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TV is broken

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Re: TV is broken

#71

Post by stinkytaco »

zwieback wrote: post #66

I think everyone agrees that commercials are annoying but I don't think TV is broken at all. After all, most of the content we stream with other means originated as TV shows or Hollywood movies. So the real question is, once the current younger generation gets older and everyone switched off their cable, how will the production of quality content be financed, other than per-view fees? When I was a kid in Germany ther…

>So the real question is, once the current younger generation gets older and everyone switched off their cable, how will the production of quality content be financed, other than per-view fees?

This is it. The same as music has been doing for years. It's not like there's not an existing model for this, direct to video movies have existed for a long time (though they were generally considered "low quality" and thus didn't get theater time). Netflix is already in the original content business and I think we'll see more of that. The problem then becomes the translation of content silos to the Internet. I have a Netflix subscription because it has the most stuff. I have no intention of getting a subscription to Hulu Plus or the myriad of content producers individual plans (the future HBO.com, AMC.com, etc.) Hopefully they can find a way to aggregate pay-per-view into a consistent online platform.

Re: TV is broken

#72

Post by rickmb »

jerf wrote: post #20

I would observe that in some sense this isn't just a "kid growing up with different tech gets it better than the adults" story. My wife and I both feel the exact same way about TV, in our mid-30s. We just have the historical perspective such that we don't have to ask "why". Also it's less cute when we ask why. But otherwise the same.

There's no age limit her. We're in our 40's, we watch a lot of series and movies, but we've rarely seen commercials in the past 10 or so years. Sometimes we start watching a show or movie more or less by accident, but that usually ends at the first commercial break.

Both of us find it hard to imagine people can actually tolerate watching TV that way, even though we've done the same for a long time.

But imho it's not so much TV that is broken. It's advertising. In today's world of on-demand personalized information, advertising has zero value. It's just noise. In SF movies we often see a world full of advertising everywhere, with lots of sound and motion. I like to believe the (near) future will be exactly the opposite: the advertising industry, no longer adding any value or generating any ROI, will collapse. Taking old school "broken" TV with it.

Re: TV is broken

#73

Post by huggyface »

This is akin to saying that the internet is broken because some videos are prefaced by a commercial. Or HN is broken because some of the front-page are hiring ads for YC companies.

I use a PVR for all of my "TV" needs (I have two large wall-mounted screens. They are great entertainment devices. I only mention that for consistency with those proudly informing that they only old some small CRT in the corner somewhere). When I get around to watching it has all of the episodes of the shows I care about. Many of them come from ShowTime, HBO, PBS or the Movie Network, having no commercials. Of course I explicitly pay for those channels individually, well outside of PBS.

Other channels have a different business model, but strangely neither my children, my wife or I have any mental issue with it -- it's just the way it is. Nor do I have an issue when a play has an intermission, even though really I'd just like them to keep playing through.

In some ways this reminds me a bit of this submission from the other day - http://ihnatko.com/2012/02/20/heavy-hangs-the-bandwidth-that...

Re: TV is broken

#74

Post by sounds »

stinkytaco wrote: post #67
PaulHoule wrote: post #24

The real issue with TV is that the audience is aging and eventually dying off. TV viewership in hours per week is pretty stable because as boomers retire and become disabled and unable to do anything else, they watch more TV. Young people, like under 50, are turning away from TV. Generation X and younger people have been falling out of love with TV for a long time. In my case I remember sharply losing interest in TV…

>TV for kids just sucks these days. You are clearly not watching excellent kids shows like Dinosaur Train , Sesame Street , or Word Girl . Of course, these are all PBS show... interesting. We don't get cable and only sometimes catch an episode of something else on Netflix, so maybe you're right, but PBS is still putting out top notch stuff.

If you like PBS, consider supporting it with donations (maybe you already do).

Just another happy PBS watcher here.

Re: TV is broken

#75

Post by jpdoctor »

Folks do not want to pay the amount commercial free TV would cost. Full stop.

If the "investment money" ever stops supporting youtube/hulu/(insert profitless service here), then goodbye web substitute.

Even The Daily Show has gone into full annoyance mode lately.

Re: TV is broken

#76

Post by mikebracco »

I'm baffled every time I'm watching broadcast TV and see an ad for something I would never in a million years purchase...and if the advertiser just had a couple pieces of info about me would never bother showing me that ad. I guess this will eventually come with IPTV and ad platforms for broadcast that more closely resemble targeted advertising online. The sheer inefficiency of shotgun approach broadcast advertising is crazy to me.

Re: TV is broken

#77

Post by cafard »

rickmb wrote: post #72
jerf wrote: post #20

I would observe that in some sense this isn't just a "kid growing up with different tech gets it better than the adults" story. My wife and I both feel the exact same way about TV, in our mid-30s. We just have the historical perspective such that we don't have to ask "why". Also it's less cute when we ask why. But otherwise the same.

There's no age limit her. We're in our 40's, we watch a lot of series and movies, but we've rarely seen commercials in the past 10 or so years. Sometimes we start watching a show or movie more or less by accident, but that usually ends at the first commercial break. Both of us find it hard to imagine people can actually tolerate watching TV that way, even though we've done the same for a long time. But imho it's not…

"But imho it's not so much TV that is broken. It's advertising. In today's world of on-demand personalized information, advertising has zero value."

What happens to Google & Facebook without advertising?

Re: TV is broken

#78

Post by VikingCoder »

downx3 wrote: post #68
VikingCoder wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have money, and I want to watch Season 2, Episode 2 of the West Wing, which my friend just told me is worth watching. I cannot give them my money, to watch it. I could wait a couple days for Netflix to mail me the DVD, but by then the impulse might pass. TV is broken.

Sounds like you want instant gratification! How about watching something else while you order the DVD?

...and if I have money, and I'm willing to pay a fair price, I should get it!

Re: TV is broken

#79

Post by jpdoctor »

droithomme wrote: post #57

There are many other things that are broken too. My fancy expensive name-brand digital TV takes a full minute to boot up from a cold start, longer than it took my tube based TV from the 1950s to warm up. Once on, it takes almost a full second to change channels while it rebuffers the stream of the channel being changed to. This prevents quickly flipping through channels to see what is on. As a result I just don't bot…

> We won't even get into how 720 screens don't really have 720 display pixels so even perfect size matches are resampled and interpolated

Since there's nowhere near 720 pixels x 60 frames/sec worth of information being sent to your TV, who cares?

Re: TV is broken

#80

Post by rhizome »

jpdoctor wrote: post #75

Folks do not want to pay the amount commercial free TV would cost. Full stop. If the "investment money" ever stops supporting youtube/hulu/(insert profitless service here), then goodbye web substitute. Even The Daily Show has gone into full annoyance mode lately.

Folks are already paying the amount that commercial-free TV would cost, but the money is eaten up by ESPN's multi-channel presence in basic-cable packages. Yes, your cable dollars subsidize ESPN.
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