So, I was talking to JD and Paulie the other day and, as it sometimes does, the topic turned to media and how our current system is still so 20th Century. I mean TV channels are an antiquated notion, no? Why do I need some suit at NBC deciding what I get to watch.
Why do we need the suits at all any more?
Bare with me here – what if there was a distributed ( think torrent ) IP based “broadcasting” system where content creators could release their work and have people subscribe to their “channel”. If this were the case I could subscribe to the Nip Tuck feed and get to watch it each week by finding a torrent, downloading, and decrypting it with my membership key – the money would be paid to the content creators and not to FX or my cable provider.
I can see folks subscribing to the Prince channel and downloading music, concerts, video’s, etc. Prince would make more money than with traditional distribution as he would not need a record label, retail outlets, iTunes, or anyone else that would take as big a cut of his profits – and he wouldn’t have a huge bandwidth bill as the content would be distributed across all of his other subscribers hard disks. How about a Coen brothers subscription, a Kevin Smith media membership?
Of course this would take more sophisticated file sharing networks then are currently in place ( a another reason not to outlaw P2P ), as well as a centralized system for managing subscriptions, but none of this is more complicated then web services that are being written today. And there would be some costs associated with releasing the initial files and running the centralized server – but these would be negligible compared to the costs currently associated with media distribution.
And if the content creators wanted complete control they could buy a turn key solution ( or download an open source one ) and setup their own shop. As long as there was a standard in place there would be a very small barrier to entry. Couple this service with the media center pc’s and myth boxes that are starting to spring up and you have the beginnings of the convergence of tv’s and pc’s that I have been hearing about for years.
If I’m going to pay for it, I want something more reliable than a torrent.
but I do see where you are coming from, but how would the whole marketing structure work? where would shows advertise?
How would you know what was coming on?
and who in their right mind would pay to watch a Barbara Walters Special?
March 29th, 2005 at 8:52 am
I agree that it would have to be more reliable then a torrent – that is part of what I was alluding to with the – would take more sophisticated file sharing networks then are currently in place.
Marketing is actually one of the most interesting parts of this whole thing – how cool would it be to have a “Fark” that just posted snarky comments with links to available content. And obviously there would be the artists own sites, blogs, even third party directories and search engines. Even traditional advertising I guess.
And the baba wawwa special is a perfect example – nobody wants to see that shit – people only watch it ‘cauze the networks foist it upon us.
March 29th, 2005 at 10:29 am
EyeDropp3r, we agree, the torrent model is not correct for this. However, until the web gets true multi-casting capability we would have to do something where the bandwidth is shared between users and torrent is the current best bet for that. We are only using it as a model to show that the concept can work even with today’s technology.
As to the marketing….Well, I would ask the question, “How do you find good things on the web now?”. I ask this because any media that is purely IP based has to have some sort of viral effect to get attention. The whole point is that traditional media and traditional advertising does not work for many of us in this day and time.
I recently decided that I actually watch about 6 hours of television per week. I actually really want to watch about 4 hours of that. The rest of the time spent in front of the tube is trying to find something to watch. However I still pay $60/month for my satellite.
If I could get the shows I want a la carte then I could do away with my satellite and my Tivo.
March 29th, 2005 at 10:51 am