Entertainment Breakthrough
Some of you might remember a short lived show from last year called, “The Book of Daniel.” The religious right managed to censor the network and prevent this show from being aired after the first few episodes. The network, NBC, decided to experiment with this show and actually continued to show the remaining episodes over the Internet. Now I’m not an avid TV watcher by any means, but my family and I liked the show, “The Book of Daniel” so we continued to watch the remaining episodes on the computer at home.
We discovered an amazing thing, we were no longer constrained by time. If the pop corn wasn’t ready we could wait for it before we started the show. Not only that, but we could pause the show just as we do DVDs or video cassettes. What a powerful thing this technology truly is!
But, it seemed to us that NBC just showed this show because they had nothing to loose. The shows were made in advance and it really didn’t matter what they did with them because they weren’t a revenue stream. But, at least by showing them on the web they were able to smooth the feathers of a few avid fans while still preventing the onslaught of letter writing to the FCC or their local affiliates. The religious right has learned how to mobilize their army and prevent what they don’t like from being aired on the public air waves.
But, the Internet is different, and slowly the major media providers are learning this. Instead of providing a constant stream of content at the providers will, the Internet allows users to find the content that they’d like to view whenever they want. It worked for “The Book of Daniel” with our family.
I don’t have many TV shows that I really like to watch. But, occasionally I find myself sitting in front of the TV watching something while I am waiting for the show that I really want to see. This is such a waste of time, but human nature being what it is I just sit there and wait. With the Internet I don’t have to wait, I can have my show during a break, then I can do something else.
Well, one of the shows that I do like to watch is “Heroes.” It comes on at 9:00 PM, which isn’t such a bad time. But, occasionally I haven’t finished helping the kids with their homework, or getting them off to bed before the show begins. In addition, my son has taken to taping the show and watching it the next day, because 9:00 PM is his bedtime. But, taping a show requires remembering to tape it. So, last week when he forgot to tape the show he decided to check the NBC web site, where he discovered that the show was archived there. Or, at least the last few episodes were archived there. So, he watched the show when he came home from school and I watched it a few days later in the evening after everything had settled down. I have to say that this is truly amazing technology.
When we watched “The Book of Daniel” last year there weren’t any commercials. NBC simply net-cast this at a loss. This year there are a few commercials, and I’m sure that they will grow as advertisers become aware of the advantages of being out there continuously as people download the shows. Like TV in the past, as advertisers pour money into this “new” media it will continue to get better and better. And, as word gets out more and more media providers will continue to put more and more entertainment on their web sites. NBC already has archives of many of its current shows including clips from “Saturday Night Live” that go back to the first season.
The only problem I foresee is the bandwidth that video uses. As more and more people watch video asynchronously on the Internet the bandwidth gets sucked up. The Internet providers will need to improve their infrastructure to keep up with this demand as it grows. Will these providers raise the cost of Internet access? Or, will advertising cover the costs? And, will all of this video on the Internet create bottle necks and frustrate us into going back and watching the shows on the tried and true television?
My guess is where ever there is a buck to be made someone will find a way to make it and make a few more a well.
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Don't forget what Stephen Colbert said, "Reality has a well-known liberal bias."
Cross Posted @ Bring It On, tblog, Blogger and BlogSpirit
Reflection
