Jan 04
The television flip of 2008
Tech with tags: tv, writers strike
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2004
“Oh man, the only content online is silly crud on YouTube of guys getting hit in the balls. Where is the quality of something like The West Wing?”
2008
“Oh man, the only content on network TV is silly reality crud. Where is the creativity of something like Ze Frank.”
With the writers strike we are seeing more and more reality shows on TV to fill the gap. On the other side of the coin we see investors grabbing the writers to get them building content online. As writers get success they can bypass the middle man, or, they can then sell back to the networks from a more powerful position.
January 4th, 2008 at 11:39 am
It makes me feel so dirty to even say it, but I’m starting to like the xbox ability to watch tv shows / movies more and more. If you’ve had to go from tivo to “OnDemand” you’ll know how depressing the transition can be. At least the console has an ok UI and I don’t have to bother with commercials.
Seems like the kind of place where more independent minded writers could flourish. (if it weren’t for the eVil overlords that probably control the content there ;) )
January 6th, 2008 at 6:21 pm
Good point … only one technical correction: YouTube didn’t exist in 2004 (even if it sold for 1.6B in 2006!).
During the 2004 election, there was the JibJab “This Land” video going round and IIRC the creators had to pay a fortune in bandwidth bills as they had no real option but to host it themselves.