The LongTail And Internet TV

• November 28th, 2006 | IPTV, TV Shows

Chris Anderson has a synopsis on his Long Tail website that points to a New York Metro article about the new economics of TV. The gist is that while traditional TV show production is not only costly, there’s a certain low watermark of viewership that has to be achieved for the show to stay on the air, let alone achieve even mediocre syndication.

My observation has been that traditional TV shows need to stay on the air for a minimum 3 seasons to get a syndication deal, which is just gravy. Big sitcom hits can even make the theme song composer wealthy for the rest of their life. (E.g., Jonathon Wolff, who’s penned themes for Caroline in the City, Seinfeld, Married With Children, and many, many more, including more recent shows.)

But if a new show is up against some heavies, is on the wrong network, or didn’t get the expected viewership in a certain market, then it’s toast. Except that on the level playing field of the Internet, the long tail takes over, as Joss Whedon found out about the now fan-supported Firefly series, which ran briefly on the Space (Canada) and Sci-Fi (USA) channels, if I’m not mistaken.

As Chris Anderson says, what if he found a million fans who would pay US$39.99 in advance for a full-season DVD. That’s $40M for production costs, for 16 episodes. In advance. Even at $2M per (including salaries), there’d be a profit of $8M, which could be used towards the next season. Or fans could subscribe and view it online.

Is there such a market for Firefly, or for any other show for that matter? I believe so. Firefly fans did help out, but I’m not sure to what extent. And Matt Groening’s Futurama (he who created The Simpsons) was revived because of fan input online, I believe.

IPTV, or Internet TV, is a young market - so young that many people don’t know what IPTV is. But in a market such as North America, there have to be at least 5-10,000 cities and large towns where there might be 100 fans. That’s 500,000 to 1M people.

Then there’s the rest of the world. For English-language programming at least, there are 5 countries with English as their official language. And there’s India, where most schools teach English first, then Hindi, the national tongue. So, yes, I think that there’s a huge potential market for many shows that may not otherwise survive on traditional TV, in small market showings.

And on the flipside, there are broadcasters like NBC, CBS, Fox, and Comedy Central who are streaming shows online (to a select region). Some, such as CBS, are finding that it seems to increase regular TV viewing.