We should all be shedding a tear or two for the countless amount of random marketing executives who seem to be of the belief that their beloved television stations and programs are being ditched for things like the Internet.
In a time when the idiot box is running rampant and there’s something on the tube for everyone, the executives who do little more than control a story’s future based on how many ads they can sell per time slot are finally beginning to wise up.
Sure, there’s the odd idiot (they’re not really all that odd) that is still living in the dark ages. You see them all the time.
They come [url=http://blogs.allofmp3.com/music_news/2006/11/01/ifpi-preaches-isps%e2%80%99-censorship-in-australia/]from phonographic representation industries spouting random bullshit[/url] that would make even a world leader seem bashful, even while [url=http://blogs.allofmp3.com/music_news/2006/11/14/music-industry-fails-to-explain-how-the-piracy-losses-are-calculated/]statistics are probably undermining the very thing they seem to suggest[/url].
Well, times are changing, my friends.
In the past few weeks, we’ve seen that Disney — who can no doubt be considered one of the major players — [url=http://www.netribution.co.uk/2/content/view/972/182/]have come to recognise piracy[/url] as a force that they have to compete with.
Recently, I’ve been trying out an interesting piece of technology based off of BitTorrent, the ever popular way of transmitting files that has become the new leader in Peer2Peer (P2P) based technologies. It’s [url=http://www.viido.com/en/index.php]called Viidoo[/url] and it’s basically a television streaming and receiving technology that utilises [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BitTorrent]BitTorrent[/url] to broadcast and transmit video from the stations throughout the user base.
Viidoo is actually quite powerful and decent quality, and while [url=http://www.tv.com/story/6520.html?q=nbc]NBC and Intel run their “Intel-only VIIV campaign”[/url] complete with an amount of [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Rights_Management]Digital Rights Management[/url] (DRM) that makes any good techno-junkie sick with feelings back to [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2005_Sony_BMG_CD_copy_protection_scandal]the Sony rootkit debacle[/url], Viidoo is showing that a free piece of software can get a bunch of users together to watch TV without the need to download.
You see children — and by “children” I mean stupid marketing and television executives — not everyone around the globe has access to the latest and greatest forms of the entertainment that you provide. For instance, here in Australia, our cable networks are incredibly overpriced and as badly programmed as our few free-to-air access channels. We, as an example, don’t have any access to great sources of entertainment such as Studio 60 On The Sunset Strip or Heroes. Likewise, we’re years behind in shows like Stargate or Smallville or even The West Wing, and even shows like Battlestar Galactica are cut-off a few episodes into a season too late because the same said free-to-air station — with it’s lack of any real cares — thinks that people who are up watching BSG really would prefer to watch a stupid game of “I’mACelebrityBecauseI’veGotBreasts” poker.
Today, CBS have released the results of an internet poll (which looks like it’s been some form of research for them) and have discovered that from having people download TV shows, [url=http://www.tv.com/story/7229.html?tag=story_list;title;1]they’ve seen more people[/url] take an interest in the said TV shows and begin to watch them more.
Well duh. Finally. I’ve been saying this for ages.
Not to advertise here or anything, but maybe, just [i]maybe[/i] if a marketing department or television chief got their fat money-filled thumbs out of their asses or their bosses asses for maybe the 18 minutes they take for ads from a one-hour show, they might be able to see that if they were using a tool like Viidoo to get more people watching their station, they wouldn’t run into the very problem they complain about when they say people steal their shows as a result of downloading them.
You might just get more people tuning in to watch your station without the need to download it later.
Keep the ads in the program if that’s what your revenue comes from. Fine. I’m not bothered by ads. Just let me watching the programming.