Finding the Long Tail of Television 120
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."
Great, Where can you find Max Headroom ? (Score:3, Insightful)
Headroom.
Of course, there's the REAL mainstream... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Brilliant But Cancelled (Score:5, Insightful)
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?
How is this not YouTube / iTunes? (Score:5, Insightful)
Long Time Coming-Coattails. (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:How is this not YouTube / iTunes? (Score:5, Insightful)
The internet solves one problem (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
Re:Brilliant But Cancelled (Score:5, Insightful)
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:Finding the Long Tail? That's easy! (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
Digitial Distribution (Score:5, Insightful)
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:Finding the Long Tail? That's easy! (Score:3, Insightful)
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".
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. There used to be 3 TV networks. If you assume that 80% of TV is not worth watching, then that was x shows. Now there are 100 networks. If we assume that 50% of that is repeats and reruns, then that is 50 networks worth of content. If 80% of TV is not worth watching, there is now about 16x shows worth watching. So there is more on worth watching, but there is also more on not worth watching.
The other meaning is that TV is worse for you. This would be the idea that the morals/values/lessons/messages/whatever are worse than they were, and I personally agree with this wholeheartedly. The current top rated shows (minus reality) include Two and a Half Men, and Desperate Housewives (along with ER, Grey's Anatomy, and a few others).
Two and a Half Men is a show about a inept cowardly chiropractor, his hedonistic brother, and the son of the first. There is no downside to the hedonism shown. It is basically encouraged. The lessons that kid would be learning would be disastrous in real life. The hedonist can't even take care of himself. There is an insane neighbor who is basically stalking the hedonist. And the mother of the son is portrayed as someone who only cares about herself. Hardly "wholesome" TV. Desperate Housewives is the same way. The shows are, at best, relativistic.
Most other shows show indiscriminate sex, no regard for marriage or religion (both of which are openly mocked), and more. Just about every man in a sitcom is shows as a sex-hound who is incapable of even surviving for one day without his wife to "rescue" him. The kids are usually shows as smarter than their parents, whom they disobey with basically no consequences. The only time this isn't the case is during "after school special" moments, which quickly give way to the status quo.
Watch the Dick Van Dyke show. It's full of great stories that still work today. No degrading humor. No sex triangles. Richie (the son) learns a valuable lesson once in a while. People are nice to each other (instilling of trading insults, which seems to pass for interaction on TV these days). If you tried to raise your kids without vales back then, TV did nothing to stop you. If you tried to raise them with values, TV would only help.
Today, if you try to raise your kid without values, TV is there to help you. if you try to raise your kid with values, TV is openly trying to subvert you.
You may not think this is bad, or even agree with me. But there are many who do.
But in comment to the parent of this, I agree. There is tons of entertaining stuff on TV these days. Get yourself a TiVo so you can catch things no matter when they air, and you'll always have something on and be able to watch more stuff.
Re:Digitial Distribution (Score:3, Insightful)
Long tail works only if the cost is less than the money you get from distributing on the long tail.
If the show has already been made, you can milk extra money out by putting it on the long tail. Same as publishing (selling off the remaindered books online) or E-bay with discontinued electronics and stuff.
Firefly will never fly because the cost to start it up again is huge (probably $3-4 million per hour) and revenues uncertain but very low. There's no potential pot of gold at the end of the rainbow (a hit for syndication and DVDs etc).
Music works because it's cheap to produce. So too with stuff that's already been made and you want to create some extra money for.
But that's not a revolution. Just a marginal add-value.
(Family Guy is CHEAP to produce. It's cheap-o animation plus voice overs).
Re:Finding the Long Tail? That's easy! (Score:4, Insightful)
What a coincidence! The "Vast Wasteland" speech was made in 1961!
The Green Tennis Shoes Principle (Score:4, Insightful)
The Internet makes a market out of the smallest segments, and enables producers to enter those markets.
Internet TV? (Score:1, Insightful)
http://freepcskytv.co.uk/ [freepcskytv.co.uk]
I know nothing of it and am too cheap to try
Re:Finding the Long Tail? That's easy! (Score:5, Insightful)
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:Long Time Coming (Score:1, Insightful)
This kind of reasoning always amuses me. The *vast* majority of people don't download TV shows... not because they can't... but because they can't be bothered. They would much rather flop down in front of the TV and watch.
Let me give you an example: I used to download 'The Daily Show'... because I couldn't watch it otherwise. Now the UK channel More 4 shows it (with adverts) the day after it is shown in the US, and I don't bother downloading it now. I just watch it on TV. And I am a highly technical user. I still download The Colbert Report, because it still isn't shown in the UK. If they start showing it here, I won't need to download it any more.
There will always be those who download regardless of whether it is shown on TV because of some rabid desire to avoid adverts, but they are a small minority. People like you are getting all worked up over nothing. The downloaders are, in fact, signalling to TV networks which shows to buy, and spreading the word about quality shows.
Where TV networks would have to worry is if TV downloading became something legal and commercial -- if people started making money off it and they weren't getting a share.
Re:Can we have the old ZDTV or TECHTV back? (Score:3, Insightful)
There is little if nothing of TechTV left alive on G4 nowadays. I really miss stuff like The Screensavers, one of the best techie shows on TechTV, or what about Call For Help which really made strides towards making it easier for computer noobs to learn how to use their computers. I used to watch TechTV for coverage of CES, COMDEX, e3 and more.
The truly sad thing is that G4 itself has sunk low in the quality of its own programming. Not that G4 didn't have its problems to begin with but it did have a rather good lineup of shows on its own before it suddenly went out of control. Some of the shows are wilder than a few "way out there" MTV shows I've seen in the past. About 70% of G4's programming is just Plain-Jane vulger garbage targeted towards pop culture fanboys who'd just as soon drop out of school and go rob a liquor store than make something of themselves.
Merging G4 and TechTV I think was the biggest mistake that could have ever been made on cable TV. I had a really sick feeling in my stomach when I learned the two channels were mergering a few yeara ago, and now I see why. I knew this day was coming, it was bound to happen. G4 is today what would happen if Jerry Springer & Howard Stern were to start their own cable network.
I'd gladly welcome the return of TechTV, even if we have to do it from a browser or from within Windows Media Player or Winamp (which has been playing Internet TV streams for more than a year now).
Re:Next on OutZone (Score:1, Insightful)