Crowdsourcing TV
Here's my question: why hasn't someone come up with crowdsourcing TV yet?
Now, my definition of crowdsourcing TV would be different from what you'd expect, because essentially what I'm going to outline is a subscription service for a particular show; but you'll understand why I use the terms in a minute.
The other day I was reading a Yahoo story about "shows that are in trouble;" that is, shows that have low ratings and will probably be cancelled. I have had a number of shows that I loved that got cancelled far before their time ("Journeyman," "Surface," "Firefly," "[Something] on the Sunset Strip"). I've also read stories about shows that got saved by viewer enthusiasm and outcry; I think "Jericho" was one, but probably the most famous (and successful) is Family Guy.
I've always thought, when I show gets cancelled, "if I had the money, I'd pay for it to keep going." I think at the time I had heard some show cost $1m an episode to produce, and I thought to myself: "If I had 50 million dollars; I might pay to save a show."
So what if I didn't need 50 million dollars? What if I only needed five dollars, because there were a million other people who also wanted to save the show? And since five million @ a million dollars an episode = five episodes, I could pay five dollars a month and keep the show on.
OR: I could make a deal with the company and say: "I'll pay for half the show if you pay for half. I'm bringing down your costs incredibly, why don't you make my dollars go further?" Then, I get ten shows for five dollars and I'm only paying that every other month!
Do you see how quickly this works?
The funny thing is that I don't know if fan networks are as solid these days, even with all the interconnectivity. For instance: could the Facebook fans of "The Mob Doctor" (one of the shows Yahoo! thinks will die first) set up an Indie-a-go-go account and raise a million dollars in dribs and drabs and offer to pay for half the costs of the show in order to sustain it? (Maybe they could pay for advertising and then vote to sponsor particular non-profit ads.)
It would really be a direct way of putting production into the hands of consumers and would give the studios and networks a way to save costs on production. People would literally vote with their dollars.
Of course, there are multiple questions:
1. Are viewers too fickle? If this show dies, is there enough entertainment around that they'll just skip to something else and forget about it?
2. How do you create a structure of trust, so that A) you know you're not getting screwed by the company (who says they won't just take your money and cancel the show?) and B) there is someone to make decisions, so that the mob doesn't descend into chaos?
==
There was another idea I had concerning cancelled show that people loved and that was to turn them into comic books or graphic novels. If the show could prove it had enough fans, the production company could solicit backing to create a graphic novel series that would continue the story (or at least take it to a more natural conclusion). I thought of this while watching an recent series called "Kyle XY." While there were a lot of problems with the show, I still got caught up in the mystery of the story and wanted to see how it "ended." Unfortunately even the extras on the DVDs (which we found on YouTube) just had the producers talking about vague ideas of how the show would have developed without any specific storylines. If they had a different medium they might have been able to keep the writers employed and kept the fans on the hook for another season or two.
Which brings up another point: could you just ask for fan funding and then move the show to the web? The people who pay for it put in their money upfront (which means they don't control access; anyone can watch the show), which they do hopefully because they love the show. Then the show continues to get made and has the possibility of gaining more fans and maybe being picked up again. There's all kinds of things that could happen.
Crowdsourcing is an exciting new phenomenon and I'd like to see it go further and be used in new and creative ways.
Now, my definition of crowdsourcing TV would be different from what you'd expect, because essentially what I'm going to outline is a subscription service for a particular show; but you'll understand why I use the terms in a minute.
The other day I was reading a Yahoo story about "shows that are in trouble;" that is, shows that have low ratings and will probably be cancelled. I have had a number of shows that I loved that got cancelled far before their time ("Journeyman," "Surface," "Firefly," "[Something] on the Sunset Strip"). I've also read stories about shows that got saved by viewer enthusiasm and outcry; I think "Jericho" was one, but probably the most famous (and successful) is Family Guy.
I've always thought, when I show gets cancelled, "if I had the money, I'd pay for it to keep going." I think at the time I had heard some show cost $1m an episode to produce, and I thought to myself: "If I had 50 million dollars; I might pay to save a show."
So what if I didn't need 50 million dollars? What if I only needed five dollars, because there were a million other people who also wanted to save the show? And since five million @ a million dollars an episode = five episodes, I could pay five dollars a month and keep the show on.
OR: I could make a deal with the company and say: "I'll pay for half the show if you pay for half. I'm bringing down your costs incredibly, why don't you make my dollars go further?" Then, I get ten shows for five dollars and I'm only paying that every other month!
Do you see how quickly this works?
The funny thing is that I don't know if fan networks are as solid these days, even with all the interconnectivity. For instance: could the Facebook fans of "The Mob Doctor" (one of the shows Yahoo! thinks will die first) set up an Indie-a-go-go account and raise a million dollars in dribs and drabs and offer to pay for half the costs of the show in order to sustain it? (Maybe they could pay for advertising and then vote to sponsor particular non-profit ads.)
It would really be a direct way of putting production into the hands of consumers and would give the studios and networks a way to save costs on production. People would literally vote with their dollars.
Of course, there are multiple questions:
1. Are viewers too fickle? If this show dies, is there enough entertainment around that they'll just skip to something else and forget about it?
2. How do you create a structure of trust, so that A) you know you're not getting screwed by the company (who says they won't just take your money and cancel the show?) and B) there is someone to make decisions, so that the mob doesn't descend into chaos?
==
There was another idea I had concerning cancelled show that people loved and that was to turn them into comic books or graphic novels. If the show could prove it had enough fans, the production company could solicit backing to create a graphic novel series that would continue the story (or at least take it to a more natural conclusion). I thought of this while watching an recent series called "Kyle XY." While there were a lot of problems with the show, I still got caught up in the mystery of the story and wanted to see how it "ended." Unfortunately even the extras on the DVDs (which we found on YouTube) just had the producers talking about vague ideas of how the show would have developed without any specific storylines. If they had a different medium they might have been able to keep the writers employed and kept the fans on the hook for another season or two.
Which brings up another point: could you just ask for fan funding and then move the show to the web? The people who pay for it put in their money upfront (which means they don't control access; anyone can watch the show), which they do hopefully because they love the show. Then the show continues to get made and has the possibility of gaining more fans and maybe being picked up again. There's all kinds of things that could happen.
Crowdsourcing is an exciting new phenomenon and I'd like to see it go further and be used in new and creative ways.
posted by Michael | 10:59 AM
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