One Subscription To Rule Them All

And so the great networks will fall.

Right now, the real power the television industry is held not by the viewers, not by the producers, not by the actors or writers or creators, but by the networks. Due to the difficulty and cost of distributing television content, network executives have the first, last, and total say in whether a show will be greenlit, whether a pilot will get made, whether the first episodes will be aired, whether the show will get picked up for a full season, and then whether there will be additional seasons in the years to come.

As not all shows are able to immediately perfectly target mainstream viewers in the way that a Yes, Dear or American Idol so easily does, television history is littered with the discarded carcasses of amazing, funny, wonderful shows which were simply never given a chance to grow or even breathe. See Firefly, Wonderfalls, Freaks & Geeks, My So-Called Life, Carnivale, Arrested Development, the list goes on and on. All critically acclaimed shows with thousands of adoring viewers, but all cancelled by the networks for not being financially sustainable.

Only you can stop this dreck.

The problem, of course, is the distribution. Right now the model is very simple. A network exec is either sent a pilot -- or is sent a script treatment and then funds a pilot -- most are rejected, a few survive, even a fewer get approved for a second season, and they move on with "what works", always giving preferential treatment to the shows that attract the most viewers in the target demographic base.

Even on HBO -- a network I adore for their always-quality programming -- all too often they can't sustain a great show because someone determines that that production money is better spent paying David Chase an extra ten million for a fourth season of The Sopranos so we can get an episode like that Columbus Day wreck. Ok, I lie, I'm actually peeing my pants in excitement about Sunday's Season 6 premiere, but that's getting off track.

Fortunately, easily-available DVRs are beginning to make the process of selecting and watching a great show far easier. Where before I couldn't keep up with a show like Lost or The Shield -- as not being there promptly at 10pm on Wednesday night would mean I'd have no idea what's happening for the rest of the season -- now I can make sure I don't miss a moment. And at the same time I never have to sit down when there's nothing on, and flick through channels for twenty minutes before finally settling on watching an episode of The Simpsons I've already seen a hundred times, probably that one wear Homer wears a Muumuu. Instead I always have something new I *want* to see, just sitting there patiently waiting for me to find time to watch it.

As great as DVR is, however, it doesn't fix the core problem -- the networks still require me to watch 42-minute-long programs available once a week (or as is the case with Lost, once every 6-8 weeks), and they still have the final say in what lives or dies. All the DVRs in the world wouldn't have kept Mal and his crew on Serenity alive for the next few years. DVRs only bring a freedom of timing, not of programming, of true choice.

What's changed now, however, is fundamental. Jon Borthwick just sent me this, check it out. iTunes -- which has been offering downloads of new episodes of Battlestar Galactica, Lost, and old SNL for months now at $1.99 apiece -- is offering a month of a The Daily Show and The Colbert Report combo, but via what is essentially a series subscription.

But beyond the sound of intellectual, liberal, twenty-something commuters the country over rejoicing, why is this change to a subscription model important?

For one, iTunes' pay-per-episode/song model has had to go for awhile. The ability to download episodes of my favorite shows on any PC, the day the show airs has always been fantastic -- I never have to miss a thing. I'd appreciate it if they got the resolution quality up there, but hey, I understand they have concerns about download speeds -- why not let me worry about that though?

But no, the problem with the per-ep model is that it introduces too much anxiety. Do I *really* need to see the next episode of The Office that badly? What if it's a subpar episode, will I feel ripped off? My God, there's 23 episodes of Lost in a season, I'm only going to watch them once, is it really worth $46 to see what I could see for free on my DVR? Once you introduce a cost per episode, people start doing these calculations, and all too often the equations don't balance out. And so for most it remains a novelty.

But now things have changed. We can watch shows via a subscription, and suddenly the options become limitless. Hey, iTunes, I'm paying $9.99 a month for The Daily Show, and you know its viewers also love Lost, why not offer me a DS-Lost combo for $14.99 a month? You're coming out with a freaky new sci-fi show that's supposed to make me forget the naptime that was Invasion -- and you know I'm watching Battlestar Galactica -- why not upsell me with a nice little discount? With a subscription model, you get into what cable companies have known for ages: people love bundles, and from the supply side they're damn easy to create, provide, and measure.

More importantly, nowhere in any of this is there a need for a network. There may be a need for video venture firms to review script concepts and invest in funding a new show, but iTunes can offer the first episode of new shows for free, and based on how many people sign up out of those who see the first ep or two, Apple can decide whether it's a dog -- or the next 24.

Size constraints are also gone. Dick Wolf, you want this season of Law & Order to be 15 one-hour-long episodes peppered with eight little five-minute sidestories and one big three-hour finale? Do it. The nets won't be there to stop you. Once a show is up on the service and free of the networks, the *only* real constraint will be whether or not people maintain their subscription. Crap won't fly, Yes, Dear won't get underserving views just because of its time slot, and finally Americans will be able to be a little discriminating in their preferences.

Comments

[Jon Borthwick]

I'm not sure how DVR or VOD will change things yet. But the fact that these, the distribution model, and the content creation are all changing at the same time is absolute chaos. May the one with the most measurable eyeballs win.