Apple Said to Suspend Effort to Develop Live TV Service
bloomberg.com
bloomberg.com
I'm guessing that Apple balked once the strategy evolved to producing its own content. I think they were imagining a market evolving that was a natural extension of the iTunes/App Store, but what they found was that they would need to structure like a media company to make that play effective.
This is ultimately a mixed bag for consumers; because it means that content ownership has won out. That means prices are likely to rise, and another round of media consolidation is in the cards in the near future. But on the plus side, the amount of quality content being produced under this model is amazing: I have probably two dozen TV series on my "to watch" list when I have time.
Isn't that what people said when the iTunes Store rolled out?
You can produce a professional quality album on a laptop with a $50 mic and free software and release it on iTunes yourself. Songs are generally 3-5 minutes long, have only 3 - 5 moving parts, and file sizes are small.
It takes minimum $5k of equipment (and a LOT more time) to make professional video content. You have to worry about video, sound, talent, backgrounds, framing, etc. You need a whole team to produce even mediocre video content if you want it to be watchable (I'm not counting YouTube/Twitch streamers here - that's definitely a different niche).
I think we're comparing apples to oranges here. Look at the top twenty most subscribed channels and you will see the production value is pretty high. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_the_most_subscribed_us...
They probably started off as one-person-show on a laptop webcam but at some point they tend to get better equipment and stuff. I believe YouTube gets in touch with the top 1% or 0.1% or whatever to help them get better.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jbRV-5NzL1I https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D62HGy72HC0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eUlu-TRFBlk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mQHw0bSRBWc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7WffxX74u48
Now, they're not bad or anything - but it looks to me like most of them are still one-person shows.
#1: PewDiePie is part of Polaris, which is the gaming sub-brand of Maker Studios, which is owned by Disney. He's also the top grossing star on YouTube for the last few years, and you don't stay king without a lot of marketing support.
#2: HolaSoyGerman is owned by Machinima. Machinima is relatively independent from big media (ignoring a $30M investment from Google), but they're still a major player in the YouTube world.
#3: Smosh is a huge enterprise, a YouTube brand in itself with dozens of sub-brands. It's the "juvenile humor" brand of Defy Media, which is owned by Viacom.
#4: This one was basically a PSA done by an actor / comedian / media personality. He likely had professional help making the video though (or is involved in video production work himself - not unusual for lesser known actors). But this one is a flash-in-the-pan viral video unless he can spin it into a production deal (though it wouldn't surprise me if he had already).
#5: Jenna Marbles is also part of the Smosh empire, though her deal looks to give her more independence with branding than most. But still, I guarantee she's not editing and posting videos herself.
All 5 of these videos were created by professional entertainers; 4 of them are the product of some YouTube media empire or another. It doesn't seem that way looking at the videos, but that's the entire point - it takes a lot of work to make something look low-budget yet still have high enough production value to be watchable.
The point remains though; you don't get a top viewed video on YouTube without significant paid advertising to support your channel. And most of the companies doing this advertising support are owned by traditional media companies.
Actually most end up selling their channel to a production company like RoosterTeeth, Smosh, or Maker, then working as "talent" for a decent salary as long as they keep producing X videos per month. It takes a lot of the risk out of it, and hooks you into a machine designed to keep viral content in the public eye.
Said production companies have editors, sound guys, effects people, etc. who handle the back end of the video workflow. Most (if not all) of these production companies are owned by mega-media (Maker = Disney, Smosh = Defy = Viacom, RoosterTeeth = Fullscreen = AT&T) who have the budget and industry connections to make sure they succeed.
I guarantee you if you look at the top 20 subscribed channels, probably 18 of them are owned by an "old media" company. The more things change, the more they stay the same...
Of course, pros find increments of gear that they absolutely cannot live without in whatever field they're working in :-)
Meanwhile the <30 market will be too busy watching Youtube and Twitch to bother with hour-long shows, and before they realize it, their content will have been completely supplanted.
I'm not sure WHY that offends them - that what people wanted was known doesn't mean it was easy to achieve. Frankly, I have more respect when someone solves a known but hard problem than when they come across something that happens to be popular. Given that intelligent design doesn't mean it will be popular, I see one as requiring hard work and the other requiring luck.
So you can't give all the credit for why the iPod succeeded to something that didn't exist for those crucial first 4 years.
Most people were skipping the rip part or digitizing old stuff. iTunes gave the music people their dream: go buy everything again.
Initial models didn't even have USB or Windows support, remember. Incidentally, that came around the same time.
The iPod didn't sell all that well until 2004. It's no coincidence that was after Windows support and the iTunes Store.
I recall coming across musician magazines at a friends place, and it was all about Apple computers and how they could be used with midi and synthesizers.
Similarly a local newspaper, that was a heavy Windows user, had a old grayscale Mac hooked up to a SCSI scanner in their graphics office.
And in recent years the national broadcaster announced that they would be standardizing their production line on Apple hardware and software. And this was after Xserve was discontinued.
Apple was a household name for the labels, as such they were likely more comfortable to come to an agreement with Jobs than anyone else.
This meant OS X (and later iOS) has a high-quality, low-latency audio API, for example, because it needed it for music creation.
Plus iTunes was a blue ocean concept -- there was no serious competition for purchasing music online (at least not as easily as iTunes + iPod made it). To get into TV they would be going against some huge incumbents with lots of money.
It's like how Netflix, Amazon, and Hulu each produce their own content. In the future I'd envision something like NBC Productions just producing shows and licensing them. With each show generating it's revenue stream, we'll have a lot more variety of content because a show doesn't have to reach the widest audience, only an audience large enough to bring in enough revenue to cover the cost of production.
There's a risk pooling problem at play here too: if I'm paying $10/mo for Netflix, how do you allocate the money between the content on Netflix? Spotify faces the same problem: top artists demand higher payouts in return for listing their music on the service. The top artists are what bring the listeners in, but as a result it's almost impossible for someone who's not an international star to make any money from Spotify. Video faces the same issue.
Yes. In music this is somewhat solved by compulsory licensing laws. The same should be applicable to movies and TV...
Except each show will still have to reach the widest audience, because it will have to bring in more revenue than the entity producing would expect from the best alternative use of the same input resources, not just enough to break even.
Meanwhile, most people under a certain age are not ever bothering with cable TV. Why would they pay more just to see it via the Internet?
I'm trying to understand the nameless "media executives'" mindset, but all the news I read shows their current business model being dead and buried in 10-20 years.
fortunately where I live I can get a lot of local channels which means big networks too through a simple twenty dollar digital antenna
It's great to think 10-20 years ahead and dream of a 100% ala-carte VOD world, but someone still has to pay for it all.
I was hoping Apple would be able to pull it off because I certainly don't get my money's worth out of my cable TV subscription. Unfortunately, I can get nothing over the air so it's more or less all or nothing and I haven't quite gotten myself to the point where I cut live TV off 100%.
This would give fairly good coverage in most of the larger metropolitan areas in the US.
As for the other half, it seems as if you are implying ESPN has done something wrong aggressively pricing their content and live programming offerings...which is also wrong. For some reason cord cutters believe that disparaging content providers they don't personally enjoy is productive, but these are the parties with both a) the leverage and b) the most to lose by challenging cable companies and other traditional media gatekeepers. They deserve consumer recognition for their efforts, and despite having problems like any other monolith, I support the Worldwide Leader.
http://www.foxsports.com/college-football/outkick-the-covera...
If only everyone realized that if you subscribe to cable, you're paying for about $6.61/mo for espn to be on your bundle. This is for everyone, not just the sports fans.
I read somewhere that espn alone if only paid by fans would come out to about $34/mo Which if true really throws a wrench into the sports world. If they keep losing viewers there will be an interesting situation regarding advertisements.
Honestly I can only hope, the only reason I have cable tv is so that comcast can still count me as a viewer with their "your bill will be cheaper if you just get a basic package" bs.
Look for that to disappear in the next few years. Cable companies have traditionally been ruled by the video business unit, but they're starting to realize that of the $120/mo triple play, consumers only value the video service at about $30-40/mo. That's more than it costs in licensing fees - so it would be a better profit move to charge $70-80/mo for straight Internet access. They're increasingly willing to sacrifice low-margin (with relatively high marginal cost) video revenue for high-margin broadband revenue.
I've always wondered why the cable companies haven't partnered with Netflix to sell subscriptions. Give the cable companies a cut in exchange for interconnects and cross-promotion. If Comcast were to offer a $100/mo Internet + Netflix + HBO bundle, it would sell like hotcakes.
Also, remember that the target customer for a cable company is a 50-year-old head of household. While "cord nevers" will be a drain on revenue in the future, big cable is still making a good profit targeting people who are far behind the technology curve.