Finding the Long Tail of Television

prostoalex writes "The New York Times runs the story on the long tail of television, where the channels that would not be hits on the mainstream media are migrating to the Internet and finding interested audiences there. The article mentions Sail.tv - TV programming for those into sailing and yachting, TrioTV - the cornucopia of pop culture and music, BrilliantButCancelled will rerun the reruns of old TV shows, and OutZone will feature programming pertaining to gays and lesbians."

Brilliant But Cancelled

I'd like to have them show Vengence Unlimited, and Brimstone. It's not often that Fox creates something worth watching, but Brimstone certainly deserved more than the 1 season it was granted in 1998.

Re:Brilliant But Cancelled

It's not often that Fox creates something worth watching...

On the contrary, I'd expect Fox to be way overrepresented on that network. Get A Life reruns, anyone?

As long as I'm commenting:

1) Maybe an All Poker, All The Time network would fly. Or ESPN Poker. That would free up ESPN2 to bring back nightly World's Strongest Man showings.

2) Whatever happened to the much-hyped Al Gore TV network? Is it still in development or has it already come and gone?

Re:Brilliant But Cancelled

Current TV [current.tv] exists, but I have an extra-long attention span* and so I cannot watch a TV network where the average program is 5 minutes long.

* Mitch Hedberg reference

Re:Brilliant But Cancelled

You know, that joke isn't really funny if you write the B in lower case.

Re:Brilliant But Cancelled

Whatever happened to the much-hyped Al Gore TV network?

I watched Current [current.tv] when it launched. I guess I'm not the target market, but it really wasn't that entertaining to me. Only a fraction of the programming is actually submitted by viewers - the rest is professionally-produced. The commercials were very, very frequent - it wasn't uncommon to get a spot between every "pod." I almost prefer a long block of commercials at the same time. There's also been some controversy about the launch - altered policies resulted in producers having less control of their shows and less viewer created content than originally planned.

The funny thing is, during the two weeks before Current launched, I really began to respect NewsWorld International (the news channel Current bought out and cancelled as an easy way to get channel space). They provided an alternative perspective to CNN, Fox News, and MSNBC, and they did so very well. During the brief period I watched the two networks, I decided that NewsWorld matched my tastes much more closely. I miss them.

I don't know for sure, but based on the channel listing on the web site, it doesn't look like they picked up any new cable systems since the launch.

It was a good idea, but I don't think Current is ready for prime-time yet. Current's goal was to enable people to get their voice out. Public access does a better job of this.

Re:Brilliant But Cancelled

I have mod points, and I was about ready to give you a +1 Informative, but I decided that I would rather just reply to you, and say that you are 100% correct regarding Brimstone. It was the first thing that I thought of when I saw this story. I remember being part of the attempt to get Fox to change their minds about the show. And I am partly responsible for the show being something like #6 on online TV Show ratings stats more than 3 years after it was cancelled. I eventually gave up, as I realized it wasn't going to happen.

But it's EXTREMELY nice to see that I'm not the only one who's still pissed off that Fox cancelled it in the first place.

Sorry for not giving you your mod point. But I just thought that this post would say more about it than the mod point. I would strongly advise anyone reading this post to hit a bittorrent site up for the 13 Brimstone episodes. They are really good.

Great, Where can you find Max Headroom ?

Mma Mma Mmaxxxx Hed Hed Headroom!
Headroom.

bah!

outzone already slahdotted.

Of course, there's the REAL mainstream...

pr0n. Say what you want about it, but it drives the Internet and probably pulls in a LOT more jingle than all "legit" music/movie sites on the Internet combined.

Finding the Long Tail? That's easy!

It's called a plug. Given the lousy selection of shows on the air nowadays, it's better off unplugged most of the time.

Re:Finding the Long Tail? That's easy!

"Given the lousy selection of shows on the air nowadays..."

I don't get this. Can you name a time when things were different?

I'll admit that the majority of TV isn't worth watching, but I'd bet that was always the case, or at least has been as long as we've had hundreds of cable channels.

With that said though, there is more than enough great stuff on TV. I've got about ten shows that I watch every week, and along with Cartoon Network and Comedy Central for when nothing else is on, there is more good TV than I have time to watch.

Sure, if you spend five hours a day channel surfing, you may not be able to keep yourself entertained, but that's your own fault. Watch the good stuff, and do something else with the rest of your free time.

Re:Finding the Long Tail? That's easy!

I see the early to mid sixties as "better" than now

What a coincidence! The "Vast Wasteland" speech was made in 1961!

Your mama is a car

I'm sure television has almost always been mostly "junk". There is tons of stuff on right now that isn't worth watching. I'm sure that was true in the 50s, 60s, 70, and 80s (I know it was in the 90s).At the same time, I think there is more good stuff on now than there used to be. But this is a numbers game.

This is the sixities right?? Well here is horrible show number one. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_Mother_The_Car [wikipedia.org] I couldn't stop laughing at my dad until he said two words: Knight Rider.

Re:Finding the Long Tail? That's easy!

There are really two possible meanings for "television is worse now." One is that there used to be more shows on worth watching. The other is that shows were "better".

The third possible meaning is that all the really awful programming from that era, and there was a LOT, either was never recorded or nobody bothers to take it out of the vault. Hindsight is always 20/20, and it's easy to hearken back to the 'good old times' while forgetting that 'the good old times' the way we remember it consists of the rare examples of good television programming back then that were worth saving.

Re:Finding the Long Tail? That's easy!

(I only watch the network channels and a handful of basic cable channels, so I'm sure there's plenty else on that I don't know about).

Don't be so sure. Thanks to my DVR, I actually have a detailed record of what I watch... I was quite surprised to discover that something like 90%+ of what I watch is on OTA channels.

If I could get The Daily Show/Colbert Report shows, and History/National Geographic channels, I'd cancel my cable subscription as soon as I could install a (very good) antenna, and buy an HDTV reciever.

It's only been about the past 2 years or so that things have been so bad. Discovery and TLC, in particular, used-to have extremely interesting programs. The rise of the unscripted "reality" shows like American Choppers and Trading Spaces turned 99% of cable programming into an ultra-low-budget crap-fest. Sci-Fi channel had stuff worth watching most of the time, too, before the monster-of-the-day movies. And on and on it goes. Plus, OTA channels are now the only place you can watch shows without MASSIVE distractions, like 1/3rd of the screen being covered for several minutes with pop-up ads for other shows, sound effects designed to distract you, etc.

I'm very much on the verge of canceling my subscriptions, and I can't imaging how other people can justify spending so much money on so much crap.

Long Time Coming

This is something that should be a suprise to no one especially with the increasing popularity of BT and other p2p software to share shows from netwrok TV. Finding new shows on the internet and providing them with dedicated viewers should also inprove the quality of regular television, while it lasts, as some of these shows get picked up by the networks. They would likely be popular because they're good and hopefully original instead of being popular because they're better than the rest of the trash on TV.

How is this not YouTube / iTunes?

Maybe I missed something in my skimming, but what's the difference between sail.tv and, say, a video podcast of the same content? Surely they're not betting the whole farm on streaming video content. You'd think that with the rise of the video ipods and the whole timeshifting concept that new companies would immediately embrace the watch-whenever concept. After all, that's crucial to acting on the long tail. You don't just say "here's what I've got, showing at 9pm" you say "here's everything I've ever had, and if you happen to stumble across it and like it, then welcome."

Re:How is this not YouTube / iTunes?

I'd say the difference between streaming content and video podcasts is simple: Unavoidable ads versus avoidable ads. If you place a stream up, everyone watching the stream will have to wait for the ads instead of fastforwarding through them. With video podcasts, people can either fastfoward through the ads , and some people might just download the programs but never watch them, thus wasting the server's bandwidth since the person downloaded something they didn't really care about.

Old proverb

One must jump the shark to find the length of its tail.

Eric
My AdSense blog [memwg.com]

Trio TV

I really liked watching Trio TV when it was on DirecTV. Unfortunately, they got into some sort of dispute, and were dropped.

The internet solves one problem

We had a radio station in our small city that was listened to by a large population over a hundred mile radius. They specialized in country music. They had great listenership over a large geographic area but not a very great percentage of the local listeners. The local businesses wouldn't advertise. There weren't enough ads from national advertisers to make a go of it. So, in spite of the fact that they had lots of listeners, they had to change their format and focus on the local market.

With the internet, you can have local advertisers on these national or even international web sites. The local ads are seen only locally, the advertisers pay per click and apparently the advertising is effective. Given that model, these 'specialty channels' could be profitable.

Digitial Distribution

Well this is where digital distribution is going isn't it. Cable was the first step. Thanks to cable, you didn't have to make shows that would appeal to everyone. Things that wouldn't have made it on the big three could suddenly find a home. Digital distribution is the next step. Cut out the middle man. Tivo has already show us this (if you have a TiVo).

With a TiVo TV runs on your schedule. A show that wouldn't survive prime time or day time under normal circumstances could be run at 2:00 AM. TiVo users would record it and to them it wouldn't seem any different than if it ran at 8:00 PM. TiVo killed time slots, for TiVo users.

Digital distribution takes it one step further. That will kill channels. We are seeing this with the popularity of TV on DVD. I couldn't care less if Battlestar Galactica ran on ABC, UPN, Bravo, or The Home Shopping Network. If the show is the same, then where it came from doesn't matter. This is where iTunes and such will bring us.

You won't watch ABC. You won't say you like the stuff NBC shows. You'll say you like things made by Dick Wolf or David E. Kelly. Just like people don't say they like Paramount stuff (as they might back before the big studio breakups), they say they like Spielberg stuff, or Tarintino stuff.

I think this is great. There are so many great shows that never made it for various reasons (including but not limited to not finding their audience, terrible time slot, chronic time slot changes, etc). Dead Like Me, Keen Eddie, The Critic, John Doe, Threshold, Firefly, Futurama, and many others have been canceled. Half the shows on TechTV/ZDtv too.

We've already seen it happen. DVD sales brought back Family Guy (which Fox killed, like so many shows, with the deadly 7:00 PM Eastern time slot on Sunday). There are always rumors of that happening to Futurama too. Firefly fans have been trying.

When you take having to be on at a decent time out of the equation, it becomes much easier to program to the long tail. The problem is that enough people don't have DVRs yet. If you give them digital distribution that works too (just let my TiVo download the shows straight from the network off the 'net), I think we'll see programing move more towards the tail as networks are no longer "forced" to program towards the middle of the bell curve.

Re:Digitial Distribution

Family Guy is CHEAP to produce. It's cheap-o animation plus voice overs

I work in animation. Believe me, Family Guy is not cheap to produce. The animation is actually good quality for television. I don't know the exact numbers, but a show like that costs upwards of a half million an episode at the very least - and my guess is it costs a lot more than that because of creators fees and voice talent.

Voice actors are also not cheap. They can be one of the biggest expenses in an animated show. Simpsons actors make several hundred thousand per episode. Multiply that by six actors and you're topping a million per episode just for the talent. Factor in top-shelf writers, producers and directors and you're talking a lot of money.

cycling.tv another

I am not usually on the leading edge of things, but even with multiple cable channels I could never get decent coverage of one of my favorite sports - bicycling (Beyond Lance Armstrong who was almost a sport to himslf). I looked around and the only place I could find actual race coverage was on the internet. All sports channels seem to want to show are high volume shows, poker, and hunting and fishing, with hour a week of coverage max. This internet TV thing is great - even if they do seem to be super Microsoft focused in technology and still not very much resolution. Cable was supposed to lead to differentiation, but I think the overhead of the cable distribution network is stifling this, and I don't want to pay $100/mo for tons of channels I will never watch. The article says that the 500+ cable channels are full, but I don't see them available anywhere without very big cash outlays by me. That same infrastructure (cable modems) can also deliver programming not under the control of the cable provider through internet TV. I wonder as this develops when it will hurt them so they notice?

I had to laugh at the ESPN spokesman - yeah they will put $ in quality production of Poker or dumb commentary shows but don't want poor quality shows, like actual coverage of sporting events. Typical big corp talk - it doesn't match the walk.

Let's just put all the Firefly comments under here

Lord knows every person on slashdot (ok there's probably like 2 people on here that haven't seen the show...) wants this show back on the air.

I stayed home sick with the flu yesterday from work and I felt like garbage. Then I was flipping through the digital cable programming guide and what do I see: a Firefly marathon on Sci-Fi!

Best...sick day...EVER!

Can we have the old ZDTV or TECHTV back?

Now that G4 has killed ALL tech (and most game programs) in favor of old reruns can we please have a tech channel back?

The Green Tennis Shoes Principle

The Green Tennis Shoes Principle [blogspot.com]:

The Internet makes a market out of the smallest segments, and enables producers to enter those markets.

Internet TV?

What of
http://freepcskytv.co.uk/ [freepcskytv.co.uk]
I know nothing of it and am too cheap to try :-(

Endless Europe

This idea of TV 2.0 seems to be popping up everywhere. I found this link last week: http://www.endlesseurope.com/ [endlesseurope.com] . If I understand it correctly, these guys are putting together the first fully-interactive reality travel show and will be distributing it on multiple platforms for free. Seems like a pretty cool concept if they can pull it off. iY

Naked News

No discussion on the topic would be complete without a thorough examination of a href="http://www.nakednews.com/">Naked News.

Naked News

No discussion on the topic would be complete without a thorough examination of Naked News [nakednews.com].

(For once, a post so easy that I figure I don't need preview, and what do I do? I screw it up!)

Re:Naked News

I was watching the naked News with 5-6 other guys.

We watched for 10 minutes and someone said This is Great.

Then I asked if anyone could remember a SINGLE peice of information from the show.

Silence.

trekkie

it be cool if some website starts showing new series of star trek!

i dunno continue with enterprise, it was getting good

or have the imagination to create and bring out new series

Old Favourites

Everyone point and laugh:

"When Things Were Rotten" [imdb.com]
"UFO" [imdb.com]
"Quark" [imdb.com]
"Futurama" [imdb.com]

recycled tv, by the studios

I did a WHOIS search on the links in the article and came up with some not-so surprising results.

TrioTV, brillantbutcancelled are owned by, take a guess? Universal Studios.

Looks like they are trying to push some of their old crap to wring a few dollars more out of the viewing public.

Re:Next on OutZone

Not funny, son. I know the woman who filed the complaint about WoW's refusal to permit a GLBT guild. It is really too bad that you think that your "right" to make fun of gays and lesbians is worth more than their dignity.

Re:Next on OutZone

This is basically hatred disguised as a bad attempt at humour