Totally going to watch this. Swoon.
Category Archives: Television
Adapting TV Channels For The Internet
Television networks are finding ways to stay relevant in a time when they have to compete for eyeballs with other forms of media. Namely, the internet. Saw this story about how the traditional networks are incorporating their online offerings and portals when trying to sell advertising space to companies.
The CW pitched itself on Thursday as “the first fully converged network” — but it has competition on that front. TBS and TNT, two cable channels owned by Turner Broadcasting, rather dramatically said that two years from now, they won’t be linear channels, they’ll be “branded video destinations” that just happen to have a linear component.
This is exactly how I believe the “networks” and television channels will exist in the future. No longer do you have a list of channels with scheduled programming. People want to watch programs when they want to watch them, on-demand. However, it is difficult to find “new” things to watch. One of the undervalued aspects of networks is that they curate shows. When you turn on a channel that you liked before, you are buying into the idea that the network will put out more product you like. Think HBO building a rapport with Sopranos so you trust that Game of Thrones will be good.
It could be difficult to do this with random websites. Do you google “cop drama” and hope you find something good, and not some 5th grader’s home movie project? Networks could serve as these curators. TNT already is moving to this with their “We Know Drama” slogan. TBS is “Very Funny”. So, if I am in the mood for a sitcom, I could go to TBS’s iOS app, or website, or TV channel – whatever my preferred medium, but know I was getting a certain quality and type of program.
Like this:
Piracy and Game of Thrones
Over the week I’ve seen the headline over and over describing how HBO’s Game of Thrones show is set to be the most pirated TV show ever.
Most of these people blame HBO, because the only way to get the show rightfuckingnowthissecond is to subscribe to HBO. Which means you have to subscribe to Cable, since you can’t just pay HBO to stream their programming over the internet. Otherwise, you have to wait 6 whole months for the series to come on DVD (or iTunes). So, the only solution is to illegally pirate/download it. Of course.
This idea has been discuss ad naseum over and over lately.
“HBO hasn’t helped the problem by making the show tough to watch online for the young and cable-less,” notes Greenberg. “The show isn’t available through Hulu or Netflix, iTunes offers only Season 1, and using HBO’s own streaming site HBO Go requires a cable subscription.”
For the millions of Americans who don’t subscribe to HBO, or who may not even watch shows on a television, this means there is no legal way to watchGame of Thrones. If you only watch TV on your laptop, there’s no way you’re going to pay $50/month for cable and another $15/month for HBO. -Forbes
My favorite response to this idea is by Andy Ihnatko:
The single least-attractive attribute of many of the people who download content illegally is their smug sense of entitlement.
Here’s the terms of use for commercial content: you have to pay for this stuff. This means either you need to wait for it to become commercially available, or if you torrent it today you need to buy it when it gets released. So long as you buy it as soon as it’s possible to do so, I can confidently reach for my “No Harm Done” rubber stamp. Some content is commercially unavailable because the publisher or distributor has no desire to ever release it. I’ll even go so far as to say that downloading it illegally is a positive thing; you’re helping to keep this creative work alive.
If you avoid purchasing the media in some form, however…you’re just one of those people who prefer to steal things if they think they can get away with it. Simple as that. Get off your high horse.
The world does not OWE you Season 1 of “Game Of Thrones” in the form you want it at the moment you want it at the price you want to pay for it. If it’s not available under 100% your terms, you have the free-and-clear option of not having it.
But, I’ll ignore the “I demand HBO’s awesome well crafted expensive to produce content on my terms immediately instead of in a method that makes money for them” argument.
The other aspect of this argument is “See, HBO, look at all these people who want your show? That is money on the table because you won’t give it to them in an easy to access format.” There is of course the idea that they would have to give up lucrative licensing deals and start a whole new consumer services division.
If HBO were to break off and do a stand-alone service they would be giving up those subsidies and would incur huge additional costs in terms of support, billing, and infrastructure that they currently aren’t burdened with. This would make producing the content they produce now – including extremely expensive shows such as Game of Thrones - impossible. At the very least, it would be a huge risk.
Not going to happen. But let’s skip that part too. What I like to focus on is the hypocrisy. Pirates and piracy supporters (sigh) argue that if HBO would just offer this up, then all these people would just start paying HBO for the content. Except, that when its convenient, they make the exact opposite argument. These same proponents argue that Hollywood’s losses are overstated because “not every pirated copy equals a sale.” Not everyone who downloads a song on BitTorrent would have bought that song on iTunes they argue. They are sampling/getting something they wouldn’t actually buy. So, why would this change when it comes to Game of Thrones? No one seems to be able to address this shortcoming. You simply cannot argue both ways.
New Girl Doppelgangers
There is a show on Fox called “New Girl” that has fantastic writing and is actually quite funny. But I am convinced it could be easily titled “The Doppelgangers”. Every actor on this show seems to be a twin of another celebrity. Check it out:
Zooey Deschanel and her twin, Katy Perry
Jake Johnson and his twin, David Krumholtz
Lamorne Morris and his twin Dave Chappell
The only one I haven’t figured out is Max Greenfield. Any ideas? Maybe a young Tom Cruise?
Like this:
How Apple TV Should Work
The rumor mill has been pulling overtime shifts with reports that Apple is really focusing on making Apple TV a priority. Many suggest this to be a brand new TV. However, I think that is misguided, mainly for the reasons Gruber and others have pointed out. Namely that people don’t replace their TVs very often. And an Apple TV wouldn’t be cheap. People who are nerds and would be interested in paying the premium for an Apple branded TV probably have already spent good money on decent flat panel TVs recently and aren’t looking to upgrade any time soon.
I think Apple should instead relaunch Apple TV the service. Just like the iTunes store and music, it is far more effective to provide a good solution for distributing material and just collect fees. This is how I envision Apple TV should work.
Instead of launching a cable network or a hardware TV, Apple needs to address the problems people have with their current cable company. Chief of those complaints is paying for channels no one watches.
Apple should launch a rebranded “Video Store”. Much like their Newsstand app, it will focus on specific content that is delivered automatically and presented in a central location. Content providers can then make Video Store compatible apps that users open and stream their “channel”. So, in Newsstand, I subscribe to GQ. Every month the latest GQ issue is downloaded to my iPad. I’m notified and the cover changes in the Newsstand. Whenever I’m ready, I open the GQ app and read it. I’m able to pay my subscription through iTunes using the same account I use to buy apps. Simple.
The Video Store would be similar. I could have the HBO app downloaded. I pay a set amount per month for the subscription and open the app when I’m ready to watch. Let’s say I don’t want to pay for all of AMC. I could simply buy the “Mad Men” subscription, and every week when the latest episode comes out, it shows up available to stream on my device.
This doesn’t sound groundbreaking, but it gets to two issues. First, is the universal cord cutter wish of “a la carte” cable choices in subscriptions. Second, it gets around the storage issue of buying episodes in iTunes and having to sync your device to download them. These video files take up huge amounts of space, so it is far easier to put all that server space Apple bought in NC to use and just stream on demand to subscribers. We can see Apple is already doing this with the current version of Apple TV, allowing you to stream episodes you have previously downloaded.
It also allows users who complain about live sports and news to get that content as well. The CNN app streams live CNN and you can subscribe to MLB at bat or NBA Season Pass. The content providers could still get paid – and get it directly from users instead of charging fees to cable operators.
Obviously, it is also necessary to get the content on television screens. Apple should utilize the standard that they already put right in front of our noses – Airplay. So, for those who only want to use Apple for TV – buy an Apple TV plug it in your screen of choice, and subscribe. For those on iPads and iPhones, you can subscribe on your device and “push” to your device the shows you want to watch. This is a key point, because suddenly your television and video content becomes truly mobile. No longer do you have to be home scrolling through your DVR to watch last week’s episode of Community. Now you can catch Boardwalk Empire at the gym and then How I Met Your Mother when you get home on the big screen.
This appeases complaints that content is too locked down in current offerings like Hulu with “PC only” restrictions. No longer do you have to hope that the episode you missed three weeks ago is still on Hulu, or that the one you missed last night is available on Fox.com only after a week has passed.
Will this work? If anyone can do it, it is Apple. They were the only company that could push the music companies into online distribution. Now with even more clout, they might be ready to gently guide the video content companies toward the future.
Like this:
Oh, It Looks Good!
I don’t know why, but I couldn’t stop laughing at this. You will hear me saying this incessantly for the next month.
Like this:
You Should Be Watching: Portlandia
Portlandia. A show on IFC that makes fun of coastal liberal SWPL culture. It stars SNL castmember Fred Armisen and musician Carrie Brownstein. Check out some of the funnier clips below:
One about the absurd degree people are taking the organic movement:
Broad and Shallow to Deep and Narrow
NPR has been running stories all week about how technology is affecting society. One of their stories resonated with me. The discussion focused on how because of new technologies we are able to seek out and find entertainment and topics that appeal to us more easily than ever. Because of the ease of finding the specific thing that rings our bell, we can more easily filter out everything that doesn’t.
American culture is sliced up in so many different ways that what’s popular with one group can go virtually unnoticed by another. Univision, for example, is watched by millions of Latinos in the U.S., but millions of other Americans couldn’t tell you what channel it’s on.
Think about it like this. Back when your parents were children they had a choice of 3 television channels. They watched what was on. Because of this many people watched the same things, and had the same “experiences”. Music was delivered via radio stations that decided what to play. Everyone grew up listening to the same music.
Fast forward to today. I can find a youtube channel or blog that is dedicated to my oddest hobby. I can find indie bands producing a specific sound that refuses to fit into any category and probably hasn’t been heard by anyone in my social circle.
My friend described this phenomenon as having fewer grand scale shared culture, but a deeper connection with those who do share our common interests. You might have only one person in your group of friends who likes the same web show, but you two probably know all the catchphrases.
What impact is this having on our society? Do we feel less kinship with greater society because we don’t feel like we share anything with our neighbors? Does this encourage increasingly isolated interests?
In such a fractured society, is America at risk of losing a common culture? Rosenberg of The Atlantic says maybe. But she also thinks it will make us appreciate the mass cultural events that do occur even more, like the end of the Harry Potter series or Michael Jackson’s death.
Is Glee Encouraging Criminal Behavior?
Interesting article on Jack Balkin’s blog by guest blogger Information Society Project fellow Christina Mulligan that makes an argument that the characters on Glee, in real life would be serious violators of copyright law.
In one recent episode, the AV Club helps cheerleading coach Sue Sylvester film a near-exact copy of Madonna’s Vogue music video (the real-life fine for copying Madonna’s original? up to $150,000). Just a few episodes later, a video of Sue dancing to Olivia Newton-John’s 1981 hit Physical is posted online (damages for recording the entirety of Physical on Sue’s camcorder: up to $300,000). And let’s not forget the glee club’s many mash-ups — songs created by mixing together two other musical pieces. Each mash-up is a “preparation of a derivative work” of the original two songs’ compositions – an action for which there is no compulsory license available, meaning (in plain English) that if the Glee kids were a real group of teenagers, they could not feasibly ask for — or hope to get — the copyright permissions they would need to make their songs, and their actions, legal under copyright law. Punishment for making each mash-up? Up to another $150,000 — times two.
The point of the article doesn’t seem to be to examine whether the copyright holder would actually have a civil claim that would hold up in court- I don’t watch the show, could the students have a fair use claim? – but rather to point out, in her opinion, the flaws in the copyright system. Her main points is:
The Constitution allows Congress to pass copyright laws to “promote the progress of science” — a word often used in the 18th century to mean “knowledge”. The stated purpose of the original 1790 copyright statute was to encourage learning. So you tell me — what promotes knowledge and learning: letting people rearrange music and learn to use a video camera, or threatening new artists with $150,000 fines?
I will quibble over this point a bit. Patents cover inventions, copyright covers “art”. She is probably referring to the “copyright clause” of the constitution which states:
To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries.
I guess we can use knowledge as an extension of art. If you allow that extension, then yes I believe protecting the copyright holder does encourage art/knowledge. Those Glee kids wouldn’t have anything to emulate if the artists didn’t create those songs. And those artists probably wouldn’t create those songs if they had to make money by working at Bed, Bath & Beyond instead of going to the studio.
Whose argument do you find more persuasive?
Primetime had it coming
This insert was in my 30 Rock Season 3 DVD. It was a promo for his new show, but it has a more ominous foreshadowing to it now that NBC is forcing Conan out to put Jay Leno back on the Tonight Show and has messed up evening programming for NBC to ridiculous levels.
