Medialoper

We're Not Who You Think We Are

Does The World Really Need A Sixth Network?

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A while back, in this very space, Kassia discussed the impact of the formation of the CW on her life with the rhetorical question “Does the World Really Need a Fifth Network?”  Her follow-up question was what could a fifth broadcast network possibly offer that the other networks, and all of the cable outlets don’t already offer?

Well, a scant 30 (or so) days later, here comes the answers, from Rupert Murdoch, no less.  The answer to her first question was “Yes, not only does the world need a fifth network, it actually still needs a sixth network. Duh!”  And the answer to her second question was two-fold: “We can offer an even a worse name than ‘The CW,’ and, for original programming English language versions of telenovelas.  So there.”

Wow.  This is so weird on so many levels, it’s actually pretty cool.  Not only does it solves the question of what in the world the Fox-owned UPN TV stations were going to program in the fall; I think that this actually has a chance of some success. 

First off, if story-arc-centric shows like 24 or Lost have shown us anything is that in the age of TiVo; multiple showings of first-run episodes; next-day downloads and less licit means of acquiring content, people will sign on for shows that don’t wrap things up neatly in each episode.  Secondly, by all accounts, the telenovelas — the Spanish-language nighttime soaps –are crazy popular just about everywhere they are shown, and have a pretty rich history, to boot. With the right amount of sex, violence and good writing, one of these shows could catch a buzz and take off.  And if Fox uses the multiple distribution means — showings on F/X, a weeks work of downloads for $1.99 on iTunes, cellphone highlights — that take-off could get pretty serious. Finally, Fox has a history of counter-intuitive moves — a prime-time animated show; a glorified karaoke contest; a right-wing news network — that have paid off handsomely. 

So my guess is that this will be pretty successful in the markets that they can get into, and the question will be whether they can make that success national. 

You Could Be (On)line

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I heard a new Guns n’ Roses song on KROQ this morning. It was the lead single from the 15-years-in-the-making Chinese Democracy. The hosannas at whichever evil-multinational major label that swallowed up Geffen records must have been deafening when Axl finally stumbled in — bleary-eyed from a 72-hour meth-fueled final mixdown — and said in no uncertain terms: “Release this, motherfuckers!”

Yeah, not so much. The song I heard this morning was one of three tracks that have been leaked (or is it “leaked”) to the Internet, and the official release date of Chinese Democracy remains a mystery, or as the joke goes — sometime after actual democracy in China. What’s so extraordinary about this is how unextraordinary it is anymore. The only thing surprising is how long it took for any of this music to actually hit the Net. Axl must sleep with his laptop under his pillow.

We all know the drill: big artists like Radiohead get their tracks stolen (or is it “stolen”?) and posted on some rogue website or newsgroup; the word spreads at netspeed; and pretty soon everybody who wants to has dug up the songs, which might even get played on the radio. Then, the lawyers send their threatening letters and the band pleads with their fans to please not listen to what are always described as unfinished demos or rough mixes. The fans, as always don’t care: they’d rather spend hours on forums discussing the virtually indistinguishable differences between the rough mixes and the finished product, which they rushed out and purchased or downloaded the day it came out, just like they were going to. (Unless the leaked tracks sucked total ass, in which case the artist and record companies had no right to try and charge for them anyway!)

Meanwhile, smaller bands like Arctic Monkeys or Drive-by Truckers use the internet as an organic part of their marketing strategy, actively posting tracks on their websites or MySpace long before they are supposed to be released, knowing that hardcore fans are going to spread the word if the music’s any good.

So in the case of these Guns n’ Roses songs — “There Was a Time,” “I.R.S.” (the one I heard on KROQ) and “Better” — which was it? My guess is that they were a trial balloon, leaked on purpose to see if there was any interest, and if people thought that they were any good. (It’s not really within the purview of Medialoper to do music criticism, but this particular ‘Loper always thought that it was Izzy’s songwriting and Slash’s guitar were what made Axl’s terminal assholishness so great back in the day, and they are both long gone. So, interesting song, but not necessarily caring.) Considering that there is no doubt that people are still interested in this music, it might actually signal that an album is due. I’m sure that Axlologists are debating that point right this very second.

Either that, or Tommy Stinson leaked them. That would be OK, too.

Podcasts For Sale, But Will You Pay?

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It seems like just yesterday that podcasts were free and plentiful, and the conventional wisdom was that there was no way to make money from audio blogging. The problem with conventional wisdom is that it frequently misses the obvious. Like the fact that audio broadcasts have been monetized with commercials for at least the past three centuries. Or the fact that Audible.com has been allowing users to buy downloadable audio programs for a quarter of a century. Is it really such a stretch to imagine someone might figure out how to make a profit from a podcast?

Conventional wisdom received a wake-up call yesterday when it was announced that the second season (do podcasts really have seasons?) of the Ricky Gervais show would be available on a subscription basis from Audible. My first reaction was one of complete and total outrage. I’ve come to expect my monkey news for free.

I’d hardly gotten over my outrage when I read about a second podcast going on sale. Earthcore, the serialized audio novel by Scott Sigler that was podcast throughout last summer at no cost is going on sale at iTunes. When I initially read about Earthcore last year I was intrigued by the concept, but I didn’t really have the time to invest in following a serialized story. Now, apparently, I’ll have to pay if I suddenly get the urge to listen to Earthcore.

Podcast pricing is a work in progress. The Gervais show seems a bit steep at $7 for a month of weekly half hour episodes. If the second season runs 12 episodes, that’s $21. About the same as what you’d pay for the DVD set of the first season of the Office UK. I’m guessing that even Gervais thinks the price might be high. The Audible website says you’ll get “at least four episodes (and possibly more, unless Karl’s innate denseness leaves Ricky and Steve permanently speechless)”. Oh, in that case I’ll take the free episode now and wait a month to see what I get for my 7 bucks.

Meanwhile, Earthcore seems to be a bargain at $9.99 — about half the price of a comparable unabridged audiobook on Audible.

I’m not suggesting that Gervais and co are greedy (although I do have my doubts about that mercenary Karl Pilkington), I think the initial pricing is really more a symptom of a very young medium where pricing standards have not yet sorted themselves out.

The ultimate question is whether charging for podcasts will become a trend.

I seriously doubt that it will. There are just too many podcasts, and the quality of most is too uneven to justify paying for a subscription. The Ricky Gervais show is an exception because he’s well known, and his team created an incredibly funny first run of shows. Earthcore is another exception because the market for audiobooks is already well established.

In other words, I think it’s highly unlikely that you’ll be asked to pay for Dawn and Drew or Soccergirl anytime soon.

DVRs Finally Becoming Must-Have Devices

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A recent study has predicted that DVRs are finally going to become commonplace by the year 2010, and the big winners will be the that make the boxes for the cable and satellite providers.  TiVo may just have to be satisfied with staying the verb, and my beloved Replay will no doubt fall off of the map for good.

The tipping point seems to be the widespread offering of DVRs by cable and satellite companies as souped-up cable boxes as opposed to being replacements for VHS machines.  The VHS machine served a dual purpose — recording TV and playing movies, and people seemingly didn’t want to have to shell out for two machines to replace their analog tape machine. 

The cable and satellite companies have been using the free razor/expensive blades strategy for the devices — charging little or nothing for the box and installation making it up on the back end with increased monthly fees.  The strategy is, of course, that people will be so amazed with the awesome power of the DVR they’ve been granted by their provider that they won’t switch over from cable to satellite (or vice versa).

For example, in my household — where we have been happy Replay users for six years — the killer app that made us break down and try the Charter-provided DVR was the fact that it could record two HDTV shows at one time. Since nearly all of our favorite shows (except for Veronica Mars and Battlestar Galactica) were now offered on HD channels by Charter, we couldn’t resist.  However, the box — by Scientific Atlanta — is so feature-poor in all other aspects (a full review is coming this weekend) that there was talk for awhile of switching to Direct TV, which offers the HD recording from TiVo that TiVo won’t offer on its standalone boxes.

 

AOL Offers Safe-For-Work Programming

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Remember the 90s? That innocent time? The days before everyone had a cellphone in their cubicle? When your co-workers would glance furtively over their shoulders, hoping not to get caught playing Solitaire? When Solitaire was, well, a radical innovation in time-wasting activities during office hours?

Those days are long gone. Television, it turns out, is not just for prime time anymore. Which is a shame because it was the last defense in the line distinguishing work and play:

Watching television is so much the opposite of work, in fact, that it’s hardly even a purposeful act: If you spend Saturday and Sunday watching television, you can credibly say you spent the weekend doing nothing at all.

With technological progress (look, Ma, I can watch TV while driving!) comes the natural American inclination toward productivity. So if you’re watching television at work, then you’re surely watching something relevant.

No wonder, then, that the latest programmers — people trying to create sustainable, popular, commercial Internet television — are incorporating workday attitudes of diligence, can-doism, detail-orientation and, above all, procrastination into new shows.

Or not. AOL has created a series of programs that meld self-improvement books with live action. Called AOL Coaches, the series of workshops (it’s the oughts, no more episodes for us) helps you deal with life’s little problems in an interactive way. Though the actual workshop reviewed sounds horrific — that could be a result of my natural reaction to Star Jones Reynolds — the idea is worthy. AOL has been moving toward original programming for quite a while. Self-help programming was just a matter of time.

Virtual Worlds; Real Products

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Product placement is nothing new, of course: since the earliest days of film, advertisers have always wanted to work their brands into the context of the entertainment people were enjoying. So in today’s world where a significant demographic isn’t watching a film or TV, but pursuing other entertainment options, it’s no surprise that the latest frontier for the product placement is the videogame.

What is surprising, however, is that it has only really taken off in the last year or so. Naturally, the rise of online games means that placements don’t have to be embedded in take-home boxes, only to become immediately anachronistic, but things such as movie advertisments on billboards or marquees can change as new films come out.

It’s only a matter of time, I’m sure, before they start trying to target ads to other information they have gleaned from a particular player’s profile. I’m sure it’s only a matter of time before a savvy game maker has an online user choose, for example, their background music from various bands, and then having that music come out of, say, a Prism Durosport.

The Weekly ‘Loper: February 19, 2006

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While you were busy returning your ill-gotten “Lazy Sunday” download to NBC and wondering whom Amazon was going to tap to make the player for their upcoming music service, here’s what else happened this week:

  • Toy Makers Hitch Products to iPod Craze – SpongeBob! SquarePants! Speaker! System!
  • Disney to Revive Video on Demand – Why do we have to spend $200 to buy a box for this service? I already have a box that delivers video to me. It’s called a cablebox.
  • The hidden threat to the digital future – Will privacy and security concerns kill business on the internet? Here are one expert’s ideas on how to keep that from happening.
  • ‘A sponsorship waiting to happen’ – Blah, blah, blah…the iPod is everywhere, just like Elvis.

    The U.S. snowboarding team’s pinstriped uniforms are already wired for the machines, with a nifty iPod-size pocket, speakers in the hood and a control panel on the left sleeve that allows the athletes to select songs.

  • I’ll Have My Media to Go, Please – Cable operators grappling with a world where users don’t want their content tethered to a specific place. Devices like the slingbox — which sends the contents of your cablebox to you anywhere in the world — point to the future.

Everyday Isn’t Like “Sunday”

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What happens when you are at least partially responsible for creating huge buzz for a show that hasn’t had huge buzz in years? You Tube and the “Lazy Sunday” video, you get a Cease and Desist letter from NBC. Back in late December, I was one of god-knows-how-many bloggers who, after seeing this either on Saturday Night Live or from email or a blog, posted a link to YouTube.

It seemed to be one of those win-win-win situations: the video itself was funny as frack and perfectly pitched; NBC originally posted it for free in iTunes a couple of days later (they charge for it now, and that’s OK, too); and SNL got a shitload of goodwill like they haven’t had in years. So yay! Until now.

However, according to Section 12 of NBC’s Privacy Policy, there is a bit of a Catch-22 for those of us who downloaded the original from YouTube and now might want to download a legal copy from their site:

NBC, pursuant to 17 U.S.C. Section 512 as amended by Title II of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (the “Act”), reserves the right, but not the obligation, to terminate your license to use the Service if it determines in its sole and absolute discretion that you are involved in infringing activity, including alleged acts of first-time or repeat infringement, regardless of whether the material or activity is ultimately determined to be infringing.

Isn’t that pretty much everybody who downloaded the video from YouTube? We are all criminals, and at any time NBC can keep us from using their site. But wait, I have an idea! Maybe if we throw ourselves on the mercy of the court. Maybe we can ask for some kind of amnesty. Perhaps if everybody who stole the video using YouTube returned it to NBC, we would be then able to be able to download it from their site. So that’s what I would suggest: let’s all give NBC their property back. And luckily, that same Privacy Policy provides an email address:

[email protected]

So everybody, let’s act in good faith, send them their video back, and promise never ever to do it again.

An iTunes Killer From Amazon?

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Anxious to find a business model where free shipping won’t cut into its profits, Amazon is reportedly working on a digital music service that could debut as early as this spring.

Insiders say the online retailer is “in advanced talks” with the four major labels. You will recall that the labels have been unhappy with iTunes standard pricing for some time now. The fact that Steve Jobs frequently calls them “greedy” hasn’t helped much either. As a group, the major labels aren’t much for an honest appraisal of their shortcomings.

The service will apparently be based around a low priced, Amazon branded, mp3 player. Early reports don’t address the issue of DRM, but it’s almost certain that an Amazon music store would likely use Microsoft DRM to protect songs.

In order for Amazon to succeed where others have failed, the new music store will need to offer the following:

  • Music that plays on an iPod
  • Reasonable pricing
  • Seamless end-to-end integration between the music store, the user’s computer, and the portable player
  • DRM that is minimally invasive and allows consumers the opportunity to burn CD’s and listen to tracks on a range of devices

Can Amazon pull it off? I think it’s unlikely, and here’s why:

The fact that Amazon is actively talking with all of the major labels is being seen as a major advantage for the company. I beg to differ on this point. It could actually be one of Amazon’s biggest weaknesses in this new venture. Let the record labels start meddling in any new online music venture and it’s likely the resulting service will be anything but what consumers are actually looking for.

I’m also skeptical that Amazon can deliver a user experience to rival iTunes. The Amazon shopping experience is looking more dated by the day and Amazon’s forays into Web 2.0 have only been minimally successful. I doubt that the team of new programmers the company has hired over the last year will have a substantial impact on the underlying cruftyness of almost everything Amazon does.

Then there’s the DRM issue. The Amazon’s hardware will have to be pretty amazing to encourage tens of millions of iPod users to swap their devices for an Amazon player. Not only that, but the major labels will have to be generous enough with their DRM policy that users have the same control over their music collections as they do with iTunes purchased music.

It looks like the only area where Amazon may be able to compete is on pricing, and even then only if they’re willing to give the player away for practically nothing.

More Troubles for Netflix

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It’s perhaps not the best month for Netflix. Recently, they’ve been publicly spanked (and sued, of course) for what may be one of the more dumbass policies in recent retail history: willfully ignoring their best customers for their worst customers. I mean, come on, do they know anything about the cost of acquiring a customer vs. keeping a customer or how repeat customers drive a business or did they literally stumble across their model in a cave? (Gee, Tennesee, we can use the Internet to rent videos.” “Good one, Chumley”).

And now Netflix has a new worry: disgruntled postal workers stealing their videos before they can make it to their destination. One carrier had a stash of over 500 videos. Hello, Newman! Of course, perhaps these weren’t disgruntled postal workers so much as disgruntled hardcore Netflix fans, angry that — despite the amount of money they spent — they suddenly couldn’t get the movies they wanted when they wanted.