HEROES

[daddytodd]

Well, we managed to finish watching all of Season 1 over the long weekend.  23 episodes of Heroes Goodness in under 72 hours. It was a great way to veg out!

I'm a little sad that I won't be watching any more until the next chunk comes out on DVD. I simply can't bring myself to watch TV commercials any more; I'd rather drop $50 for the season and watch it in all it's uninterrupted widescreen glory, whenever I want, for however long I want.

Comments

I think you are part of a major trend

[teddyb.livejournal.com]

Your last comments about preferring to watch a whole season on DVD rather than put up with commercials are representative of a growing wave of viewers who, like you, are willing to pay a reasonable premium to control when and how they see episodic television programs.

I used to work in market research, and we had a group of clients made up of major entertainment production and distribution companies, and when we did research on this kind of thing, the trend was always strongly upward in terms of people abandoning traditional broadcast television in favour of alternatives like DVD collections, for reasons exactly like the ones you mention.

The trend scares traditional network executives to death, and it should.

If the people who run NBC, who are trying to jack up the prices of television programs distributed by Apple via iTunes to iPod users, had half a brain, they'd realize how foolish they are. If you can buy a DVD of a whole season of programming, on an archival format like DVDs, with superb quality and all kinds of extras, why should anyone pay more than a dollar or two to see an episode on the tiny screen of an iPod? Yet, NBC/Universal tried to get Apple to raise the price from $1.99 to $4.99. Apple told them to shove it, and dropped all NBC content.

Re: I think you are part of a major trend

[daddytodd.livejournal.com]

Apple did exactly the right thing.

I note that an episode of Heroes on DVD is 43 minutes long (including credits.) that means I'm spending 17 MINUTES of every hour watching commercials and promos. That's too expensive for me.

Old episodes of Star Trek from the '60's are almost 52 minutes long. It has not escaped my notice that there are TWICE as many commercials per hour today as there were when I was a tyke.

No thanks. I'm done with commercial TV. My time is worth more to me than that.

Are the network executives really to stupid to get this; or just too greedy?

[lmwoof.livejournal.com]

TIVO... literally changed my life... My favorite invention ever... next to the straw and ice.

[daddytodd.livejournal.com]

I resist TiVo because it would simply prompt me to record a bunch of stuff I don't have time to watch. I'm an obsessive collector, and I know I'd never be able to prevent myself from recording, say, every episode of Battlestar Galactica, all the while deluding myself that "someday" I'd sit down and watch them all...

[lmwoof.livejournal.com]

But TIVO knows... It knows that you can't keep those things forever. I used to be the same way. Once you get control like that, you don't worry about losing or missing anything... It is the great equalizer.

And you can record them on DVD if you want to keep them. Either you buy them or you get them for free when they play and anything else...

I cannot reco them enough.... get a cheapO one from eBay with a Lifetime Subscription... about 200. It will truly change your life.

Steve Jobs cited some awesome stats at today's iPod launch

[teddyb.livejournal.com]

Sadly, they are both.

Just like record company executives.

It stuns me that Steve Jobs, who has no background in either the music or film business (and I guess that is really the key), was the one who came up with a workable, practical business model for selling downloads of music and video in a way that provides some measure of protection for copyright holders and offers enough value for consumers to want to actually buy the product.

The record companies and RIAA tried for years to come up with a downloading service people would actually use, but their greed always got in the way. Al the business models they developed were based on screwing consumers out of as much cash as possible while giving them no real ownership or control over what they bought.

I find the numbers absolutely mind-boggling, but in his announcement of new iPods and such today, Jobs cited the stats that iTunes users have purchased and downloaded over 3 billion songs and 95 million television programs. Apparently, in the US in 2006, 32% of all new music releases were digital only, not on CD or cassette or any other physical recording medium.

Still, after Apple virtually built this market and distribution channel from scratch, record companies tried to squeeze Apple for a bigger slice of profit when their contracts were up for renewal.

Jobs wisely told them to screw off then, too.

Re: Steve Jobs cited some awesome stats at today's iPod launch

[blachubear.livejournal.com]

As good as Steve Jobs is when it comes to record companies & networks to tell them to kiss my ass, I wish Steve could've choose a different phone service for the IPhone instead AT&T. The same AT&T that gave the O.K. to illegal wiretap American citizens without nobody's knowledge until a whistle blower blew the secret operation. The same AT&T that's screwing the customers with high price bills when using their IPhones. It wasn't all Steve's fault, IPhone original choice was Verizon but Verizon dumb ass ask for too much that AT&T was the second choice. Still AT&T? Take care & Big Bear Hugs.

Re: Steve Jobs cited some awesome stats at today's iPod launch

[daddytodd.livejournal.com]

What the "content industry" (record companies, movie studios, book publishers) really want is a pure PPV model; no more "purchasing" a song, a book or a movie. They want the consumer to have to pay them every time you watch/listen/read the content.

I'll pass, thanks.

Oh, and I ordered an iPod Touch for Ron on Wednesday.