I was watching a show on my ipod the other day and I realized that shows don't need to be an hour or half and hour anymore. They can be whatever length you want them to be. The only reason they were that amount of time is because we used to be forced to watch a television show when they wanted us to. But now with Tivo basically making, "I have to be home at 7 o'clock to catch this show" worthless, and more and more shows being uploaded to the web and itunes and ipods, people can start making their shows whatever length they want them to be. Pretty liberating.
Do you think the "time-frame" TV show will die soon?
- Thread starter c.g._eads
- Start date
This new flexibility brings new challenges for financing production. All forms of television certainly can be fragmented into smaller packages, but whether advertisers are willing to underwrite the production is a different matter.
Both basic and premium cable offer non-traditional format programming. I've worked on one show that serves a handful of 7, 13 or 18 minute episodes along with the more traditional 22 minute segments.
Somehow, this network pays for it - though they don't pay much. I see a lot of web-served webisodes in every imaginable genre, but don't see any money underwriting the productions. Where is it coming from? What is the business model? Ad-space embedded (lower 1/3s or worse) or alongside?
Can ad space or time be pre-sold as it is in a network production or must we throw our content at the proverbial Internet "wall" to see if it sticks? How many eyes does it take to equal a typical network license fee?
I have this discussion in an ongoing and regular basis here, because our bread and butter is through more traditional placement.
YouTube might get the eyes, but where is the money coming from to finance the productions behind it? Of course, we all know that what you see on YouTube is what I call "residual content" or "residue entertainment" - the dregs of what is left after or instead of. The stuff that can or should be given away or stolen. The content for which there is no other market. Chimpanzees and kids rapping over someone else's copyrighted material in an entertaining way (without paying the ASCAP fees, of course).
Having 50k eyes doesn't net the creator a deal, or money - just the satisfaction of having someone watching. This is the case in 99.99999999% of what you see on YouTube. Obviously, this doesn't apply if the content is playing YouTube as an "ancillary market".
As smart as we are - this digital cinema generation we belong to - we should be on the edge of finding ways to finance content for the web. I've spent many hours considering it and haven't found the answer yet.
e
Both basic and premium cable offer non-traditional format programming. I've worked on one show that serves a handful of 7, 13 or 18 minute episodes along with the more traditional 22 minute segments.
Somehow, this network pays for it - though they don't pay much. I see a lot of web-served webisodes in every imaginable genre, but don't see any money underwriting the productions. Where is it coming from? What is the business model? Ad-space embedded (lower 1/3s or worse) or alongside?
Can ad space or time be pre-sold as it is in a network production or must we throw our content at the proverbial Internet "wall" to see if it sticks? How many eyes does it take to equal a typical network license fee?
I have this discussion in an ongoing and regular basis here, because our bread and butter is through more traditional placement.
YouTube might get the eyes, but where is the money coming from to finance the productions behind it? Of course, we all know that what you see on YouTube is what I call "residual content" or "residue entertainment" - the dregs of what is left after or instead of. The stuff that can or should be given away or stolen. The content for which there is no other market. Chimpanzees and kids rapping over someone else's copyrighted material in an entertaining way (without paying the ASCAP fees, of course).
Having 50k eyes doesn't net the creator a deal, or money - just the satisfaction of having someone watching. This is the case in 99.99999999% of what you see on YouTube. Obviously, this doesn't apply if the content is playing YouTube as an "ancillary market".
As smart as we are - this digital cinema generation we belong to - we should be on the edge of finding ways to finance content for the web. I've spent many hours considering it and haven't found the answer yet.
e