Should TV Networks Put Pilots Online For Judgement Like Amazon Is Doing? 128
An anonymous reader writes "EW debates how broadcasters might (and might not) benefit from letting the Internet help decide which of their pilots get series orders (like Amazon is doing with their new original content efforts). If NBC had posted its pilots online, would we have been spared 'Animal Practice'? It's an interesting idea, but not without faults: 'According to Nielsen’s research, the vast majority of TV viewing is still on a traditional set. Having pilots judged by online viewers would give networks a skewed sense of what might work in the fall — the entire broadcast schedule might be nothing but sci-fi shows, tween-lit adaptions and whatever Joss Whedon wants to do ... "If something isn’t picked up, for whatever reason, but people really liked it, that could be a problem," one network insider said. "Or if people hated something, and we pick it up — again, for whatever reason — you’re starting off on a bad note." ... Noted a major network programming researcher: "Great pilots don’t always make great television series." Conversely, if you’re a network executive, you usually don’t need millions of people to tell you a show sucks."
Only if... (Score:5, Funny)
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Who cares what pilots think, it's the flight engineers whose opinions count!
"traditional set" (Score:4, Informative)
I watch all of my TV on a traditional set.... through a HTPC running XBMC. All my shows grabbed using SickBeard on a server. It's like a massive DVR machine. Also just added NetFlix to the mix for Movies and Arrested Development.
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If you're using SB, why not just get Arrested Development and use CouchPotatoe for your movies. Then you can cut Netflix. I mean if you don't care about legitimate ways to get your entertainment.
Not judging as I also have SB installed. As far as well new season of AD only on netflix, I'll just point out the Amazon pilots were up and out online very fast.
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Because Netflix took the initiative to do stuff like AD and House of Cards. I figure I'd reward them for it.
I'm explicitly not rewarding my cable company for giving me Showtime/HBO along with 9 channels of QVC, a few religious stations and a ton of other crap I don't want. As h4rr4r has pointed out if they come along with something I might.
Plus most of the TV shows I watch are OTA. I just consider Sickbeard an alternative to MythTV and much easier to use.
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Re:"traditional set" (Score:4, Insightful)
All my shows grabbed using SickBeard on a server.
And the networks don't care one bit about your opinion as you provide them no revenue opportunity.
Re:"traditional set" (Score:4, Interesting)
Because they don't offer a product he wants.
If HBO would offer an rss feed to torrents of Game Of Thrones that they approve of, I would pay far out the ass. I will pay slightly less for HBO go without cable, and nothing at all for HBO on cable.
Re:"traditional set" (Score:4, Interesting)
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Something for them to think about.
They dont. In their mind you're a dirty stinkin' pirate. You could also pay for cable, buy the DVD's and Bluray of GOT, they still would sue you for infringment if catch you downloading ANYTHING.
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No. he actually isn't according to them. He's a time shifter. And they are currently working on an offering of pay for HBO GO ala carte thats won't piss off the cable companies because they see GOT as the most popular downloaded show/ They won't sue but Comcast will.
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I'm paying for HBO on cable because I am willing to pay for what they offer, but I still get their stuff via SickBeard and watch it off my NAS because it's way more convenient. Something for them to think about.
No it isn't. You've given them no reason to think because you're paying them not to deliver what you want.
First let me buy your shows without cable (Score:2)
Before you do that, let me buy your shows without cable. For maybe half the cost of the dvd, unless it includes one at the end of the season. 24 hour delay is about the most I could see tolerating for that kind of expense. More delay, would decrease the value of the program to me.
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you can on itunes
but its $1.99 or $2.99 per episode so you might as well pay for cable if the show is not on Hulu
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You will note that this does not match my pricing requirements.
I will never pay for cable. I will not pay to watch advertising. Same reason I will watch Hulu free and not ever pay for it. If they dropped the ads for paying customers. I would have signed up already.
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Exactly, best case you'll end up paying $50 for a 26 episode season, that you can watch ONCE. Box set would cost the same and you'd own them.
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The box set can also be stripped of it's DRM and converted to any format and played on any device or app you want.
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I get Dr. Who off the Pirate bay because even though I pay for BBC America I hate the way they slice it up. (and the opening commentary that assumes you have no brain) I do the same for continuum. If I had access to Shaw that I would pay for.
Pricing models (Score:2)
Exactly, best case you'll end up paying $50 for a 26 episode season, that you can watch ONCE. Box set would cost the same and you'd own them.
Not true... at least, not if someone actually came out with a fair pricing model. I know that Hulu, cable companies, et al are getting tons for advertising, but they're not getting that much per viewing. Advertising is effective, but it isn't that effective. They'd never be able to maintain advertisers if they charged that much. It just wouldn't be worth it to advertise.
No, the reasons for those exorbitant prices (or advertising) are contractual. The studios can't sell boxed sets if the show is easier
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You don't pay to watch advertising, you pay to have a signal brought into a home. you pay for the SERVICE. Advertising pays for the shows.
It's always been that way.
Hulu would need to be 100+ dollars a month to drop advertising and have a decent selections of shows. Would you pay that?
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I do not pay for a service that has advertising.
I do not care how you want to rationalize it.
Netflix has more selection than Hulu and costs less than $100/month. Advertisers are not paying Hulu anything like $100/month/user.
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Actually you do. Its called OTA TV. What do you think taxes are for. Your misguided belief is fine but I would to drop you into 1970 and see what you are watching.
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Taxes do not pay for OTA TV. Nor do I watch TV that way.
PBS gets a very small amount of money, and seems to be decreasing yearly.
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Re:First let me buy your shows without cable (Score:4, Insightful)
Bullshit.
When my parents first signed up for cable it cost $5 a month during the mid '80s. There were about 30 stations available. When they canceled their Cable in favor of DirecTV the selections were like 70 and the cost per month had risen to about $70 a month, IIRC. The cost of the cabling was mostly paid for in the '80s and the maintenance should be substantially less than the cost of putting out all the cable, especially given the crap quality.
So, my question is, what precisely is it that caused the cost of the service to increase by over 1000%? Because it sure as hell wasn't the result of them spending more money on service alone.
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@$$holes at fox, NBC, ABC, paychannels etc demanding more revenue for the crap they offer.
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OP should also look at taxes and franchise fees.
A simple six-letter word (Score:2)
Sports.
Even if you don't watch or buy the sporto packages, you're still forced to subsidise paying the demands of sports both professional and collegiate (think: March Madness).
Don't need people to tell you? (Score:5, Insightful)
As history has shown, clearly the Fox executives *do*
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I would say maybe. The shows that Fox cancel tend to be cult shows. That is, a show with a few, deep, passionate fans. Advertisers tend to care more about how many people watch – they don’t care if the passion is a inch deep if it is a mile wide.
And on a side note, there are issues with customer feedback. Their good at identifying things that are wrong but are bad at identifying things that are good, so it is of limited use. When presented with something new, something that breaks the mold, fee
Re:Don't need people to tell you? (Score:4, Informative)
I would disagree with this. Firefly is the perfect example - the ratings where horrible but the box set sales were phenomenal, I worked at a video store when it was released, it was one of the most profitable TV rentals in the store behind Sopranos. Farscape is another example... executives have no clue what to do with it because "it has puppets so it must be for kids" but then it also has adult plot lines - their answer: bury it. It probably would have done much better on DVD if they hadn't made the stupid choice of putting it on for $130-170 per season. Now it's $60 for the series and getting better reviews than SG1 which ran for 10 seasons + spin offs.
Granted sci-fi isn't for everyone - there are a LOT of stupid people out there who would rather watch reality shows but geeks consume content like no other stereotype I know ;)
The fact is that cult shows are breakout hits waiting to happen - they just need to be given the proper chance/venue/exposure.
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Firefly was gone before most people even watched it. That is: they watched it mostly in re-runs, where it still attracts a bigger audience than it did while it was in active production. It wasn't widely carried, so most people only heard about it second hand, and it occured at a time when not every cable company carried it, and it occurred only on cable during a period when a significant number of people were still watching broadcast TV.
Ditto for several other sifi series, which seem particularly prone to
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It wasn't widely carried, so most people only heard about it second hand, and it occured at a time when not every cable company carried it, and it occurred only on cable during a period when a significant number of people were still watching broadcast TV.
Firefly was carried on Fox in 2002. According to Wikipedia [wikipedia.org], Fox network reached 96.18% of US homes in 2003. So... pretty much what I quoted from you up there is incorrect and/or pointless.
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The shows that Fox cancel tend to be cult shows. That is, a show with a few, deep, passionate fans. Advertisers tend to care more about how many people watch â" they donâ(TM)t care if the passion is a inch deep if it is a mile wide.
I would disagree with this. Firefly is the perfect example - the ratings where horrible but the box set sales were phenomenal,
You just agreed with him. Fox cares how many people watch on TV, because that's the people to whom they show commercials, which is what the advertisers care about — you are forgetting that you are the product, not the customer. Advertisers are the customers, and you are being sold to them.
The fact is that cult shows are breakout hits waiting to happen - they just need to be given the proper chance/venue/exposure.
And that is not broadcast.
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My point was that if Fox execs gave these cult shows the same support they give prime time Monday or Thursday night shows they'd have hits on their hands instead of just a cult show.
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No, Fox has driopped good rated shows. Becasue lower rated. but cheaper shows can make more money.
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Not really, Fox drops shows if they don't immediately have a huge following and regularly moves shows around so that they don't have any chance to earn a following. Futurama is a good example, they moved the timeslot around so much that it was a real bitch to find it unless one was constantly looking at TV listings. Now with DVRs it's not as big of a deal, but they have some rather unrealistic expectations. Sometimes shows need some consistent scheduling in order to pick up a following.
The main reason why t
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Don't confuse Fox News with Fox Everthing Else (tho Fox News also addresses a "niche" larger than CNN by far).
Fox did this with Glee -- a summer replacement of 6 episodes they put on Hulu too, which had such monster viewings just on the first episode, it got immediately pulled and programmed for the fall.
It helps their target demographic is late boomers and Gen X nostalgia, what with them entering their prime earning years.
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I don't think that's true about Glee. At least by the time the pilot was shown in the spring, it was already announced to be a fall show. There may have been some behind-the-scenes steps I don't know about
Misleading Title (Score:1)
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It's not a misleading title, Amazon is commissioning the pilot episodes and then making them available for viewing. If there's enough interest they order more episodes.
I assume this is some sort of lame joke, but it's too lame to be a joke and too stupid to be serious.
I fail to see the problem with this (Score:1)
"the entire broadcast schedule might be nothing but sci-fi shows, tween-lit adaptions and whatever Joss Whedon wants to do"
Can someone point it out?
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Would easily be more entertaining than Deadliest Swamp Ice Road Trucker Catch People.
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Aha! All those years of them trying to turn the Web into TV... and we'd turn TV into the Web!
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The real problem is that the networks are blind to alternate demographic groups. They would rather compete head to head for a slice of 18-35 year-olds who watch TV on Thursday nights than to expand overall viewership. Shows like Battlestar Galactica, Ugly Betty, or The Bible were hits because they reach audiences that don't watch shows like Friends. The networks have a real opportunity to find out nor only what shows people want to watch, but also who wants to watch them. When people vote on pilots, the
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This is a large problem, but another problem is that executives watch the pilot and it isn't an up or down vote. Sometimes they'll like the idea, but decide that the lead is wrong or that they need to tweak something, and an audience would probably have no clue as to how to do that. So, you get shows being rejected which the networks might have approved with minor tweaks.
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YES! no. YES!
I'll put up with the tween-lit adaptations if I can get the first and last.
Too Early to tell (Score:1)
This could succeed. Or it could fail spectacularly. No one really knows what will happen with this so Amazon is trying to be the first mover. But I guess we'll know soon enough now that someone is trying this approach.
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IDK look at other such systems, like say American Idol, the finalists are usually pretty bland pop singers. The outlier unique singers are the first to go.
Consumers want attention (Score:3)
yes. of course, and if something doesn't get picked up, they can crowd source fund a few episodes.. and they should use more of the British model where a 'season' might be just 3 to 4 episodes.. all done with quality..
They should sign people up for subscriptions and allow them to watch anywhere, any time.. and be part of the process of picking what they wil be watching.. after all if you ask nicely most people will tell you what they think.
They are basically creating content (by buying it or paying for it) and then finding advertisers to fund it.. that's a model that easier to do online than offline, esp. now that people are time shifting, Etc. They need to forget that they are going out Over The Air and start to incorporate everything they can do when they to OTT (over the top)..
Depends on your target audience (Score:3)
The summary makes a good point that the sample audience could have very different tastes than the target audience. I think it's probably a good idea for shows that are intended to be released online, in the same format as the pilot is previewed.
Conversely, if you’re a network executive, you usually don’t need millions of people to tell you a show sucks.
Apparently, you do, based on how many TV shows utterly fail due to poor ratings. But here's the problem: TV (especially sitcoms and reality TV) aren't about making quality entertainment, they're about ratings. Some network exec thought Animal Practice would make money, not necessarily be a quality show. TV is primarily a business, not a medium for artistic expression. Internet TV is not that different, but Amazon's approach could give shows a chance that otherwise would have been nixed by an exec that guessed wrong.
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Addendum: A broadcast network could do an online pilot followed by online trial run for presumably much lower cost (and not sacrificing a prime time slot for an experiment), and then move to broadcast if it proved popular. I suspect that's an approach they're more likely to follow.
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What you mean is it excludes the old folks who sit at home all day.
Ratings is not the only thing they measure, at some points it better to have lower ratings, make less total revenue, but more profit by having a cheaper show.
They have X hours to fill to make the most profit possible. If Show Z gets 100% of viewers but only breaks since it costs a fortune to make they will cancel it. If can get 50% of their traget audience to watch Dancing with Idols which costs nothing to make they will replace Show Z with
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Apparently, you do, based on how many TV shows utterly fail due to poor ratings.
Poor ratings are no indication that the show sucked. And the approval of millions of people is no indication of quality.
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TV shows are pulled for 2 reasons:
1) They don't make enough money
2) The money they make isn't enough.
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Apparently, you do, based on how many TV shows utterly fail due to poor ratings.
It's worth pointing out that viewership is a generally a zero sum game. Not all shows can have great ratings, and the shows that do have great ratings are doing so by drawing viewers away from the other shows, thus resulting in those other ones having lower ratings.
What they need to be doing is growing their viewership, since then everyone wins by simply having more eyeballs on their content. And while traditional boob tube watching is still the norm, it's on the decline while the likes of Hulu and Netflix
Absolutely! (Score:1)
Four words: Goatse The TV Series
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Ep 1 guest starring The Lemon Party.
Ep 2 guest starring Tubgirl.
What I want to see (Score:3)
I want a TV series of just pilots or things that got picked up but were canned and never shown. Stuff like that. If done right it could be entertaining. Give some details on it before it shows. Who knows there could be a winner lurking in there and it would get the attention it deserves.
the problem is (Score:2)
the way they do it now is easily considered to be more fundamentally flawed, and that's by using focus groups. there is no possible way you can with any level of accuracy gauge how well a TV show or movie is going to perform by sampling such a tiny group of people.
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the way they do it now is easily considered to be more fundamentally flawed, and that's by using focus groups. there is no possible way you can with any level of accuracy gauge how well a TV show or movie is going to perform by sampling such a tiny group of people.
Much of the "focus group" mentality was caused by Friends and ER.
That was the first time after "the big three" had become "the big four" and also had competition from cable TV that not just one but two shows had stormed out of the gates as the #1 show in their category (comedy/drama) and kept that spot for an extended period of time. Although this sort of thing did happen when there was a lot fewer choices, once there was some competition, it always took a few episodes (and sometimes many more, like for Se
Use Standard Channels but for a Large # of Pilots (Score:3, Interesting)
There's more to a good series than entertainment (Score:3)
The model is to put something on the air, on the cable or on the net which will cause people to stop doing anything else and to focus their attention on the content. This enables the content providers to add their own other content to mix in with the stream. This enables them to influence our knowledge, perception, thoughts, beliefs and ideals. MOST of the time, the additional content is advertising which does all of the afore mentioned with the purpose of getting people to buy things.
SO. With that said, it is most efficient to create content which most interesting to the people that buy the most and are most easily influenced.
This is why the good shows don't last while crap shows stay on forever and are replicated over and over and over again.
The exception is when "the content is the product" of course, but that's a rather rare in the grand scheme of things.
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That is becoming less and less rare. Netflix, HBO, Showtime are all now producing content that is the product. Without any advertising other than for more of their own content on the last two.
HELL YES. (Score:3)
You're saying that like it's a bad thing. I might end up buying a TV.
1600 Penn (Score:2)
If NBC had posted its pilots online, would we have been spared 'Animal Practice'?
Probably not. But I suspect we definitely would have been spared 1600 Penn. Geesh, what a disaster that show was.
Joss Whedon (Score:2)
and whatever Joss Whedon wants to do
And that is bad how?
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and whatever Joss Whedon wants to do
And that is bad how?
Alien 4.
No. 2 reasons. (Score:2)
Answer to any news item headline posted as a question is always no.
Anser to 'do like amazon' is also always no. Whats good for Amazon is has never been good for the rest of us. The company has absolute no redeeming quality that justifies the evil they carry with them. The difference between Amazon and Oracle is that Oracle doesn't hide the fact that you're getting raped. Amazon likes to pretend their your friend and do it without you noticing if they can.
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Yes, raped with that free shipping and cheaper prices. Gosh those evil bastard.
WTF dude?
What problem? (Score:1)
I'm not so sure about the "tween-lit adaptions", but as for the rest i'm not seeing any problem here, other than that i might want to subscribe to cable again. And is having a compelling enough line-up to make me want to subscribe really a problem?
Self Confirmation Bias (Score:2)
The Nielsen company also indicates that Nielsen ratings remain the premier audience measurement metric in the modern world and will remain so regardless of new, internet-based fads.
Better Idea (Score:3)
Redneck Interwebs (Score:2)
Their argument is stupid and pointless.
There are plenty of people who only enjoy watching honey booboo that have the interwebs, unfortunately the rest of us have to suffer the side effects of stupid management.
I'm really baffled how shows like 24 stay on the air for years, and shows like The Agency, Jericho, and Terra Nova get canceled?
I'm sick of the real catty housewives of the next urban location. I'm tired of Dodgy the bountiful hunter, and every lame "re-enacted" reality shows like Operacion Repo.
Funn
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Here, let me explain:
24 - Good
The Agency, Jericho, and Terra Nova - Crap.
And I mean objectively. The writing the filming the acting.
even though I didn't like 24 for subjective reason,it was much better technically then those other shows.
"I'm sick of the real catty housewives of the next urban location. I'm tired of Dodgy the bountiful hunter, and every lame "re-enacted" reality shows like Operacion Repo."
I agree, but they are cheap to make so they can make a lot of maybe for the studios even
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I gave up on reality TV when I realized it wasn't reality. And, I mean NONE of it. Even "that show we think is different" is staged. Normal life has too many mundane moments which is too much of an impetus for a producer to inject drama.
But, I don't think the TV audience cares! There's that Amish Mafia show that is OBVIOUSLY faked, but people watch anyway.
Probably not. (Score:2)
Some pilots get shown to execs, green-lighted, and are then shot again to be the first episode the public sees, generally also known as a "pilot." Quality between the two can vary greatly. As much as we like to bash studio execs, they do know they're seeing a potentially "rough" version the first time through and will allow for that. The general public probably won't. Before there's a money commitment, quality will probably be below average. The result would be a lot of shows with mediocre production values
What do you mean 'Should'? (Score:2)
Every pilot season the torrent sites are full with new pilots, I was under the impression 'leaking' those was a matter of policy.
And if they're not using the information from those torrents they're bigger idiots than I give them credit for.
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How would you use the information? How would they gather it?
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The number of leechers and seeders is available to everyone, the media already uses that as a measure of popularity.
Other than that I'd imagine they have deals with social networks to check how often their products are mentioned, which adjectives are used in context with them and such.
Will They Survive if they Don't? (Score:2)
At the rate things are going, the main reason people still watch TV on cable is sports and the lack of content being broadcast directly on the Internet. NetFlix and Amazon Instant Video are changing the landscape. With two different content providers now producing their own shows, it's only a matter of time before other studios will either have to open up to online distribution or be left behind. When that happens, cable/satellite TV will only have sports left.
yes, well, don't care (Score:2)
"Should TV Networks Put Pilots Online For Judgement Like Amazon Is Doing?"
Does it matter? The content selection process is only one of the many things wrong with broadcast TV. They could do this and maybe survive another year or two, but in the medium-long run it will not matter.
Cartoon Network did this a long time ago (Score:3)
I thought this was a brilliant way of coming up with new shows and it seemed successful from my perspective, but I don't think they ever did it again.
Why bother? (Score:1)
Intuitively I don't think that would be useful in the long term. I think they would get *some* data from edge cases, as people shift from one demographic to the other, but for the most part, they wouldn't get good data from the demographic as a whole. I mean, I only seek out or tolerate variation to my recreational media sources when that source is no longer an option or I become suddenly disinterested and need a change. Like my music tastes have varied consistent along with my age consistent with most dema
Hmm, let's see... (Score:2)
We could put our shows out for a bunch of geeks to watch and judge by a demographic known to be rather critical of everything and hostile to advertising...OR we could just make 3 more reality shows, 2 more police procedurals, a lawyer show, and whatever dumb idea the boss's nephew comes up with, and come out way ahead the masses.
Seriously, if they really want to use the Internet for pilots, they should first spam out links to the videos, then halfway through demand people for their Facebook ids and password
Why the networks? (Score:2)
I don't really see why the networks would do this. They're probably better at judging the shows themselves than trying decipher the online opinion. And they may not like the idea of the public seeing an early version before they've had a chance to tinker. For Amazon it's probably a good idea for the PR value and they don't have the same show picking experience.
One thing I could see on the other hand is a show releasing its own pilot online. Say they're having trouble getting picked up or they want to drive
Just stop watching TV already (Score:3)
Failed Pilot Network (Score:2)
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Too high.
Even for shows I watch now I would wait for the DVD before paying those prices.
Make it free, then go up to whatever the advertisers pay per set of eyeballs watching. Each week double the cost until you hit that maximum.
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Yes, they already have a natural use for any failed procedures or pet that simply had to be put down. This would not noticeably impact the quality of their food and would make the veterinary care more affordable to their customers.
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This would not noticeably impact the quality of their food
You don't think it would improve at least a little?
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Because despite how we see ourselves, we are not an ideal demographic for shows.
Scifi shows are one of the most expensive genres to make, and the good ones often need talented (expensive) people to make them, and then lack the mass appeal.
It's the same reason why when you hear they are "attracting a larger audience", it means they are dumbing it down.
The average TV watcher probably does not care for more stuff like Firefly, while those that do have moved onto other platforms for their content.
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OTOH, we are a demographic full of people with extra spending cash.
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those that do have moved onto other platforms for their content
Personally, I'll move to any platform to get more Firefly.