January 16, 2005

TV's Replacement

Damien Penny alerts us to the future of television. Fox (of course) is experimenting with failed shows, selling them pay-per-view over the Internet. This model actually makes the paying customer the viewer, instead of the advertiser. If they can keep their costs down, the next step will be to start offering smaller shows that aren't profitable on broadcast but would be profitable on the Internet exclusively via that medium. The final step will be for advertisers to offer their ads on a pay-per-view system with the advertisers paying you "Fox bucks" to watch their stuff and answer a question or two at the end to make sure you're not just downloading and playing in the background (real cash will come later as somebody disintermediates the network out of the business).

Congratulations! You've got a viable business model for visual entertainment in the 21st century.

Posted by TMLutas at January 16, 2005 09:42 AM