Sunday night's special live episode of The West Wing on NBC was produced twice -- once for the east coast and again for the west coast. Each version was slightly different. I watched both versions -- I wanted to see how much of the episode was scripted, and if any changes would be made to the second broadcast after the east coast version went to air.
I wasn't the only one. A surprising number of the fans on Television Without Pity admitted to watching both east and west coast versions of the live debate.
That got me thinking about iTunes and video sales and The Long Tail of television.
Update: NBC and CBS will offer video-on-demand.
What video content will people buy from the iTunes store? Until Apple's One More Thing announcement, discussion was focused almost entirely on Hollywood movies. Apple shifted the focus to include music videos, short films, and network television programming.
There are several opportunities for TV networks. Disney agreed to offer day-after downloads of several of its series as an experiment. That's just the beginning. I will be very surprised if one or more networks do not make the pilot episodes of some new TV shows available next year via iTunes. Competition is fierce at the beginning of each new TV season. Why not make it easy for people to see your new shows when they first debut? (Why not make the pilot episodes available free?)
There's more, though. What is The Long Tail of television? Think about all those "Extras" that show up on DVDs -- the behind the scenes stuff, the "making of" mini-movies, the special effects showcases, the blooper reels.
This is where TV and movie producers (and the writers and actors unions) can make more money via iTunes. Don't wait for the DVD release to produce Extras for your show. Make them now and sell them right away.
How many copies of the live debate episode could NBC have sold via iTunes this week? If I didn't have a satellite, I would have paid $1.99 to get the other version of the live debate episode. (As it happened, I skipped the Halloween episode of The Simpsons to watch The West Wing, so I would pay $1.99 now to get my Treehouse of Horror fix.)
There's more. Many fans of The West Wing would have paid money to see behind the scenes at the live debate. What were the fictional campaign teams doing while the fictional governor and senator were debating on live television? What was the post-debate spin on the fictional CNN and MSNBC?
Some of these questions may be answered in the next episode of the series, but that's three weeks away, and NBC is preoccupied with sweeps. The producers of The West Wing could have a five or ten minute production available now via iTunes.
By the time this episode is released on DVD, it will be too late to cash in. The iron was hot on Sunday night.
It's true that iTunes as a video distribution channel might be bad news for network affiliates, but it should be good news for television writers, actors, directors, and producers. iTunes is not just a tool to sell music videos and movies. It's an opportunity to promote and support your television series with the kind of extras that usually show up too late, on DVD.
And who knows -- it might even be profitable. For television networks, it makes a lot more sense than putting value-added content on your own Web site for free.
1. Peter on November 8, 2005 06:47 PM writes...
Consider that studios submit pilot episodes to networks. Network execs go through these to try to decide what would be a good show. For the ones they like, they'll make an offer to the studio which produces it. I think the format is a little bit different, now that studios own networks or vice-versa (ABC/Disney, NBC/Universal, CBS/Paramount) but the concept is the same.
Since the studio, not the network, owns the show, build buzz for the show before the decision is made by offering it online for $1.99. The studio could then take some sales figures into a pitch meeting with the network. Heck, they might recoup some of the losses made on producing the pilot episode.
Permalink to Comment2. marc nothrop on November 9, 2005 01:33 AM writes...
The rapid uptake of DVDs, consumer enthusiasm for owning programmes on DVD -- particularly TV series -- the growth in PayTV, digital recording, PVRs, and podcasting and the Internet in general, have all been pointing in the same directing for some time now; users are exerting more control over the entertainment media they consume, and shifting to more direct relationships with content and service producers.
All of these changes chip away at the traditionally imposed schedules; major films see simultaneous international cinema releases due to the Internet, as opposed to the up-to six month wait previously endured; DVD series sales are now advertised during the free-to-air airing of programmes; and in the context of consumers long calling for PayTV operators to unbundle their channel-based content offerings, it's easy to see that a la carte, and programme-specific subscription models will be of interest to consumers.
Of course there are still a lot of pieces to fall into place, and the aggregators (e.g. the TV/PayTV channels) still have some time, and some plays of their own, e.g. consumers constructing their own personalised PayTV channel, from a pool of available shows, as one simple option.
There are numerous examples of listener/viewer-supported content struggling in the *broad*cast market, and at this point it seems pretty inevitable that more creative output will be delivered in a podcast-like model, itself just an evolution of the subscription concept, according to current technical limitations.
Permalink to Comment3. BW on November 15, 2005 10:07 AM writes...
I agree with Peter. Selling pilots would be a great marketing strategy for the studios, and a MUCH better gauge for the networks of potential popularity than focus groups.
Too many shows have got a huge following shortly before they were cancelled. This sort of thing would give a much better gauge than most of the ratings and assessments used to date.
BW
Permalink to Comment4. Chris on December 2, 2005 06:31 PM writes...
I'd love to see a day when ALL potential TV pilots are posted for free download on iTunes and then voted on by viewers. The networks won't decide what shows we watch anymore, we will. And I especially like Marc's idea of viewers producing thier own PayTV channels.
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