How much is a TV episode download worth?

Posted: Sat Mar 26, 2005 3:52 am

I would like to ask you the same question as posted by this article: What's a Downloaded Episode Worth? With the relative success of iTunes in selling music on a per song basis for $1 each, how much demand is there in paying for download of high quality TV content, bypassing traditional cable network fees?

With TV related searches ranking high on isoHunt.com, the answer to this question should be interesting. To help make this poll as accurate as possible in reflecting thoughts of the P2P community, vote for the maximum price you would pay for a downloaded ep, before you have to resort to the low tech tv remote.

Also, please do share your thoughts on why you would want to pay for downloading TV content, when it's free on the TV set (after network access fees if unfortunately you live in places like North America). Or why you won't pay anything if that's the case.

For reference: An old season of Stargate in DVD box set costs as cheap as $16, while new seasons costs more than $50. A season is 22 episodes each.

Posted: Sat Mar 26, 2005 10:14 am

If it was public television (which I don't watch much of) I would certainly accept commercials in exchange for a download. Why? One reason: because it still would be cheaper than paying for cable or satellite. I don't have time nor care for all the crap I would end up getting. There is very little I feel like watching on American television.

The exception is HBO, who make the most creative and well-written programming consistently, and that can partially be attributed to the fact that they are completely pay-TV, and so don't need to satisfy their advertisers above their viewers. I love their shows, but I can't get that channel where I live, and again, don't want to pay for everything else I don't need.

But I don't have a desire to watch the same episode more than once, so the hefty fee for buying one of their seasons is a turn-off. So is renting it, because I already have the show spoiled for me. People talk about it online or in real life, but they are at least one season ahead of me.

If I was given an option to download episodes at my own leisure, even if it was only usable for a limited time before it became unplayable, I would more than be willing to support their work, preferably if we cut out the middle man and I got it from HBO directly.

Posted: Sat Mar 26, 2005 10:35 am

I voted zero because tuition ain't cheap, but I'd be able to put up with a few ads.

As for comparing the prices of online content vs the price of DVDs, you've got to keep in mind the fact that when you buy a boxed set of DVDs, you're not just paying for the content--you're also paying for the 'niceness' of having an aesthetically pleasing box and DVDs and instant, immediate access to the entire season without having to bother with your own storage (IE clogging hard drives or going through the trouble of burning DVDs).

Additionally, in the article you've cited, they compensate they're thinking too far away from 'the box', so to speak. TV shows that sell their DVDs at $16-50 per season see the sale of their DVDs as a secondary source of income--icing on their money-cake, so to speak. They also get money from the networks who originally air their series--which, in turn, gets money from commercial advertisements. The movie industry rakes a surprising amount of cash in hand-over-fist through product placement.

If one were to take a genuinely serious stab at an online, fully-financed series, it wouldn't be necessary to plase the onus of revenue entirely on the viewers. One could easily use either of these methods to ease the financial burdens, as well as making some money to compensate for the other oversites--namely the costs of maintaining a premium-speed connection that serves the proposed 5 million users with the last eight seasons of Stargate and the hastle of creating and maintaining a credit company (though a direct-billing system could fesably bypass this).

However, being a writer myself who's contributed regularly to a 'freebie online media' troupe, the idea of online recreational (and non-pornographic) media developing an industry is a wonderful idea with incredible potential that I wouldn't mind becoming a part of--particularly since this is about the only venue of media which is not yet dominated by mega-media institutions.

Some could argue it's just a matter of time before someone who's dedicated enough manages to balance out the financial equation to take moving picture production through the next step of evolution.

Posted: Sat Mar 26, 2005 11:59 am

For regular cable programs, I would definately download a episode with comercials. I wouldn't pay for them though...as these series rely on advertising for their revenues anyway. I would like to see the production companies release the episodes(with comercials) on filesharing networks...it would be free distrobution to a large and growing audience.

But I've said all this before. Hopefully some tv production companies will see these polls and realize the opportunity they are missing.

As for higher end channels' series(HBO,Showtime,those without comercials), a modest fee of a buck or two would be fair.

-Berry

Posted: Sat Mar 26, 2005 6:58 pm

Good points. Internet delivery enables a kind of immediate and international distribution traditional cable networks cannot offer. And it allows for a lot more options in how people would "pay" for the content, an especial benefit to smaller indie producers.

kuddles also have an interesting point that he wouldn't mind if the downloaded episode would be viewable only for a limited time. This is a fundamental difference in usage pattern between TV and music: TV is ok if it's time-limited, music is not as you want to listen them later on. So are we much more receptive to DRM (digital rights management) in TV content?

Posted: Sun Mar 27, 2005 1:57 am

Unlike music, the TV episodes never had end user cash value attached to them. So as such, they are only a format to wrap commercials in. In my opinion, once aired, they served their advertising purpose, the creators have been paid, the network collected its revenue and there is no reason why they shouldn't go in the public domain. Well, of course, in this country (US) we have syndication, which means that there must still be some money squeezed out everything over and over again. In some more civilized countries, TV show become free and freely downloadable from the network website once premiered and the initial advertisement revenue was collected. But America would of course never accept such commie abomination. And don't forget that with cable TV (except for premium channels) you are paying for delivery not the content. You willingness (or helplessness to avoid) to watch those nasty commercials is your payment. So in my opinion, TV episodes should be free, maybe I'd be willing to pay some small fee for the delivery, but that is it...

Posted: Sun Mar 27, 2005 3:53 am

Hey, guys. I'm from Germany and I just registered so I could reply to this post.
I wanted to add the problem we "non-US-people" have. Here in Germany for example, most TV Shows are broadcast 2 years after the US-premiere. Some shows don't even make it at all and if they do, they are dubbed in German, which sometimes is ok, but mostly done very badly.

Only a few weeks ago, "PREMIERE" - a German pay-TV-station - started to broadcast new TV shows in original language ("Lost" and "Desperate Housewives"), each episode with only a ten-day-delay and commercial-free.

Other than that, there is no chance for people in Germany (and everywhere else outside the US, I suppose) to watch a TV show in its original language, without having to wait for years in order to buy the DVDs.

This is why I would pay a few bucks in order to download a TV-show-episode.
I would actually suggest something like a discount, if you buy more episodes from the same show, like:
one ep = $3
6 eps = $12
half a season (11 eps) = $20
complete season = $35

Commercials or a limited time of usage would only work for me, if the episodes were for free, then.

Greetings from Germany!

Posted: Sun Mar 27, 2005 5:36 am

BimpnBerry wrote:

For regular cable programs, I would definately download a episode with comercials. I wouldn't pay for them though...as these series rely on advertising for their revenues anyway. I would like to see the production companies release the episodes(with comercials) on filesharing networks...it would be free distrobution to a large and growing audience.

Unfortunately, production companies rely upon networks for income. The networks, in turn, get money from advertisers.

In other words, if they published the aired versions, complete with advertisements, it wouldn't mean more ad-money for the production company or the network--it would just mean free advertising for the companies and a noticable dent punched into DVD sales.

One viable alternative could be for the production companies to place different ads in their internet releases--but this would lead to a decline in network ratings, which would inevitably lead to cancellation--leaving the series with nothing more than internet ads to continue filming.

I think the only real chance that online-centered distribution has is to be able to orient itself primarily online.

Posted: Sun Mar 27, 2005 6:06 am

pigjuice wrote:

Unlike music, the TV episodes never had end user cash value attached to them. So as such, they are only a format to wrap commercials in. In my opinion, once aired, they served their advertising purpose, the creators have been paid, the network collected its revenue and there is no reason why they shouldn't go in the public domain.

I'm not sure about the rest of you, but to me this isn't just a matter of creator/fan diplomacy; it's a matter of monetary support to the creators of a series to ensure that the next season comes to fruition. If they can re-wrap new ads and view them again, that not only gives more money to the 'greedy coroporate network conglomerates', but also to the show's creators and producers, which, in turn, dumps more money into the franchise, which will inevitably lead to the creation of more (and higher-quality) episodes.

I hate to sound like Lars Ulrich, but if piracy does have the potential to kick the high holy hell out of any industry--including film and television.

--However--

There were similar issues raised by the movie industry with the advent of television. In fact, they actually initiated antitrust suits against VCR companies for fear that they'd render theatres obsolete--and, prior to that, they had similar concerns with the color television stealing all their thunder. Both concerns were shot down--and the VCR thing actually ended up working to the benefit of the movie companies, the sales and rentals becoming a very lucrative cash-cow--but what the advent of television did in the late 60's was force the movie business to stop releasing the same-old crap. One could quite easily argue that the advent of music-piracy had the same effect on musicians: For a long time, you'd see several bands who would release one good song per album to play on the radio and let the sales ride on that. Thanks to file sharing, we can download several songs off an album before going out and purchasing it (and there are quite a few so-called delinquents who still use file sharing as an honest means of taste-testing). If the album is all-filler, we save our twenty bucks, and the band (deservingly) starves. TV did the same thing for movies when it was first released--Hollywood had been releasing content-regulated, cookie-cutter crap, and was forced to produce new, original, innovative films (innovative for the time, at least--they've since become the basis for today's cookie-cutter-crap movies).

The film industry isn't in any immediate peril of losing much business to online file-sharing. If a movie looks good, you're likely going to want to see it on the big-screen. A movie download puts the company out by the equivalent of roughly one video store rental.

The interesting question here is what the internet means for serials--television shows and mini-series. Each episode you download that you haven't first seen on TV deprives the series of ratings--and, if you have seen the show before, you're probably depriving the production company of a DVD sale. The big difference between this and the TV vs Movies debate that happened some fifty years ago is the fact that there is very little difference between watching a show on your computer monitor and watching one on your TV monitor. There is very little reason to dial into a TV station when you have entire seasons on-demand, commercial free, at your fingertips. Will the increasing population of the 'internet-savvy' kill any series which appeals to them simply through distribution? Or will the TV companies find a way to use the internet in the same way that the movie industry found a way to use home-video?

God damn, I'm getting way too worked up over this.

Posted: Sun Mar 27, 2005 6:20 am

So you want to download the latest Enterprise episode for free with ads included. Great, to bad the ad for "Bud Light" has little relevance to some one in say... Germany. Who wouldn't drink "Bud"-anything - never mind you can't buy it in Germany and because of export laws and alcohol, you can't have it shipped either. Each episode would either have to be tailored to an area... which increases cost bor the labour and extra work to find advitisers or have internet advertising -pop ups.

There needs to be a fundamental change from the old 'get what we show you' to 'I will watch what I want' mentality. This is occuring with the wide spread of the net and to the dismay of the **AA.

So I vote $0/episode, no commersials and no pop-ups. I would however pay an extra $20-$50/mnth to my ISP to have access to any TV/movie/audio file streamed to me on demand. That would of couse have to mean no sharing that file :)

Eliminates TV - DVD's - CD's and movie theaters... (except for those special occasions!)

Posted: Sun Mar 27, 2005 9:30 am

Johnny_Lunchbox wrote:

One viable alternative could be for the production companies to place different ads in their internet releases--but this would lead to a decline in network ratings, which would inevitably lead to cancellation--leaving the series with nothing more than internet ads to continue filming.

But if they were to change the ads for different markets, and assuming maybe someone had to register or leave a mark somewhere in order to download the episode from the source, then there could be a possibility for "online Nielson ratings", or the like? That way those who stream or download the episodes could be counted as ad revenue, and ratings.

Posted: Sun Mar 27, 2005 10:13 am

kuddles wrote:

But if they were to change the ads for different markets, and assuming maybe someone had to register or leave a mark somewhere in order to download the episode from the source, then there could be a possibility for "online Nielson ratings", or the like? That way those who stream or download the episodes could be counted as ad revenue, and ratings.

The problem with that is that the community of online TV-watchers is very isolated. Even though it is expanding, only genres with heavy concentrations of onliners (most notably, but not excluded to, sci-fi series such as Stargate) would be able to turn significant profits from an online viewing community--and forming a hit-based rating system that works over the 'net that would be completely tamper-proof (because you know some peckerhead is going to want to hack in there and cancel every show except for Yan Can Cook or something strange like that) would be too much of a fiscal commitment for a single experimental online serial.

Granted, I suppose you could run it with a similar hit-tracker that they use for banner-clicks... with ads streamed from regional servers, which could allow for local advertising as well as 'macro-advertising' for companies that cater to international markets (IE car companies, fast food conglomerates, athletic companies, eBay, etc). Then again, with the initial programming, people probably wouldn't be willing to risk enough money to finance and organize international advertising, and would, therefore, have to rely on the 'macro-market' advertisers.

In this case, referring again back to the original cited article, we have to ask ourselves how much advertisers would be willing to pump into each ad on a per-hit basis, what kind of traffic you'd expect your online show to produce, and how much ad-time would have to be crammed into each episode to finance the program.

Actually... if you could muster the numbers suggested in the article--with a potential viewer base of 500,000, none of whom would be turned off from cost issues--and you needed to raise $300,000 per 60-minute episode (and you'd be expected to produce a surplus... so let's say we'll aim at $430,650, which is their 'optimal target' for the pay-per-view approach)... the standard TV-episode is 22 minutes of show, 8 minutes of commercial... keeping with this, we'd have 16 minutes worth of commercials for an hour-long program... standard commercial-length is 30 seconds... so we have 32 commercials per episode. Multiply this by the 500,000 base of expected initial-viewers, an dyou have 16,000,000 commercial 'hits'. To raise the optimistic $450,650, you'd need to charge the companies roughly 3 cents per 'hit' (or viewing) of each commercial.

I have no idea what is usually paid to have ads broadcast on network television, but three cents per viewing actually seems to be pretty fair.

The biggest hurdle, then, would be actually finding sponsors willing to participate. This is where a massive investment of faith, time, and effort would be required.

Posted: Sun Mar 27, 2005 2:41 pm

$0 (no commercials)

I think its disgusting that even after I pay for cable, I still have to put up with 5 minute commercial breaks. I have to pay for broadband too, and I still don't want commercials. Same goes for magazines, where I pay subscription costs and get inundated with ads.

I expect ads to be present in free services, but in pay-to-play services, I should not have advertising shoved down my throat.

Posted: Sun Mar 27, 2005 3:33 pm

Geogriffith wrote:

$0 (no commercials)

I think its disgusting that even after I pay for cable, I still have to put up with 5 minute commercial breaks. I have to pay for broadband too, and I still don't want commercials. Same goes for magazines, where I pay subscription costs and get inundated with ads.

I expect ads to be present in free services, but in pay-to-play services, I should not have advertising shoved down my throat.

You pay cable companies for your cable, not networks. The people who produce the shows don't see a dime of your cable bill. Their income comes exclusively from the networks, whose income comes from the ads you sit through. The only exception to this is pay-TV, such as HBO and the movie networks, in which case the producers get a slice of the pie that you've given them as your monthly HBO fee.

With magazines, the cost is partially subsitized by the advertisements, partially paid for by the subscribers. They realized that most people in this day and age aren't willing to pay a base-cost of twenty bucks for fifty pages of high-res, full-color print on glossy paper, no matter how cute the girls are, with God-knows-how-much they pay their writers, editors, models, reporters, etceteras, so they have advertisers pay for the bulk of their expenses and have the readers pay the rest in subscription fees.

Similar to your cable bill, the money you dump into broadband is for the connection, not for the content. Any online show wouldn't see a red cent of your broadband bill. Anything you recvieve through the connection that you don't pay for is free because, as if I have to spell it out, you're not paying for that . Even if you are still paying.

What you're arguing is like going to a bar and demanding drinks, claiming that you've already paid for them when you gave the bouncer your cover. A common misconception, and an understandable one, I suppose, but you've gotta keep in mind that it isn't where the money comes from--it's where the money ends up.

Posted: Mon Mar 28, 2005 4:15 am

Someone said 'stream or download'

For me streaming would not be an option. The internet speed we get in this part of the world is poor. Anything I streaming is never very sucsesfull.

Plus I don't like the Idea of restrictive DRM. If I buy a DVD I can take it to my mates house and watch it, or put it on the shelf to be watched in many years times when I'm old and gray for some good memories (just like my folks do with their VCR). If the DRM on the file stops me from doing this I will not buy it.

Also we don't earn as much over here so me paying US$1 is more like paying $2 so that would be my upper limit.