TV’s new model?
My friend Jared has a really interesting post up at the Naked New York blog. He specifically talks about the issue with only 10 percent of shows making it past season one: “Technology and music reward early adoption, but television does not. Why should any viewer invest time and energy in a new program when it’s almost certain that it’ll be taken away before it can get serious? It’s like falling in love with someone who you know is destined to break your heart, right?”
He also pointed to this AdAge piece about a new CBS show slated for the summer and only 13 episodes. As the article explains, “When CBS tested the program with audiences, Mr. Turteltaub said, the network discovered that people grew more enthusiastic about watching it when they realized it had a definite end in sight and wasn’t going to push along for several seasons.”
Taken with the cheesy future of television I just wrote about, I got to thinking about the idea that what we were seeing was a splitting of television into multiple media, one the live version we’re used to and the other time (and maybe device) shifted. If that’s true, and we can really consider a TV with a DVR (or internet connection) a new medium, than it makes perfect sense that the content would need to adapt to match it. Just a thought, will need to consider the implications a little more.
Hi, I'm 
A very good observation and it is correct.
Belated B’day as well.
It’s super interesting that you mention the viewer cost of following a new series. In the bad old days of Bob Saget, new shows didn’t require interepisode memory, you could check out a few episodes of a new show without worrying about following a story arc. DVDs and TV binges have brought us denser, more deeply interlinked and complex plots. My colleague Tom talks about how many shows are *still* recovering from story and character gaffes resulting from the writers strike. You hear about decreasing costs of production, but not so much about increasing costs of consumption.
For what it’s worth, we are all about Mad Men and 30 Rock. Tried Heroes, didn’t like it. No patience for Lost. Supposedly Arrested Development and Flight Of The Conchords are worth picking up, but not yet.
it’s interesting. In the Uk scarcity is a bit more prevalent in tv. Faulty towers with John Cleese has only 13 episodes. The office only two series. You don’t seem to get that in the states
As Mikej says, it’s completely different over here in the UK. 6 episodes is a pretty standard run for a series, if we’re lucky it’ll get extended to 13. Doctor Who, one of the biggest series we have, only has 13 episodes per season. A completely different model here, even on the commercial channels.
Oh right, the UK – Spaced had only two short seasons, maybe 14 ep total? It’s amazing to see programming that’s written with an end in mind, instead of a complicated dance with viewers who debate the point at which a series has been turned over from its creators to its backers.
The music industry was forced into this position a few years before it hit the television entertainment industry, and I think we can learn a lot from the music industry’s experience. A few things to consider:
First, STRONG PARTNERSHIPS with online music stores like iTunes gave consumers the opportunity to get their music the same way they’ve become accustomed to (via Napster, KaZaA, etc. just like we now use Hulu, Surfthechannel, and Boxee) while still supporting the artists and labels financially. Second, they FOCUSED ON THE SALES OPPORTUNITIES of merchandise and concert tickets instead of relying on disc sales. And third, and definitely most difficult, they CHANGED THEIR MINDSET. The industry listened to what their consumers wanted and they made it work for both of them, looking for how it could work to their advantage.
The TV entertainment industry has already begun some of the necessary evolution, providing episodes for sale on iTunes, investing in video technology on mp3 players, and supporting themselves with ad revenue, but they’ll need to find more new revenue streams if they want to stay in the good graces of consumers who are now used to being able to find full episodes online for free.
I recently read an article from AdAge about how the cable networks won’t be getting a site like Hulu anytime soon. David Sazlav, CEO of Discovery Communications, was quoted saying: “The cable channel business is a good business model, and we want to continue to be partners with distributors. We don’t want to train [viewers] to watch our best shows on [free online] platforms. Most of our research shows if we move our content mostly in clips, we can create an environment where we can mostly satisfy our viewers with consumer content on other platforms but do it in a way that doesn’t take away from our core business.”
I think he’s going to find that the clips aren’t satisfying viewers and that because of serialized stories and the way we live our lives these days, we need to have other options to view the content. Seeing as its currently often available illegally (or otherwise) online for free and that many many users are seeking out this content, I think he needs to consider changing his mindset and instead look to find how these behaviors can benefit both his company (and other cable channels) as well as consumers.
Last bit:
LOST negotiated an end date so they could tell the full story they were looking for and not sacrifice the overall series by attempting to milk it for all it’s worth. As a loyal LOST watcher, I can definitely say that as soon as they negotiated the end date, the episodes got better and better: they had something to be working towards finally. So maybe it will work both ways–consumers will be more dedicated, and writers will only bring their best to the table.
(Interesting fact: I didn’t watch the first three seasons of LOST on TV. My boyfriend said it was fantastic and that I was missing out, and I caught up by watching all three seasons online on abc.com before watching in real time for all of season 4 and season 5 thus far. Having that content available made me into another loyal viewer, and there’s no doubt in my mind that I’ll be purchasing all the seasons on DVD as well)
Like Mikej and Rachel. the BBC model was the first thing that popped into my head Noah.
There are both artistic and business reasons for having shorter series runs. Artistic is easy: no more jumping the proverbial shark.
The trend seems to have more to do with diminishing revenues and inability to fund move-quality production budgets than anything else.
TV series will have to compete for our attention in the near future in a way they’ve never had to before, with a methodology more akin to movies. Mostly because they won’t be able to rely on a steady stream of network promos and the stasis that had people tuning in to NBC at 8 PM to see what was on.
As per your co-workers point: TV series have been pulled off the air prematurely for decades. “All In The Family” and “The Mary Tyler Moore Show” were both in danger of being yanked prematurely and it was only a risk-taking network exec who saved them. That was back in the early 1970s. Tis the way things work.
(^^For the many readers of this site who were not yet born in the early 70s, those were both massively popular TV shows of that era.)
Interesting my friend Noah. That which I don’t see you mentioning is the gruesomeness of the value exchange, or what you might call the business model with respect to TV. There was a nifty little post about this on Silicon Alley Insider as to how being tops in iTunes (2 $ x 25,000 or so peeps) doesn’t amount to a hill of beans with respect to the cost of the programming. The model itself, wherein the shows are so bloody expensive and technology has made paying for that more as opposed to less difficult. I guess, without being the bean counter here, I think it also comes down to not just getting the content to be interesting from a dvr perspective but getting its costs covered as well?
@Loren: Thanks
@Michael: Yeah, it’s a super interesting idea. I’ve always thought that a lot of the new shows were written for DVD as well. As for those other shows, Arrested Development season 1 and 2 are so awesome.
@Mike/Rachel: Good point.
@Claire: Thanks for the comment. Re: The cable bit, you’re spot on. Cable is a great business for these guys and one of the few that is still doing gangbusters. After all, what other business do you get paid whether or not a consumer actually wants your product? Not a bad business model.
@Alan: Good point.
@Todd: Totally man. That’s a great point and one I think is central to almost everything digital (yet so often forgotten). It’s okay to make less money on something as long as you spend less on it. Thanks dude.
@Todd & Noah: That Silicon Alley Insider story is a reflection of a now-famous comment made by then-NBC president Jeff Zucker in this article in The Atlantic (which I know Noah reads) http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200803/tv-web/2
“We don’t want to replace the dollars we were making in the analog world with pennies on the digital side.”