The 8-day policy never made any sense to me. Let's say I have a show I regularly watch live on Monday nights. Then one week, I miss it. Since I don't want to watch the episodes out of order, I can't watch new episodes live for the rest of the season unless I grab a pirated copy so I'm caught up before the next episode. Otherwise, I just skip one week and watch the rest of the season on Tuesdays via Hulu.
This just smells like corporate bureaucracy, and it is unfortunate, because it helps no one.
The entire business model is based on people paying extra to watch "now".
If you look at the cost to watch a movie, the earlier you want it the more you pay.
It starts with theaters, then pay per view, then buy it, then expensive rentals, then cheap rentals, and finally tv movie. You have b-list theaters somewhere in the last as well, and I may have missed some other places.
If you are willing to wait to watch your shows you will pay a LOT less for them. But apparently most people are not willing to wait, otherwise this model would not work.
It's rather annoying when the rules are changed in the middle of the game. That's basically what happened here, with the final episodes of Master Chef (my current guilty pleasure) suddenly going to an eight day delay after the first 95% of the season was available on a one day delay.
I accidentally stumbled upon the winner of the show during my eight day wait for the episode to come to Hulu, and now I have no incentive to watch the final episodes and give Fox/Hulu whatever ad revenue they'd get from that.
The Hulu comments have been filled with angry viewers, some of which are listing the sites where people can go to pirate the show.
> I accidentally stumbled upon the winner of the show during my eight day wait for the episode to come to Hulu, and now I have no incentive to watch the final episodes and give Fox/Hulu whatever ad revenue they'd get from that.
So why watch the show at all? Wait until the end of the season and read the results on the Internet.
If you find yourself about to object, then perhaps you do have an incentive to watch the final episodes. Otherwise, I just saved you 12 hours of your life. ;)
There's a reason they are called "spoilers": They ruin much of the impact of the actual show without providing a corresponding reward.
Your suggestion is similar to saying, "So you've eaten five pounds of cupcakes and now you don't feel like eating a proper dinner? Either you don't need a proper dinner at all, or you really do want to eat this vegetable platter!"
My point was that the purpose of watching this kind of TV show isn't to gain specific knowledge; it's about the progression of events towards the goal.
I just finished "Star Trek: Voyager", so I'll use that as my example. In the first episode, they get stranded far away from home. You know they're going to make it home because that's how stories work. Does that make the show spoiled? Well, they saw reason to make 7 seasons of 24 episodes, so I'm guessing it wasn't spoiled.
Actually, studies[0] have shown that spoilers make stories more enjoyable.
Studies found that spoilers make stories more enjoyable or one study involving a very homogeneous group found that people reported more enjoyment from stories they were forced to read if those stories had been spoiled?
I'm not sure there's actually enough evidence to even validate that study as showing what it appears to show, much less to generalize the result to all humans everywhere.
I understand that. The problem is, at least for me, time is not enough of a differentiator to make it worth my while. If they removed commercials, for example, then it might be more compelling, but I'm hardly going to pay for a service and still be forced to watch ads.
Does anyone know why the FOX considers an 8 day delay superior to a 6 day delay? Both are 'about' a week, but one sets you up to start watching the show live, while the other sets you up to stop watching the show.
Likewise, networks that start selling DVDs for season X only after season X+1 is underway. Seems to be almost the norm. Why not preserve the opportunity to convert customers to the most lucrative channel? At least with DVDs there's significant revenue involved.
Do these people realize that there are a lot of pirates that pay for their ability to pirate things? Between seedboxes, or usenet, or a faster internet connection, or extra disk space...some of these people are paying as much to download this stuff illegally as they would if they just bought a cable subscription.
And, honestly, the lack of ads is a bonus, it's not the sole reason pirates pirate.
How the hell the media companies continue to screw this up is baffling. They've got a product that people want really bad. And yet...they don't really want to give it to people?
Huh?
If people were banging down my door to use a product that I had created, I think I would probably be working my ass off to facilitate their ability to pay me for it.
For places like FX, which carries several shows that I like: why on earth can't I just stream FX from your website?
I pay about $15/month for my legitimate newsgroups access and search engine. I think that's more than we pay for Netflix and Hulu, combined.
But my cable/Hulu/Netflix streaming bill isn't where Fox's revenue comes from - it comes from their advertisers. If they sell me their shows in a convenient .avi format, they're gaining me at $10/month, but they're losing every single company that pays for me to watch their commercials.
This means each user is worth $0.01 per minute of commercials. The average American watches ~4 hours per day, 25% of which is commercial advertising, which comes out to 30 hours per month of commercials. That's 1800 minutes of commercials.
I am in this business. The CPM (cost per thousand impressions) actually varies quite a bit by daypart (time of day) and channel (broadcast, syndicated or cable). Primetime CPM is around $20-30. For daytime or cable TV it can be less than $10.
And then CPM for online video like Hulu is totally different as well - due to a number of factors, such as the smaller number of spots, the difference in attention paid, the quirks of Nielsen ratings on the web, and the clickthru opportunity.
There was some hubbub a while back about how CPMs for a 30s spot in the Simpsons on Hulu was actually going for more than a new episode of the Simpsons on Fox (something like $60 vs $30).
Most of the TV you watch on Hulu is prime content and even though it is online, you can expect a CPM of $25-50.
Very interesting. If I were to want to read up on this type of info (advertising, new media versus old, etc.) with actual dollar examples, are there any sites in particular you'd recommend?
I understand, but I was curious if there was any leading site for such news? Not necessarily like HN or reddit, but, an industry blog that does a good job of keeping people informed.
But aren't there special events for which the broadcasters can extract a higher per viewer fee, the Superbowl comes to mind, also any 'final' of a sports or other competition. I wonder how much they make on those events compared to normal 'prime time' broadcasting.
Selling content below cost sounds good at first, because right now The Man is getting nothing at all from pirates. Something — however small — has gotta be better than nothing, right?
But the Internet treats price discrimination as damage. Pretty soon everybody will be paying "pirate prices" and Fox will only be able to afford to produce reality TV. Perhaps such a new equilibrium is inevitable, but every year they can delay it is another year before the executives have to find new jobs.
I think the point is market segmentation and ancient distribution channels/agreements are holding them back. This is why things like Hulu end up being US-only. Why they can't get this stuff right even within the same market? Well for one, they are struggling even with what they have. E.g. a number of episodes of The Big Bang Theory would crash the browser at the third (final) commercial segment consistently (even after restarting the browser and attempting to skip to the that commercial segment). They can't even get the tech to do the limited amount that they do now right.
So what is needed is a world wide network that can automatically insert relevant regional/local ads into popular shows so that they can be streamed online with no region restrictions.
Sounds like a good startup idea for a seasoned founder, since they're more likely to get 'color' levels of funding required to do this at scale from the get go. As unfortunately I don't see this kind of startup getting traction in a limited market, hence go big or go home levles of funding.
I pay for Netflix and Hulu Plus streaming (the latter of which still comes with ads). If it's not on there, I feel like I've done my due diligence and have no ethical dilemma with pirating.
I have a simpler standard: if the price being asked for digital content is less than or equal to the value I expect to receive, I'll purchase it. If it isn't and I can't find a legitimate lower price then I won't get the digital content.
I have no problems rewarding businesses (or individuals) which produce content of value to me. If it's not of sufficient value that I'd pay for it, why would I watch it anyways?
When you pirate something, you're sending the message that you want the content. Whey you don't watch something, the producers can't be sure if it's because it's simply not to your taste, or that you just don't like the mandatory delivery mechanism. Network middlemen aren't interested in "alternate" distribution mechanisms, but the people that actually want get paid for producing content are. Every time you pirate something, the world is one step closer to one where you can just visit a TV show's website, pay $1, and download this week's episode. Let's get there faster.
And anyway, is it even piracy when it was already broadcast into your house? (Anyone can watch Fox for free with a big enough antenna.) I can pay someone to clean my house; why can't I pay someone to videotape my TV shows?
> When you pirate something, you're sending the message that you want the content.
That, I think, is an undervalued point here - Piracy as a signaling mechanism is, I think, why an awful lot of what's currently out there for digital delivery (Hulu, especially) exists.
The industry's still not entirely sure what a viable market model looks like - that's part of the reason why Fox pulled their 8-day move. Bittorrent's shown people will do it for free, Hulu's shown more people will do it if it's easier even if they have to watch ads, Netflix has shown people will pay for it (though recently they've shown the selection needs to be bigger), but nobody's hit the magic bullet that both consumers and industry will accept yet.
In the mean time, piracy is certainly a valuable signal for the industry that demand exists - it's just that the price and mechanisms aren't right yet. (I'm sure the content producers feel the same way /s)
"In the mean time, piracy is certainly a valuable signal for the industry that demand exists - it's just that the price and mechanisms aren't right yet. (I'm sure the content producers feel the same way /s)"
If you can get a show in HD quality, very fast, without commercials, and at no cost..nothing will compete with it that costs money.
Content producers shouldn't have to consider pirates the competition.
At this rate, the answer will be a forced monthly fee/tax through all of the major Internet providers.
The present article suggests the opposite, if you replace "costs money" with "has ads". Else, why did piracy rates drop significantly when Hulu was launched, and spike again as shows were pulled?
Also as counterexample, lots of people pay for Netflix.
I read an excellent argument against this idea not too long ago in an HN comment. I wish I could track it down because I am going to do an awful job paraphrasing it, but it basically amounts to this:
To ask someone not to participate in media (watch videos) is tantamount to asking someone not to participate in culture. Cultural participation is a basic human need: people will go to great lengths, will in fact in despotic, tyrannical, totalitarian or fascistic regimes go so far as to actually risk their own lives and the lives of their loved ones to participate in unsanctioned culture. Whether the sanction comes by way of money or by way of politics, it is no matter.
The idea that "not watching the videos" is somehow an option ignores this basic (desperate) human need to participate in culture. It's not going to happen. Media existed before money and before despots. Media is what happens when a culture expresses itself. People are going to watch Jerry Springer, The Sopranos, and listen to Lady Gaga and listen to Woodie Guthrie, money or no (though when payment is convenient, we all know what happens). They will in fact lay down their lives to do so if the circumstances demand it. If that's the case, (and we often find ourselves praising the bravery of such individuals in those cases), then it doesn't seem to me to make any sense to become moralistically reversed when the matter isn't of death but of a few measly dollars.
Of course "not watching the videos" is an option. You decide your own culture. What if your friends don't watch TV? Then, you won't feel a need to view a show immediately upon release -- I certainly don't.
All of your friends could go to a $100/mo gym. Sure, you would have a "need" to participate in this culture. But, "not going to the gym" is perfectly acceptable too. After all, your friends may like you for more than your gym membership! Or, you could find new friends. Or, you could make up an excuse. It's not the end of the world.
This is a very narrow view of culture. If culture is simply any given activity, then yes, you decide your own culture. But if culture is simply any given activity, then we are talking about two different things. One can either go to the gym or not go to the gym and still be a part of the general culture in which one exists and be conversant in that culture. But one cannot abstain from all media and still be a part of that culture. We refer to such individuals as deprived, unfortunate, uneducated idiots. We in fact expect people to be conversant in culture through familiarity with available media. We say, "It is your responsibility to know yourself and know the world." One can do neither except via engagement with media. If there is a bureaucratic or fiscal or political lock-down on culture, we cannot say, "Well, too bad for those individuals, they'll just have to suffer their existence as deprived, unfortunate, uneducated, idiots." Yes, it is not that bad for anyone in the U.S. Yes, we are saturated with media. And, no, no one is suffering to any real extent because of the 8-day FOX hold on Hulu releases. But that's hardly the issue when someone says, "You don't like the price? Go eat worms." People have a right to watch Jerry Springer without paying a dime for it. Which isn't to say that one shouldn't charge a dime.
Edit: I said "U.S." above, but I really mean any culture for whom Hulu is not just a gibberish word.
Yes, but the aspects of the culture you're expected to know is purely dependent on your circle of friends. If you choose to hang out with entrepreneurs, your knowledge of the latest TV shows is irrelevant, and perhaps even looked down upon :)
So on that note, people should have to pay to watch Jerry Springer, if that's what the content producer wants.
I do not gain or lose anything (aside from my time) from watching or not watching Jerry Springer, or any other TV show. Perhaps I am lucky that none of my friends watch TV, but TV is a luxury. If you want to be part of a group whose "culture" involves watching the latest TV shows, joining expensive gyms, or even starting companies, then that is your choice. The value you gain from paying for these activities is in part feeling more connected to your friends, feeling part of a privileged group, or just personal satisfaction. Clearly, there is no inherent "need" to watch any TV show.
How convenient it is that media companies can perpetually turn last year's luxury into today's necessity, yet when their opponents use the same argument against them, they feel free to roll back the clock and declare everything beyond basic caloric sustenance a luxury once again.
This is not an argument about what or what doesn't constitute a good or healthy life; it is an argument about what is an acceptable barrier to cultural access and about the kind of moralizing that goes on around supposed breaches of property rights, where such (non)property includes such things as story, song, meaning, thought, abstraction and explanation, i.e. culture. You can't inject such things into people's lives and expect to keep control of them without resorting to really horrible treatment of your fellow human beings.
In this case piracy doesn't affect the willingness to buy the product and it also doesn't hurt the producer, in fact the producer may still make a profit through merchandise and a satisfied viewer may provide free advertisment.
I don't see how this could possibly be ethically wrong.
Regardless of the ethical justifications, and even if you have an ostensible legal right to be watching a show (e.g. you have a cable subscription and you recorded the show with your DVR), their watchdogs will still send DMCA notices to your ISP if you happen upon a file they are watching.
The tacit assumption you're making is that all wishes should command equal respect. They shouldn't. If the wishes of a creator include his creation not being available to buy where I live, well then, fuck his wishes.
I pay for Netflix and Hulu Plus streaming (the latter of which still comes with ads). If it's not on there, I feel like I've done my due diligence and have no ethical dilemma with pirating.
I tried to find a $200 Porsche, but couldn't so I had no problem stealing one.
I tried to find a $200 Porsche, but couldn't so I had no problem stealing one.
At first glance this might seem a fine refutation of the earlier point, but upon deeper inspection, it falls back on the fallacy that digital data is analogous to tangible property. By stealing a Porsche (whatever be your motivation) you are denying another person the right to his car. However, the same is untrue of pirating.
I am firmly of the belief that until we abandon the false and forced analogies and treat digital data and IP as something new, something that requires us to work out ethics and moral of afresh, we'll be stuck in this rut of old business models forcing new technology to fit into their mold and the consumers suffering because of bureaucracy.
I'll go further and state that the precise reason why Movie Studios and Recording Labels seemingly don't want to innovate and adopt new technologies to their benefit is precisely because of this thinking that immediately clouds all other possible arguments (oh, and maybe the people in charge of making decisions have got to the top because of their understanding of old technologies and therefore have little incentive to abandon that and embrace newer ways of doing business) /rant
I am firmly of the belief that until we abandon the false and forced analogies and treat digital data and IP as something new, something that requires us to work out ethics and moral of afresh, we'll be stuck in this rut of old business models forcing new technology to fit into their mold and the consumers suffering because of bureaucracy.
It's not analogous to stealing a Porsche, but it's not analogous to nothing either.
There's nothing particularly novel about it, people have been stealing services in ways that don't directly deprive anyone else for... well, quite some time. They've been sneaking into theaters, sneaking onto buses, and otherwise dishonestly using services that the honest people pay for, and which couldn't exist without them. It's just the old free rider problem.
Morally there's nothing "new" about it. And it's not particularly difficult to work out the answer to a question about "is it morally acceptable to sneak into a non-full movie theater?" The only question is whether you're prepared to behave immorally to save a few bucks.
Personally I value my self-respect a bit higher than that.
The studios are terrified because the moment someone figures out an effective metric, they're toast. Physical unit sales are easy - one CD sold, X dollars received, with corresponding breakdown to show what value they actually add (lying about their value-add is another thing entirely). One digital download - it's not so clear.
Ooh, a car analogy! Here's mine: I went to a car dealer and offered to pay for a copy of a car. But he wouldn't sell me one, so I found someone else who had the same kind of car and made a copy of theirs instead.
Analogies between digital and physical items regarding piracy are always fallacies.
His point is that if he CAN'T pay for it, having no avenue to give them revenue, then it doesn't hurt the content creator for the OP to consume the video for free.
When was the last time you talked to your friends about that episode that was broadcasted eight days ago? In case of media time is a very important aspect of the product that has a significant value.
Right, if I actually interacted with a distributor in any way, you might make a case that I owe them something. But the whole point is, that I have no interaction with the distributor, so I don't owe them anything. I'm not using their services, so I don't pay them for those services.
The content creator typically sells some or all rights to their content to a distributor. Often it's that money that allows the content to be made in the first place, and if the distributors weren't there you wouldn't have the same range as content as is available today.
The distributor is a very important part of the creation process at the moment.
And if distributors had anything to sell me that I wanted, maybe I would give them some money for it. But they don't sell anything I want to buy, and that's why I'm not giving them any money.
You don't want to buy it because you don't like the price they want to charge for the thing you want to consume, or you don't want to buy it because you have no interest in the product they're offering?
Actually, they do offer it (on Fox.com and Hulu.com) the next day to people who prove they are current Dish customers. They're surely extracting some money from Dish for this arrangement (the way ESPN 3 does from some ISPs), and they created a situation where you can indirectly pay for access to the cotent the next day (assuming Dish is available to you in your part of the world).
The way i'm reading it it's free to watch the next day on Hulu for existing Dish subscribers, or you can watch it on Hulu the next day if you're a Hulu Plus subscriber:
He isn't paying Hulu per episode watched, only per month. Fox and Hulu still get their money.
But, by your logic, purchasing any non-expiring stored media, such as a DVD, would deprive "the content creator (well, a distributor) the chance to make money from you consuming the content at some point in the future."
>He isn't paying Hulu per episode watched, only per month. Fox and Hulu still get their money.
...if Fox gets a cut of the Hulu subscription cost regardless of whether that individual watches any Fox content during the subscription period or not.
> But, by your logic, purchasing any non-expiring stored media, such as a DVD, would deprive "the content creator (well, a distributor) the chance to make money from you consuming the content at some point in the future."
Yes. But they've made your money off your consumption of that content at some point in time.
He hardly exhausted all avenues. He listed two avenues which cost a total of about $20 per month. Does anyone really believe that we will ever have access to all movies and television shows for $20 per month?
Since many of these comments discuss piracy and content distribution, allow me to give you an unprompted insight from a country which is in a worse situation than the USA.
As of today, the country I live in offer very few legal content distribution platform for movies and television shows, and none of them has neither tolerable pricing and acceptable DRM policies nor non-laughable title selection, proper listing & metadata—for example, I would not be able to know in which quality I am renting a movie. Anyway, most of the movies simply do not hit digital distribution.
Physical movie rental is dying quite rapidly for most obvious reasons, which means that the few remaining services are starving and offer nothing but the safest-hitting movies.
As a remarkably honest biped (who, e.g., bought two Adobe Suite licenses, one for his PC & one for his Mac, and has purchased WinRAR), I am thus being put in the hilariously paradoxical position where not only I am hardly incentivized to legally purchase content, but I am unable to do so. I am struggling to do so, and I can not; this is such a tragicomical condition that my fruitless effort to legally retrieve movies&shows has become a running joke within my circle of friends.
Adding insult to injury, every single major firm persists on sticking to this ridicolously unreasonable regional distribution paradigm—which adds basically no value even from a job-creation standpoint— whereas I would be absolutely happy to throw money at them by purchasing non-localized content.
P.S.
To be clear, I live in European first-world country, where the value of the movie market is more than big enough to justify sensible business investments.
I would be interested to see what happened if someone did that. My guess would be that the content producers (movie industry) would begin legal action as while you paid for the content you didn't pay for it in the manner they dictated.
The point of the cashier's check is that they don't know who you are. I have a hard time believing that someone who paid market value for the content and didn't even require distribution service would be in a worse position than someone who pirated the content and paid nothing.
For me, HBO Go does it right. My parents have cable and I pay for their HBO just for the HBO Go subscription. It comes with their ENTIRE archive of TV shows, every single episode of all their shows. Not to mention, I was able to watch Game of Thrones episodes as they came out the next morning before spoilers could make it to me, not much different than waiting for a show that airs in the east coast to hit prime time west coast.
Fox's problem is that they did this mid-season and they started with a FREE business model and then took it away. You can't give someone something for free and then half way through take it away and make me pay for it. It wouldn't make sense for me to want to pay for it, of course I would resort to something else.
And this is for 8 days. Imagine now people in the EU, who have to wait months to get a badly translated version or the original dvds, despite the fact that they understand english perfectly (and even if they don't, amateur subtitles are often available the next day).
Almost everyone simply downloads or views it illegally. The thing is it not only takes month for the series to arrive here, the DVDs are released only after the series has been shown on TV.
That is if the series is actually popular here and relatively easily available. Dexter, Weeds, Lost, Sons of Anarchy are a couple of series I can think of that are unpopular and therefore not as simple to come by.
Television shows on HBO and Showtime (Weeds from your list) are usually not available in the US until the DVDs come out, which is usually shortly before the next seasons starts.
I am aware of HBO Go, but it is not available unless one already has cable and HBO.
I have a proposal for advertisers to reach the audience most likely to skip advertisements and stream or download shows:
Instead of expecting viewers to put up with 18 minutes of mindless advertising for every 42 minutes of actual content, just show a ten second long list of sponsors at the beginning of the show (along with their general product category), after the opening credits.
Example:
We would like to thank the following corporations
for sponsoring the production of this show. Please
consider thanking them as well, by purchasing their
products.
PanCorp - Maker of fine non-stick cookware
Net Net - High-speed ISP, gigabit speeds
...
Then, the creators of the show would plead with uploaders to leave that ten second clip in. Advertisers could then count every download as a successful impression, and geeks like me who aren't significantly influenced by traditional advertising would learn about potentially interesting products and services.
I really don't think you understand how advertising works. I prescribe four seasons of Mad Men. (It's streaming on Netflix right now, y'know!)
geeks like me who aren't significantly influenced by traditional advertising
Do you really believe that you're magically superior to the things which influence the rest of the human race?
(If you do, then I know exactly how to make an ad to manipulate you already -- tell you what you want to hear by appealing to your sense of superiority.)
Do you really believe that you're magically superior to the things which influence the rest of the human race?
No, not magically, rationally. I deliberately disregard anything that is demarcated as an ad and look for and comment on things like product placement within shows. I've never seen a beer commercial with scantily-clad dancers and thought, "Man, I'd sure like a cold one." Cheap cable TV ads with flashing lights, out-of-gamut colors, and an 800 number repeated over and over just make me tune out and change the channel. I try to counteract the effect of logo and color familiarity by buying brands that look different from what I'd expect. Any time I learn of another subliminal advertising technique, I add a counterattack to my defensive arsenal. On top of that, if I record a show I use MythTV's commercial detection to skip ads entirely, and anyone who downloads their TV won't be seeing commercials either.
"But you're not in their target demographic." No kidding.
I'm not saying that I can't be reached by advertising -- I gave explicit directions for how to do so in my original post. I'm complaining that advertisers continue to reach to the same old bag of tricks, tricks that appeal to the lowest common denominator of animalistic behavior and consume 18 minutes of every programming hour. I'm saying those tricks don't work on me because I tune them out, skip them, block them, etc. I never answer surveys, I'm not a Nielsen participant, etc. I've tried contributing to media metrics with my Hulu viewing and rating habits, but Hulu continues to recommend shows from the same network rather than the same genre, and networks continue to alienate online viewers by delaying shows (Fox) or pulling them entirely (Syfy).
I'm offering a viable alternative for advertisers to earn money on someone like me, but advertisers seem to think they know better. In the mean time, I'll continue to apply whatever selective pressure I can to get advertisers and content producers to evolve.
(If you do, then I know exactly how to make an ad to manipulate you already -- tell you what you want to hear by appealing to your sense of superiority.)
I make a conscious effort to avoid this type of influence as well. [Edit: and I'm not motivated in this regard by a sense of superiority, either. The only sure way to influence me is with hard data demonstrating a high quality and utility of whatever product you're offering.]
Even if you can be reached by advertising (which, judging from the pride you take in averting it, I doubt), targeting you specifically would have a horrible ROI. You are not going to spend enough to make up for the loss of all the other people who respond to normal advertising.
This is the fallacy that is, IMO, killing online video. I am a tech guy with above-average lifetime income potential and influence on the high-tech purchasing decisions of my friends and family. I have money and want to spend it, but it seems nobody is selling what I'm looking to buy. I am not alone.
You're not alone, but are there as many of you as there are other people? Even if you and a hundred people like you spend 75% of your income on everything that's advertised according to your specifications, that's much less money than 5,000 people who make half as much as you do spending 5% of their income.
I don't expect anyone to give up the average consumer. I'm talking about earning money in venues in which there's a higher than typical concentration of geeks (e.g. online streaming of science fiction, P2P downloads). Sure, 5000 * .05 * x > 101 * .75 * 2 * x, but focusing on the first only gets (in this example) 62% of the available revenues. Why not capture some of that other 38% for significantly less effort than the 62%?
However, I do believe that manipulative advertising is a net detriment to society, regardless of how effective it is at reaching the average consumer.
It hardly matters if they put the sponsors in or not -- I personally skip the introductions to all the movies I watch, why should anybody not skip the sponsor list?
And I doubt anybody would upload a tv series episode where the commercials hadn't been cut out.
Advertisers and content producers seem to have a problem with people skipping their ads, going so far as to sue DVR makers for including a "skip 30 seconds" button. Clearly they believe there should be some kind of social contract[0], where they expect viewers to view their ads in exchange for watching the associated content. Such a social contract would be far more likely to be upheld if the ads consisted of a simple and informative list. Dedicated fans of TV shows will sacrifice ten seconds in order to support show creators. For that matter, they don't even need to watch the sponsor list for the full 10 seconds, as long as they know it's there, and that buying goods from those sponsors will keep their favorite show running.
[0] Actually it seems they want the force of law behind their business model...
This just smells like corporate bureaucracy, and it is unfortunate, because it helps no one.