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Finding the Long Tail of Television 120

Posted by Zonk from the something-for-everyone dept.
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."
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Finding the Long Tail of Television More

Finding the Long Tail of Television

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  • Brilliant But Cancelled (Score:5, Interesting)

    by From A Far Away Land ( 930780 ) on Saturday March 11, 2006 @09:48PM (#14900557) Homepage Journal
    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 (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Otter ( 3800 ) on Saturday March 11, 2006 @09:57PM (#14900590) Journal
      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 (Score:4, Funny)

        by generic-man ( 33649 ) on Saturday March 11, 2006 @10:07PM (#14900629) Homepage Journal
        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 (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Baricom ( 763970 ) on Saturday March 11, 2006 @10:19PM (#14900669)
        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.
      • "2) Whatever happened to the much-hyped Al Gore TV network? Is it still in development or has it already come and gone?"

        Well you see, his vision expanded and evolved into something we call the "Internet" these days. j/k

      • I would love to find that tv show with jack Black and thae talking motorcycle ..Does anyone know what im talkin about??

        • 'Heat Vision & Jack', a pilot from 1999 with Owen Wilson, Jack Black and Ben Stiller. It's out there on p2p.

          I've seen it - it is funny, but I remain unconvinced that it was a 'real' pilot - I can not imagine a weekly show based on that premise, it seems they get most of the laughs that are there to have in the pilot episode.

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

        CSpan has that market all tied up.

      • Or at least wryly funny.

        Stupid ESPN. I can't believe there are TWO ESPN HD channels. They barely have enough real content for one channel, let alone HD content.

        World's Strongest Man, Lumberjack contests, etc. Brings to mind Letterman's old "Dog Hockey" joke (http://www.ehumorcentral.com/Directory/Jokes/731. html [ehumorcentral.com]) and "The Ocho".
        • When I had Dish Network, I had access to ESPN, ESPN2, ESPNEWS, ESPNU, ESPN Classic, ESPN Deportes, ESPN Alternate Feed, ESPN2 Alternate Feed, and ESPN-HD. There's also ESPN2-HD but Dish didn't carry it.

          The alternate feed channels didn't always broadcast, and ESPN(2)-HD is pretty much the same content as ESPN(2), but that's a lot of sports. I'm not even counting OLN, FSN, or any of the other sports channels.
          • It's not a lot of sports.

            I DirecTV and I have all that crap. Right now, it is 8:16AM, West Coast time on a Sunday. That's 11:16A East Coast time, so the day is started.

            ESPN is airing SportsCenter (in HD on HD, although almost none of the clips are)
            ESPN2 is airing Inside Drag Racing (not in HD on HD channel)
            ESPNNews is of course airing recaps.
            ESPN Classic is airing the 2004 World Series.
            all 4 ESPN alternate feeds are off.
            ESPNU is showing Women's College Lacrosse.

            So they're airing one recent sporting right no
            • You're right -- I had missed the "HD" in "can't believe there are two ESPN HD channels" in your earlier post.

              I think the point is that many channels are recording shows in HD as a planning measure. A friend told me that new "Good Eats" eps are taping in high definition -- and there's no Food Network HD channel yet! Because ESPN has two HD channels they'll be able to use them for the times when they're most needed, like March Madness and the various major league playoffs.

              There's also a need for that much b
      • Or ESPN

        Oh dear god YES! Get that crap on a "pull" model on the net and out of my TV!
        And get off the damn news! I don't care! "Who threw the ball the most yesterday" isn't news! It's gossip, at best.

    • Re:Brilliant But Cancelled (Score:4, Informative)

      by Grey Ninja ( 739021 ) on Saturday March 11, 2006 @10:02PM (#14900611) Homepage Journal
      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.
    • It was the only thing Trio was ever successful with. They managed to buy the pilots of a few shows that were cancelled. They started with series that had short runs, like "Gun" or "Action". They later picked up a few shows that were only pilots (like "LA Confidential", "Lookwell!"). There were various reasons these shows didn't make it. Some were very good (like "Action").

      They certainly got the idea from Moomba, a club in West Hollywood that used to run cancelled TV pilots and received a lot of notice for i

  • Great, Where can you find Max Headroom ? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 11, 2006 @09:48PM (#14900558)
    Mma Mma Mmaxxxx Hed Hed Headroom!
    Headroom.

  • bah! (Score:3, Informative)

    by Janek Kozicki ( 722688 ) on Saturday March 11, 2006 @09:48PM (#14900560) Journal
    outzone already slahdotted.

  • Of course, there's the REAL mainstream... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Ritz_Just_Ritz ( 883997 ) on Saturday March 11, 2006 @09:50PM (#14900567)
    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! (Score:4, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 11, 2006 @09:52PM (#14900573)
    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! (Score:4, Insightful)

      by eMartin ( 210973 ) on Saturday March 11, 2006 @10:36PM (#14900708)
      "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.
      • This is going a rather off topic, but I see the early to mid sixties as "better" than now. Shows like The Dick Van Dyke Show, which I find funnier than most of the current sitcoms.

        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

      • 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.

        "As we've had hundreds of cable channels"? So, basically, you're limiting this to, oh, the past 5 years or so?

        Cable TV has been around much longer, but until digital broadcasting in the last few years, you couldn't get more than 100 channels.

        Sure, if you spend five hours a day channel surfing, you may not be able to keep yourself entertained, bu

        • I didn't really mean having a cable box that goes past 99, but I'm sure that when I had one of those around 1990, other people had channels on theirs that I didn't get on mine. Basically, I meant the last 10-20 years.

          "1000 channels, for at least $50 per month, and you should only expect to get a total of 4 hours of interesting content per day?"

          There is always something on that is interesting to someone out there, and maybe you could get more than five hours with your 1000 channels (I only watch the network

          • Re:Finding the Long Tail? That's easy! (Score:4, Interesting)

            by evilviper ( 135110 ) on Sunday March 12, 2006 @07:17PM (#14904141) Journal
            (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 (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Lifyre ( 960576 ) on Saturday March 11, 2006 @09:53PM (#14900575)
    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.

    • Re:Long Time Coming (Score:2, Informative)

      by generic-man ( 33649 )
      1. People BitTorrent new TV show
      2. Network picks up TV show
      3. People continue to BitTorrent TV show stripped of advertisements
      4. ??
      5. Profit!
      • Very well would be the case however if the show is good they will likely pick up less tech savvy viewers as well who won't download the episodes. Besides I think regular Tv's days are numbered so even if they don't it's a win win for me.

      • Re:Long Time Coming (Score:1, Insightful)

        by Anonymous Coward
        1. People BitTorrent new TV show
        2. Network picks up TV show
        3. People continue to BitTorrent TV show stripped of advertisements
        4. ??
        5. Profit!

        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

    • Long Time Coming-Coattails. (Score:1, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      The other thing driving it is the unbundling of cable channels. No longer will such niches ride the coattails of the more popular programs.

  • How is this not YouTube / iTunes? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by dmorin ( 25609 ) <dmorin@@@gmail...com> on Saturday March 11, 2006 @10:01PM (#14900606) Homepage Journal
    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? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Pichu0102 ( 916292 ) <pichu0102@gmail.com> on Saturday March 11, 2006 @10:12PM (#14900644) Homepage Journal
      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.
      • If something's good, I often watch it again within a week or so. And then again in a year or so when I'll watch the whole series in a row. Bandwidth costs just increased by a factor of 3...
        Streaming is about control over the medium - i.e. unskippable ads that can change every week, ability to deny re-runs. It also has its place for live events, and for people too impatient to download yet with high tolerance for "buffering..." messages.

      • I think the answer to the advertising problem is to make the advertising short and unobtrusive. All you really need is a little bit at the start of the video saying "This programme is presented in association with Acme Corp: Widgets for your Business!" along with some eye candy. Over within 15 seconds, so not really worth fast-forwarding through. If the named company is relevant to the target audience of the content, they're likely to remember the name and check it out later. For bonus points, include a lin

  • Old proverb (Score:5, Funny)

    by Eric Giguere ( 42863 ) on Saturday March 11, 2006 @10:08PM (#14900632) Homepage Journal
    One must jump the shark to find the length of its tail.

    Eric
    My AdSense blog [memwg.com]

  • Trio TV (Score:3, Interesting)

    by LochNess ( 239443 ) on Saturday March 11, 2006 @10:11PM (#14900640) Homepage
    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 (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 11, 2006 @10:14PM (#14900654)
    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.

    • Re:The internet solves one problem (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Reminds me of the situation with WLS-AM in Chicago back in the 80s. Nobody in Chicago cared... but at night, half the kids in the Bible Belt listenend to them, because there was no other way to get your rock-and-roll fix if you didn't live in a major metropolitan area. Apart from the occasional Clearasil ad, the station's idiot advertisers and programming directors didn't realize what a gold mine they had.

    • Its a great concept, but you're defeated by the fact that IP doesn't keep track of location very well. If you're a local advertiser, you don't want to spend money showing your wares to someone a hundred miles away. Until there's a scheme that will link your physical and network locations you'll have trouble convincing advertisers. And even then, how do you keep track of mobile devices? If I live in Chicago and I access online content on my laptop in LA, do I get local ads from Chicago, or LA?

  • Digitial Distribution (Score:5, Insightful)

    by MBCook ( 132727 ) <foobarsoft@foobarsoft.com> on Saturday March 11, 2006 @10:52PM (#14900742) Homepage
    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 (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Basic Econ:

      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 rainb

      • Re:Digitial Distribution (Score:5, Informative)

        by tinrobot ( 314936 ) on Sunday March 12, 2006 @01:22AM (#14901133)
        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.

        • Zing! (Score:3, Funny)

          by Inoshiro ( 71693 )
          "Simpsons actors .... Factor in top-shelf writers, producers and directors and you're talking a lot of money."

          Well, given the recent 5-6 seasons of The Simpsons, I think we can rule out top-shelf writers as being the reason the show costs so much to produce.

        • 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.

          The awesomest show on TV [with the possible exception of SG1] has gotta be Survivorman.

          Dude has zero production costs [hell, he films the whole thing himself] and his "producers"

          • I've met Les Stroud. Trust me, there is a lot of background work that happens before he goes out there and films it all himself. After he and his team decide what scenario they're going to shoot, they scout out locations, talk with local experts, rent equipment, etc. Hooking a lift from the local seal hunter only gets you to Mittimatalik (Pond Inlet, Baffin Island, Nunavut territory, Canada). It doesn't get you back to Toronto.

            When Les is out there filming, there is a crew on standby, ready to pull him

        • 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.

          Sure, the voice talent on The Simpsons make top dollar -- the show couldn't exist without them. Same is true for a lot of the big names in cartoon voices: Maurice LaMarche, Frank Welker, Tress MacNeille.

          I'm not so sure Family Guy would fall into the same category of ex
        • Here's where we should learn from the Japanese.

          First - large numbers of talented voice actors who are chosen for their voice abilities and not how good they look or name recognition. Cartoons with Trek actors doing the voices would have been better off with talented people unknown to TV or movies for the sake of quality and wage costs - how many people actually watched those cartoons becuase they knew a paticular actor was in it? I don't know about the USA, but radio plays out of the UK and other places s

  • cycling.tv another (Score:3, Interesting)

    by markk ( 35828 ) on Saturday March 11, 2006 @11:22PM (#14900827)
    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.

  • 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? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by ApewithGun ( 684408 ) on Saturday March 11, 2006 @11:38PM (#14900874)
    Now that G4 has killed ALL tech (and most game programs) in favor of old reruns can we please have a tech channel back?

    • Ahmen ApewithGun, ahmen brother!

      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 b

  • The Green Tennis Shoes Principle (Score:4, Insightful)

    by lheal ( 86013 ) <lheal1999NO@SPAMyahoo.com> on Saturday March 11, 2006 @11:57PM (#14900915) Journal
    The Green Tennis Shoes Principle [blogspot.com]:

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

    • I'm glad you didn't say, "...and enables producers to PROFITABLY enter those markets."

      Yes, there may be dozens of green tennis shoe fanatics out there, but one still has the age-old problem. How do you find them, or how do they find you? And which brings us to the even bigger question: Are dozens of green tennis shoe fanatics enough to sustain a business?

      Firefly has been tossed around, so I'll use that example. Yes, there's a market. But is it large enough? IIRC that show cost about a million per episod

  • Internet TV? (Score:1, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    What of
    http://freepcskytv.co.uk/ [freepcskytv.co.uk]
    I know nothing of it and am too cheap to try :-(
  • 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
  • No discussion on the topic would be complete without a thorough examination of a href="http://www.nakednews.com/">Naked News.

  • Naked News (Score:5, Funny)

    by roach2002 ( 77772 ) <.mlaroche. .at. .gmail.com.> on Sunday March 12, 2006 @03:09AM (#14901343) Homepage
    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!)
  • 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 (Score:3, Informative)

    by pipingguy ( 566974 ) on Sunday March 12, 2006 @08:14AM (#14901935)

    Everyone point and laugh:

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

  • recycled tv, by the studios (Score:4, Informative)

    by TheHawke ( 237817 ) <rchapin.stx@rr@com> on Sunday March 12, 2006 @12:10PM (#14902540)
    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.

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