[opendtv] Re: News: Stevens Vows Cable-Indecency Crackdown
- From: Craig Birkmaier <craig@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: opendtv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Wed, 2 Mar 2005 11:36:43 -0500
At 8:16 AM -0500 3/2/05, Tom Barry wrote:
>So I could imagine wandering around day to day carrying my collection of
>most of my favorite shows and movies on my phone/PIM/IPOD gadget, freely
>exchanging them with others much like we can exchange business cards
>today. No Internet required, just an extremely distributed sneaker-net.
>
>In that world I'm not sure what the market will be for syndicated repeat
> content on the marginal channels. But it seems only first run timely
>content would be in demand and have to be broadcast.
There is a major problem with your otherwise interesting post. People
do not consume TV and Movie content in a manner that parallels music.
It is rare to watch an episode of a TV show or a movie multiple
times; even more rare to share this form of content with friends.
Music relies on familiarity. If we like a song we tend to collect it
and listen to it again and again. We may collect TV shows, but even
this is rare. We do collect movies, as we may want to see them again,
but not very often.
The desire to move TV and movie content around is primarily the
result of improved technology that supports portability. An exec who
is traveling can use his laptop to watch a DVD movie or to catch up
with the episodes of a show that he/she may not have had time to
watch. portable DVD players are now very affordable, and Car Theater
systems are one of the hottest growth areas for the CE companies.
On the other hand, watching a TV show or a movie on a cell phone
seems a bit absurd. As Bert would say, "context is everything." But
I might watch a breaking news story on that cell phone, or look at a
map with directions.
Syndication works because our TV systems are still based on the OLD
browser mentality - 500 channels and nothing is on. When people want
to relax and be entertained, they have traditionally just surfed what
is on. In many cases watching a rerun of a good old program is a
better alternative than watching something new that sucks.
It is interesting that many of the better syndicated shows are now
being released on DVD. Apparently there IS some attraction to
watching the old stuff, but I do not believe that this translates
into the desire to pirate and share video content.
Regards
Craig
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