting Association of Asia (CASBAA) and Standard Chartered Bank, the losses are conservatively estimated to stand at US$1.54 billion, as compared to US$1.13 billion in 2006." - Source [medianewsline.com]
These figures are of course a survey of potential revenues lost. I was being sarcastic when I said actual cost because I know it is impossible to
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There are a number of shows I didn't even know *existed*, that I became aware of when I stumbled across a download... and if I like 'em, my next move will be to buy a set of DVDs for backups. How is this anything but pure profit to the content owners?!
Free Distribution (Score:5, Insightful)
Which brings me to something that I've been wondering about for a while; how would the entertainment industry survive if there was theoretically no way to protect their intellectual property from open and free distribution. How would they handle a world where there was no legal route to enforcing a royalty-style or licensed payment system?
Because it is my thoughts that as our world further connects itself together that this is exactly what will happen in the (no so distant?) future.
At least in the technological sense, the legal sense is difficult to gauge, though I hope the legal system will suffer a major overhaul in the coming decades.
Re:Free Distribution (Score:4, Insightful)
As much as I'd like to see that, I feel like society as a whole is far too lazy to do more than talk about such things until there is some major shift in society that makes them realize that laws and government aren't perpetual and tend to lose power as society revokes it.
Sadly, I feel like over the years people have come to trust the government and almost think of it as a given in the natural order of things.
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Re:Free Distribution (Score:5, Insightful)
People will pay for an "exclusive". If they offered a pay download of the "Sopranos" finale, you can bet that people would rush to buy it - not willing to wait for it to be uploaded to the P2P sites.
Ads can be intertwined more with the content. People probably wouldn't bother editing out all the scene where Ross in a future "Friends" style show is constantly holding a Pepsi or has dialog talking about how sweet Chandler's new Chevy is. It might be difficult to work in laundry detergent ads into soap operas, so I guess they'll have to wait until the writers call off the strike.
Finally, I don't think that YouTube and its ilk would suck so much if it wasn't essentially competing with mainstream TV and movies. I mean, there would still be mountains of crap, but there might also be more fun stuff on there. Even as it is, I can kill a lot of time just browsing around.
One thing is for certain - society would go on... this stuff just isn't that important.
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People will pay for convenience.
I might pay for convenience but, after 4 years of getting my TV exclusively from USENET/Bittorrent with the commercials cut out, I sure as hell won't pay for commercials or even watch shows that contain them for free. I'd rather gouge my eyes out. It's product placement (at least until that becomes too obtrusive) or nothing.
As for paying for commercial free content, it had better be both REALLY good and REALLY convenient (and DRM free). Not sure how a bunch of disparate TV networks are going to pull
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Just like you say, until the pay product is better than the free (legality/morality aside) product - no sale
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"Transmit" unencumbered official versions of shows from network
websites with all of the add still intact just as if you had
captured it yourself with MythTV or MCE.
Most lazy people won't bother to remove the ads.
These are the same people that own Tivos or cable provider PVRs
and don't bother to set them up.
Make it easier to get their version. Make the pirate networks redundant.
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eventually, compulsory/statutory license... (Score:2, Interesting)
You probably can't stop piracy short of Trusted Computing, and that's if and only if trusted computing turns out to be 'unhackable', which history shows is probably unlikely. And the down sides to Trusted Computing aren't worth it anyway.
So, eventually, the only way is a flat fee compulsory license that is tacked onto your ISP bill. Then some system of measuring "# of downloads per show/song/movie", distribute funds accordingly.
Now, the
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The whole issue is here because, nowadays, distribution isn't expensive. I currently pay (from wire to eyes) ~50 cents/Gig for content that I can time shift/copy/archive any way I want. (This doesn't include my hefty investment in a home theater system.)
There is only one way to survive. Its like the slashdot subscription; I'm willing to spend an extra dollar to get content a day early. Now, they could sti
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Product placement.
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Imagine a show like, "The Office", which takes place in an actual paper (or otherwise) company who invested to have the brand recognition, like lets say a more competitive paper products company, such as Dixie or Mead. Or Charmin.
Product placement will be so prolific that jokes barely sneak out from behind pyramids of DaSani bottled water and cardboard Budweiser cutouts. The Perry Ellis logo will be emblazoned on ev
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And as I've suggested before, watermarked downloads could conceivably be used in a subscription-and-micropayment P2P network, where you pay to acquire a file, AND *get paid* to host it, which would help maximize distribution a
They won't have to resort to piracy . . . (Score:5, Insightful)
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Ok, so there's still that little "problem" of your computer being in a different room than your TV, right? Unless of course, you have a notebook PC with wi-fi
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Comedy Central (Score:2)
Comedy Central recently added the entire library of The Daily Show with Jon Stewart to their website. This is a tremendous amount of content that you
Free Internet distribution and the WGA Strike (Score:2)
That's what the Writer's Guild strike is all about. The studios would vastly prefer to distribute their shows via the internet, because they do not have to pay royalties for online distribution. None. Zero. This gives them a huge incentive to avoid distribution under the well-negotiated royalty rates for broadcast TV,
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I don't get it (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:I don't get it (Score:5, Insightful)
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The biggest threat is that during the writers' strike, Americans will turn off the TV... and discover they don't miss it.
Deja vu? (Score:2, Insightful)
Personally, I never saw the problem with the piracy of TV shows: a large proportion of those who watch them, assuming they like them, will probably watch the original broadcast or the next episode when it's aired anyway. It's a different matter for large-scale, large-budget Hollywood films, but in instances like these, I think that this is a m
Leaked pilots (Score:4, Informative)
I watched a few and they helped me make decisions, half of the Geico Cavemen pilot was enough forever, and the Sarah Connor Chronicles pilot renewed my interest in the Terminator series and I'm totally pumped for the show this January or February.
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Why do you think Sci-Fi released their two minute mini-episodes, both on air and on the web, throughout the fall season? They're trying to create that buzz themselves, and get people to watch Razor and the next season in the spring,...
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Win-Win, or alternately catch-22 (Score:5, Funny)
Not surprised... (Score:2)
It's not too bad a benchmark, I mean, if something is popular people are gonna want it. So they should see increased viewership and piracy as something gets popular. Which is kinda "duh" when you think about it.
Re:Not surprised... (Score:5, Interesting)
Now finally there's a doc who shares my feelings. Quite refreshing!
I saw the show at a friend's who got a few episodes from torrents. So now I'm sitting every week for an hour in front of the TV watching. That's one viewer more they wouldn't have without that torrent existing, or at the very least it would have taken me a lot longer to find out that I do actually want to see this medical show.
Damn straight. (Score:2)
I perfect example of how pirating helps the networks, IF the shows are good. People will tune and and buy the DVDs for the best quality image and sound of a show they already like.
I don't get how it's really "piracy" (Score:3, Interesting)
This is exactly how I got hooked on Jericho. I watched the series after it got canceled. I really liked it and ending up watching it again with my friends, who, in turn enjoyed it. Now, we're waiting for the show in mid-January. With HD recording software of course.
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The difference is that you're not in their rating when you download the show. When you watch it when it's aired, first of all you watch the ads, which in turn means you are watching at all, and that in turn means one viewer more. Imagine the best show on earth, but only one person watching it, torrenting it and seedin
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No I don't.
I'm hard-pressed to think of even ONE person who just sits and watches all the ads. Everyone I know either:
1) channel-surfs until the ads are over (or they find something better to watch)
2) Goes to the bathroom/kitchen/to check on the baby/whatever
3) talks to others about the segment of the show they just saw.
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We're watching those ads. Right? RIGHT?
I, for one... (Score:4, Interesting)
I've also discovered that it's not always an indication of quality.
Umm... (Score:3, Insightful)
It's like putting a diamond ring on a park bench, hiding in the bushes, and then calling the police when someone picks it up.
Thanks for the question Joe (Score:2)
Because you see, my dear Joe Pirate, nobody of consequence (eg. me, in calm Canada) gets sued. It's all these imaginary "americans", who as you know from watching te
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Uh, maybe you weren't aware, but that is pretty much exactly what the NYPD have started doing themselves lately [wnbc.com].
sicko (Score:3, Informative)
It was like that since Napster (Score:2, Insightful)
The P2P sharing shows immediately what people want, and allowing that would force the record labels to produce high-quality music rather than mediocre one that can be forced down the customer's throats (ears ?). And high-quality music is a lot harder to come by than the
Piracy as an index of popularity (Score:5, Interesting)
TV piracy is the oldest kind (Score:5, Funny)
Because you can pick it up, unencrypted, right out of the radio spectrum just about anywhere. People have been stealing television content for years, with equipment kits you can buy at most garage sales.
Some content providers have started to insert commercials both as a deterrent against stealing content, and as a way to recoup the massive losses. Advanced piracy tools already have hacked this system, with things like a 'mute' button.
I oppose the mute button on moral grounds. Also, I am miserable.
Def works (Score:2)
AKA "Big Champagne" for TV (Score:2)
Nothing new
http://www.google.ca/search?hl=en&safe=off&q=p2p+ratings+%22Big+champagne%22&btnG=Search&meta= [google.ca]
Good Idea (Score:2)
Interestingly, The Bionic Woman, the most heavily promoted show on NBC, has been CANCELED, and I - uh, I mean MY NEIGHBOR, um, has never seen the show as a popular torrent on any of my- uh-his popular torrent sites.
I SWEAR!
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Works for me! (Score:3, Interesting)
Though I think it may have had the opposite long term effect on my viewing. I don't see ads for new shows so I don't hear about them like I used to. I only have like 4 shows that I watch regularly and if they were ever canceled, chances are that I would simply watch less. So downloading shows and skipping commercials has weened me off of television on the whole.
Doesn't bode well for the producers. They have to balance between the number of people who might, like me, just give up on broadcast television and those who'll use Bittorrent only to sample shows and then switch to regular TV. I suspect that more people will begin to see what a ripoff cable/satelite TV is and switch to "piracy" in the long term.
Makes sense (Score:3, Interesting)
If it weren't for the advertiser-driven model that we currently have, the bittorrent "content delivery system" would be nothing but positive for the industry. What they need to do is make high definition, high quality video files available for download for a reasonable fee, and remove all ads (or at least make that an option). I'd say the removal of commercials is the second most valuable aspect of getting shows off the Internet compared to the tuning in at 8PM (the first being able to watch it when I feel like it, something about as novel as the VCR).
File sharing can't be stopped. Well it could, but it would involve stopping the Internet, and rather large economies would collapse if that happened. The writer's strike is all about writers getting revenue from "new media" and I have to say, I think they have a point since it's pretty clear that before long the boundary what is TV (coming over cable) and what is being delivered by the Internet (which, in my house, comes over cable already) will be less and less distinct.
Let me get this right: (Score:2)
Does this mean that at least some of the media cartel believes that there is a legitimate use for P2P after all?
Broadcasters facilitating! (Score:2)
Methinks the notion that it is "piracy" just evaporated.
I wonder (Score:2)
I wonder. After all, I have seen, I mean, my friend, who downloads shows from PirateBay (whatever that is), has seen shows with commercials at the end. Often, commercials for other shows.
Why would someone putting that up on PirateBay (some sort of nautical website or something?) include that? Why wouldn't it be cut off....UNLESS it was actually posted by the broadcaster? I have most often seen this with basic-cable shows. I mean my f
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Here's how it should work (Score:2)
- Thomas Jefferson
Pilots? (Score:2)
I'll give that show ... (Score:2)
It's about time! (Score:2)
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After air in the east coast, I expect it to be
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