No a la carte TV option? Then you lose a customer

March 19, 2012 By

I’m a pretty big motorsport fan, and have been since I first started being taken out to circuits by my parents at the age of 3 or 4. Weekends were either spent watching bikes or mainly cars dicing at high speed on TV or standing in the cold and rain at places like Brands Hatch and Lydden Hill, and I always loved it – I dreamed of racing and still regret not having quite enough determination and focus as a kid to give it a proper try, or making more of the potential chances I had when I started at Motorcycle News. One of my remaining ambitions is to enter a full competitive race in the next couple of years.

But in the meantime, I indulge myself with taking racing far too seriously in videogames, and watching as much as I can on TV, work and family permitting. So I was pretty excited about the start of Formula One again this weekend.

F1 Practice 1

Well, at least I was. Because this year the coverage is split between the BBC and Sky, meaning that for many weekends, the BBC will be showing highlights packages that are pretty comprehensive, but that’s just not the same as live coverage.

Nevermind, I thought. I’d forgotten to check, but figured that in 2012, there must be a way to purchase live access. Sky obviously have it bundled with annual subscriptions to a load of stuff I’ll never watch or need, so those options were out – £30 for a couple of races per month seemed a bit excessive. So I checked the official site.

And you can buy live timing. You can buy access to highlights videos. But there’s no way to purchase access to live broadcasts.

 

How to do internet TV right:

When it comes to motorcycling, there are two options. The first is that World Superbikes is available via Eurosport for a more reasonable max of £34.99 for a year, or £3.99 per month, which is far better if all I’m watching will be on two-wheels. I’m guessing their approach and data suggests most people aren’t spending all day streaming, hence the low cost, so I just hope it doesn’t rise as more and more TV-connected devices are in use.

But for years, the premier motorcycle championship has had a great service for those obsessed with two-wheels (which is ironic as it’s also been available free via the BBC for a few years now). At MotoGP.com you can pay 99.95 Euros for a year, and  you get HD live and archive video, live timing, interviews and an on-board camera experience, allowing you to control the cameras. I know quite a few UK fans who have signed up every year for probably close to a decade for the live timing and on-board extras, even when they could be watching on TV for free. Plus you can watch via iPhone and Android handsets.

 

Creating piracy:

Sadly I can’t find a link to a recent report on piracy in Latin American countries which noted many of the most popular pirated shows were ones which simply weren’t broadcast in those territories. But my instinctual reaction to being unable to legally purchase a way to watch Formula One races online is that someone is bound to be sharing it via a video sharing site – I’d put money on the typical game of ‘whack-a-mole’ which goes on during most large sporting events was taking place on Sunday.

But I don’t want to have to visit 10 different streaming channels to try to find the best one showing the race with the least delay, be part of copyright infringement and risk running out of streams before the race ends.

I’d like to be able to pay a reasonable fee and be able to legally watch decent coverage of a sport I enjoy. The cost/hassle ratio for music and films means I’d rather buy a decent quality download quickly and easily.

 

The exception to the rule:

There’s one exception to my desire to pay for only what I watch – a free-to-air ad-free service which provides a mixture of content both for me and for the wider benefit of the public. In the UK, I honestly believe the BBC does a pretty good job of this for TV, radio and online, although there’s always room for improvement, so even if the TV Licence wasn’t required, I’d be happy to pay a wider-ranging subscription, but for everything else, just let me pick what I want, when I want, in what format I want.

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The ‘second screen’ is an integral part of life…

August 18, 2011 By

I happened to watch the excellent Concrete Circus on Monday whilst staying with my parents (It’s available via 4OD at the moment). It’s a great programme about five amazingly talented urban sports stars attempting to make their latest and greatest videos, and heavily references the audience they’ve attracted by sharing their athletecism on Youtube.

I’ve always been a fan of urban sports (skateboarding, urban trials, parkour and BMW in this example), and for once the description of ‘jaw dropping action’ is pretty true. But I was also a little surprised when I suddenly realised the difference apparent across the living room.

My dad was sat engrossed in the action in his chair, occasionally chatting to me about what was on screen. At the same time, I’m sat with my laptop, sharing some thoughts on Twitter and also picking up on each mention of the Youtube clips which made each athlete famous, and saving each one to watch later. It wasn’t that I was using my laptop whilst watching TV – it was the fact that it was so natural that I didn’t even acknowledge it was out of the ordinary until my parents mentioned it after around 30 minutes or so.

Incidentally, having already seen videos of Danny McAskill and Kilian Martin, it was the parkour that amazed me the most, e.g.:

What I started wondering was whether it’s right to call the PC or iPad the ‘second screen’ as TV broadcasters and most media firms would have us believe. Or is it actually that the TV now occupies a similar spot in many ways to radio, in which we’ll have it on, but only pay attention when something grabs us. If I looked at my Twitter usage on a Sunday, I would guess that it builds for about 30 minutes before each MotoGP race, stops for 50 minutes while the race is happening, and then kicks off after the finish, as I mix the pre and post-race interviews and commentary with my thoughts and reactions, and those of my friends and peers.

And mobile is bringing this out with us, whether it’s the likes of QR Codes and Augmented Reality, or even something as simple as Google search. At the National Space Museum recently, I came across some information about astronomer Tyhco Brahe, and found the name familiar for some reason. Within seconds I’d realised it was from online comic Penny Arcade, and confirmed it via Wikipedia. And again,  whilst watching Exit Through The Gift Shop, I ended up researching elements of the programme for friends whilst watching it.

What’s interesting is that in all of these occasions, the computer/mobile usage was part prompted through my own desire for knowledge, and mainly prompted by the social aspects of being able to answer questions/provide context and sharing the knowledge I had access to. Plus there was a strong element of fact checking with a little error correction as well!

Given the value humans put of social activity as a species, it’s not only the interactive screen which should probably be denoted as the ‘first screen’, but it’s becoming vital that whatever you’re doing to get the attention of people, whether via broadcast media, or in a museum, you need to be aware of how to accomodate the ‘first screen’, or be able to successfully compete with it (a riskier strategy unless you can jump over buildings etc).

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From Twitter account to TV show pilot episode

February 22, 2010 By

With news that William Shatner is to star in the first TV show to be created from a Twitter account, it appears that microblogging is now the source of choice for media content.

It wasn’t so long ago that traditional blogs were all the rage as a source for book and TV deals – probably the most notable was Belle du Jour (who recently had her real identity revealed), whose Secret Diary of a Call Girl became first a book, and then a popular TV Show.

But now Shit My Dad Says has not only landed a TV deal which was signed last November, but with William Shatner reportedly set to star it’s been greenlit for a pilot episode on CBS, with the creators of Will & Grace on board as executive producers.

With over 1.1 million followers, there’s definitely a fanbase for the show – but will any of the humour survive considering how much adult language is involved?

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A blog plug for something I’m not involved in…

December 8, 2009 By

I realise I’ve been blogging a fair bit about my day job recently – it’s hard to avoid when I work with really cool people who insist on launching interesting stuff all the time. But to redress the balance somewhat, here’s a plug for something really interesting for someone’s elses work.

It’s the awesome Slingers , created and written by the equally awesome Mike Sizemore. And aside from being cool, it’s also fascinating to see how the process has been blogged about, tweeted (@sizemore is always entertaining, and @sleepydog is always interesting).

It’s genuinely the most promising TV show created by someone who I’ve occasionally sat nearby at a social media conference, and who shares my appreciation of comics and Swedish cinema.

And it’s already receiving a shedload of tweets, blog posts, Facebook pages and more, so could make an interesting case study…

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Stocktwits gets funding, Bit.ly get’s safer, Cli.gs gets bought

December 2, 2009 By

The Twitter ecosystem is busy as always, so rather than try to write 20 posts to cover everything purely for SEO benefit, I thought I’d round up three things which stood out:

Stocktwits has gained $3 million in another round of financing for the social and microblogging network for the stock market. It’s interesting that the service has spun out of Twitter, building its own platform and Adobe Air desktop application which came into life in September. In addition Stocktwit.tv seems to be taking off.

Rather than building your own social network from scratch, perhaps a more realistic plan is to build community on the main Twitter site, before spinning off as Stocktwits have done – a technique that would work on any social network…

URL shortener Bit.ly (as set as the default shortener on Twitter, and heavily used by yours truly) has announced a partnership with security firms including Websense, Sophos and VeriSign to help address the problems of spam and malware-spreading shortened links which are otherwise difficult to spot (Bit.ly already offers a plugin to expand links before you click on them). That adds onto Twitter’s malware detection, and Bit.ly’s spam filtering.

For reference, Bit.ly shortens 35-40 million links a day, and apparently spam links make up less than 0.5% of that number…

And finally, fellow url shortener Cli.gs has been bought by social bookmarking site Mr Wong. That’s good news for users, and also for the White House, which uses Cli.gs. The reason for the sale is given as the time and effort needed on behalf of the founder – something which makes sense in the context of Bit.ly’s 40 million links a day!

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BBC reminds me of two elements of consumer satisfaction

August 17, 2009 By

I’m a big fan of much of the work the BBC does online, and in general it does a very good job of providing a massive amount of content in a fairly logical manner.

But using the site as a consumer with a couple of urgent needs highlighted a couple of things which I think are good lessons for any website:

Multi-channel delivery:

I’m a huge fan of the BBC iPlayer, and the fact it allows me to watch good quality online and on-demand television. So on Sunday morning, I rushed to watch Match of the Day, having missed it on Saturday night (and with the Absolute Radio Fantasy Football game meaning I need to pay extra attention to every team this year!).

But the listing was greyed out – and with no reason given, I had to presume it was down to the licensing rights for the Premier League.

So it was a bit weird to be looking for something else a bit later, and stumble across it in the sport section! (Flaw here was attempting to browse my way to it, rather than using the site or Google search.)

The lesson: If you’re putting out content through two difference channels for whatever reason, then link between them! And always try to explain why someone can’t access something if they might logically think they should.

Reassurance:

The BBC carries a lot of event coverage, particularly in areas such as music, and especially sport. For example, it’s great to be able to watch the MotoGP series via the BBC, and also great to be able to see the full list of races (125 and 250cc) online, as my TV set-up seems to struggle with the Red Button Freeview channels.

But although it’s nice to see everything go live at the same time, as if a single switch somewhere brings everything to life, unless you’ve got Freeview and the website running at the same time, it isn’t that impressive. And the fact the online feed wasn’t listed from the MotoGP page of the Sport section until the video went live two minutes after the listed time meant that I probably wasn’t the only one frantically refreshing the page to see if it would appear or if there was a problem.

The lesson: If you’re covering an event that starts at a specific time, why not have a page and link ready and live in advance, which can provide a bit of reassurance for internet users? That way, we can relax knowing that everything will go live at noon, for example, rather than worrying that there’s a technical fault with 1 minute to go. Whatever happens afterwards, we’re already stressed and less likely to enjoy and appreciate your hard work!

 

I’m still a huge fan of the BBC, and there are hundreds of sites which could have been used for the same points – the reason it stood out for me was that I was a completely powerless consumer. Reinforcing the final lesson – always look at your website as a consumer trying to achieve something.

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Does mainstream media really boost Twitter followers?

January 26, 2009 By

There’s been some coverage of the appearance of Twitter on Friday Night with Jonathan Ross, due to both @wossy and guest @stephenfry not only being ‘celebs who Twitter’, but actualy ‘celebs who really get how Twitter works’.

Martin Belam calculated that Stephen Fry had increased his follower count by 16% between the filming on Thursday and Sunday morning.

Personally, I’d have calculated any effect from when the programme was first shown, as that’s when new followers would appear. Neville Hobson used Twittercounter to count 4000 new followers for StephenFry in the first 24 hours, but really focuses on the increase in activity and conversation from existing Twitter users about the TV mention. (Techcrunch UK also has a summary of the TV coverage)

But hang on a minute.

Even if we take the total at 10.30pm on Sunday, @stephenfry has gained 8864 from an audience of 4million+. Meanwhile 84% of his followers appeared before the mass media appearance, by finding him on Twitter and spreading the word.

So he gained 8/10 followers by conversation, word of mouth and social networking, and just 2/10ish by broadcasting on the biggest national TV station in the UK.

Does mainstream media coverage really boost followers or validate Twitter?

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Creative inspiration – interviews with TV writers

January 8, 2009 By

It’s easy to like Charlie Brooker for his ability to rip something apart in a suitably scathing way, but sometimes he also betrays himself by giving away insights into how to build something up in the first place.

Which is why I’ve spent a happy 50 minutes watching a Screenwipe episode in which he interviews some brilliant TV writers about how and why they write.

The writers are Russell T Davies (Doctor Who), Graham Linehan (Father Ted, the I.T Crowd), Paul Abbott (Shameless), Tony Jordan (Eastenders, Hustle), Jesse Armstrong and Sam Bain (Peep Show), and Brooker himself wrote Dead Set, which is on Channel 4 at the moment.

Highly recommended for anyone doing anything creative – it’s inspirational, makes writing seem hard but possible, and helps remind everyone that there’s no set rule on how to do it, aside from hard work.

Sadly, the fact it’s on the otherwise brilliant iPlayer means:

  • I can’t embed it.
  • The chuffing thing will be gone in 5 days (or 30 if I download it).
  • The fact I want to watch it again and again in the future means some enterprising person will have to illegally steal it and distribute it.
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Internet pirates will sail the streams…

September 3, 2008 By

Interestingly, after postulating (and possibly posturing) my view on how streaming TV and video solutions are a bigger piracy threat than Peer-to-Peer services like Bitorrent (Which grab all the headlines and the attention of the multimedia industries), I spotted this: P2P traffic drops as streaming video grows in popularity.

While the Ars Technica article looks at legal streaming solutions, like the BBC iPlayer, Hulu and Veoh, the fact that it’s encouraging users to utilise faster broadband connections to consume content which is quicker, easier and safer to view means there’s likely to be an equally large amount of people realising ways they can share paid content for free via streaming websites.

Funnily enough, it’s not just problems with the content itself – The Spyware Guide blog reveals an example of a fake site claiming to stream the complete Batman: The Dark Knight movie – but the real motive is to get you to download a dodgy .exe file.

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The revolution will be televised – for free…

September 1, 2008 By

Despite the best efforts of various TV and music organisations, I’m more convinced than ever that content simply has to be made available for free, and monetised in a method other than subscriptions or Pay Per View.

Almost every day, there’s a new push by various industry groups to penalise file sharers, which is about as effective as trying to stop ants coming into your garden. But regardless, the focus on P2P file sharing seems to have ignored another delivery method which is just as damaging to the idea of paid content – if not moreso.

Yesterday I stumbled across the Chelsa – Tottenham London derby – a football (soccer for my U.S. readers) match that would either cost money to view, or require a trip to a pub. Instead I watched it in my house, for free, and in reasonable quality. I won’t say which site I watched, as obviously i don’t want to encourage illegal behaviour – but it didn’t require any downloads, any file sharing, or any effort on my part.

It was via a webcam sharing service, and quick research shows it’s definitely not the only one which is being used to distribute media content as much as lifestreaming webcams of individuals. What was really interesting was that a quick scan round showed the lifestreaming webcam shows were picking up as many as 100 viewers – whereas the live streaming of sporting events like the football was picking up over 10,000 viewers!

There have been ways for the determined to avoid paying for football etc for quite a few years, but all of them tended to require a software download, and a bit of guesswork (sometimes involving navigating Asian menus to find streams from the Far East for example – so I’ve been told!). But ttis method means no barriers, no hassles, and a quicker response than even official media players like the BBC iPlayer.

And if 10,000 watched the game with me, it’s not outside the realms of the imagination to picture at least another 50 or 100 sites offering the same content, with figures also in the thousands. The site I viewed certainly wasn’t the biggest or most well known in the genre – so are we saying 500,000 or 1,000,000 people were watching the game for free yesterday?

That number only grows with word-of-mouth, and removing one site or broadcaster will only see it replaced by more. In fact, with faster broadband, better webcams, and better ways of feeding live streams, it’d be even easier for a group of 5 or 10 people to club together and set up their own private network to share the costs of just one of them signing up for paid content.

And trying to shut down every example is akin to trying to cut the grass with a pair of nail scissors….

I’ve talked about how TV companies can still monetise themselves, and at the moment, there’s a little opportunity for content that exists at the edges of popularity, because it’s hard to find a stream. But all it takes is one person with a webcam to solve that problem…

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