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Buy and Stream TV Shows on… YouTube?

Some speculation that Google/YouTube may be entering the pay-per-download or pay-per-stream… allowing people to watch advertising-free shows on their computer or web-enabled television the day after they air. Apple, as we discussed in this rather fabulous post, is also believed to be entering this space.

What’s not clear is how the networks will behave… torn between a desire to follow their audiences online, but a fear of pissing off cable. A timeless challenge. Do I play nice with those who have power and control in the value-chain? Or do I declare my independence and do what my customers want? Tough trade-offs with huge dollars at stake long-term implications.

My two cents… there’s always going to be some intermediaries between viewers and content creators. So why not cut short-term, non-exclusive deals with technology providers on your terms?

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31 Comments

  1. I have nothing to add really since I no longer own a TV and watch mostly news on the net and youtube type junk, but I would like to remind readers and the consumer that you, JQ Public, own all the airwaves and wires buried and hovering over this great land

    I do believe, networks, who pay no rent for the use of the biggest and probably most important commodity in the US, will do just about anything they can for you not to realize that and like Bill Gates, who was late to the whole internet game, these folks are cursing the day they let the internet get away from them.

    Flex your power.

  2. The term paper is on “Faith and Reason”. Doesn’t that sound like fun?

    My opening line is… “I have faith that I will have a good morning shit because of the reason that I eat lots of fiber.”

  3. That sounds like an interesting paper. Go back to Nalts’s tweets on the day of the Balloon Boy for a study in the application of faith and reason.

  4. I simply don’t understand not watching television. How can one avoid the most important invention of the last 100 years? Love it or loathe it, you know it’s true. I certainly have no trouble lurking and watching TV at the same time.

  5. @10 “Lurking”? I assure you sir or madam that I have no time for such profligacy.
    @11 Not watching TV gives your brain time to reboot itself. Try it. It’s fun. Try unplugging your set and doing something else for a week. Your brain will reboot and clear its cache and delete old cookies and colors will be brighter and sounds fuller and the air will taste fresh in your nostrils…….Try it!

  6. @11 Most of the stuff on TV is garbage interrupted every few minutes with tons of advertisement. Sure there are a few good shows (I’m rather fond of House M.D.), but I’m not willing to pay good money for TiVo when you can legally watch them with much minimal advertisement online.

    So yeah, even though cable is included in my rent and I could afford a TV if I wanted one, I’m just not interested.

  7. My brain has plenty of time and room for both garbage and quality pursuits. Denying oneself junk food and sweets completely never works in my experience. Plus, it’s good to know thine enemy. TV gives you a way to see what the really stupid people are up to.

    I think I’m mainly responding to the adversarial, “TV bad, internet good” thing on this blog. It seems like an artificial and unhelpful dichotomy.

  8. I’m trying to make amazon video work on my TV. Doesn’t work. And I can’t get the cable to reach the TV. So screw it. Hey- did look at the top most-popular videos on YouTube and 90 percent of them are shane dawson.

  9. @13 I admire your command of the English language, sir. I enjoy the use of words like “redolent” and “profligacy”. (Isn’t “redolent” usually used for less malodorous things though?)

    @15 I don’t recall anyone advocating the dichotomy you are referring to. There is certainly an overabundance of utterly worthless garbage on the internet too.

  10. @17
    Thanks. And perhaps I should have written that Nutcheese’s term paper WAFTS redolent in the nostrils of my mind, something prolix like that, but I wouldn’t want to wax pleonastic around here, not with all these boob tube watchers watching.

  11. @18 Hahaha! “…wafts redolent in the nostrils of my mind” That’s perfect! Neither prolix nor pleonastic; simply poetic.

  12. Who the f@ck is Shane Dawson? I ain’t never read about him in Us Weekly or seen him on the TV.

  13. Good words guys. I like how some folks use language to obscure and impress, while others naturally use language that most clearly expresses their thoughts. Of course, I fall in the latter category. HA! Now for some more boob tube…

    You can’t deny that there is an anti-TV bias here.

  14. And I think it’s quite appropriate that you two are so familiar with terms like prolix and pleonastic.

  15. oops

    @5 kinda

    @13211 agree

    @11 the net is far more important than TV, heck radio is more important that TV – TV has dumbed us down

    @15 there’s a difference between a Godiva chocolate and a snickers bar.

    shanedawson= sara lee cheesecake

    @16 I try to stay off the front page

  16. @16
    Wait. You “can’t get the cable to reach the TV”??? What’s wrong with moving the TV to the cable? Or buying more cable at Radio Shack?

    Kevin! Have you been watching a lot of brain-numbing TV again?

  17. I guess I’m the minority here…I can’t do without my tv. Then again, I don’t Twitter much, don’t Facebook much and this is the only blog I visit. I’m no tv junkie or anything, I’m just addicted to TruTV the “Actuality, Not reality tv.” Although they started running that repo fake ass shit that I can’t stand! I love all the true crime stuff though. Sitting in front of my computer for long periods of time doesn’t do anything for me. Well unless they made a 46″ monitor for my living room, but wouldn’t that just be like watching tv anyway?

    Oh, and I don’t watch commercials…I DVR everything and I mean EVERYTHING. If it just starts, I DVR it then watch it later so I can FWD thru the commercials.

    Pay to watch something online? No way. Service providers will get stuck with the bill just like cable providers are now. Then there will be big pissing matches all over again and our montly service will just go up.

  18. I secretly shrunk so much of my sister’s clothes in the washer/dryer that she went out and bought herself an exercise machine. Plus she’s cursing the social worker who bought her “a bunch of cildren’s clothes to small for me!”

    Muahauhauhau

  19. Television is for squares!

    …except for SNL, Conan O’Brien, Psych, and Ghosthunters. I watch those ones. Other than that, nothing. The internet is the place for ol’ Reuben.

  20. Nalts, now that the cable companies are buying up the networks, maybe this means giants like Comcast will become more open to online streaming since the revenues will go directly to them. That is, assuming they can sidestep the issue of cannibalization.

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