Editorial

Ad-Supported Streaming Will Benefit Everyone

Source – Mandaley Entertainment

 "Oh, you got a letter? I got run over! Helen gets her hair chopped off, Julie gets a body in her trunk, and you get a letter? That's balanced!" – Barry, "I Know What You Did Last Summer," Mandalay Entertainment, 1997

We learned long ago that the best way to have peace in the home is for us to make the big decisions while the wife makes the small decisions.

We keep elephants out of the backyard, decide what we'll wear to the gym every morning (she's never up at that hour) and decide how many hours a day we'll work (she says the more the merrier) and well, that's about it.

She, in turn, decides when/where we go on vacation (she does "ask"), what she's going to have for dinner (she's a carnivore, we're not) and what is on our big screen TV in the evening.

But the other evening she gave us the control and said "we" could watch the movie we wanted to see – we have totally different genre interests.

About halfway through the film, she asked aren't there weren't any commercials because she wanted to go to the bathroom and brush her teeth.

Since we had made a bad choice – good actors, dumb plot, ridiculous over–the–top action/violence – she didn't mind missing some of the "action."

For years, we watched stuff on our cable bundle which meant eighteen minutes of ads per hour, plenty of time to take care of necessities.

As she left the room, we thought of all the mediocre ads we had been missing out on.

When we first switched to streaming ... no ads.



About thefuture.tv

Thefuture.tv, founded in 2005, is an independently owned organisation that explores the future of broadcasting. It features articles, editorials, and interviews on topics such as the rise of streaming services, the impact of AI on content creation, the latest technological innovations and new product launches.



Editorial

Shift Happens - Not Everyone Likes the Same Video Content and Tastes Change

“Maybe you should take a minute and think before you do anything drastic.” – Janet Matthews, “Dream Scenario,” A24, 2023

When Netflix first decided to release viewership data, we thought they were being really ambiguous.

After all, who cares about how many two-minute chunks of a show you watched or, for that matter, that a whole bunch of their global subscribes watched 20-30M minutes of a new movie/show release?

When we finally make our view now decision – usually based on their algorithm’s recommendation that are based on past viewing – we stick with the show/movie till the end unless it’s a really sucky piece of content.

Heck, they didn’t have to let us know at all since they weren’t pedaling ads so, the only reason to tell others if the project was liked was to attract more subscribers (was to say folks watched a gazillion minutes rather than 10+ M viewers).

Then the lightbulb lit.

They were giving us a real insight into the beauty and value of digital streaming content that was never possible with old-fashioned linear shows.

Back then, studios/networks (and advertisers) could get an idea of gross numbers but didn’t know – could probably care less – if folks actually really stuck with the video story.

But with ultra-detailed viewership data (and powerful analytics) they could learn so much more. They could not only determine what genre (horror, documentary, action, sci-fi, fantasy, anime or…) appealed most to their subscribers but also what actors, directors, storylines and plot twists/turns kept viewers viewing.

The more they learned, the more they could work with their show/movie partners to create not just better creative pieces but also stuff that more folks actually wanted to see and stuff they wanted to recommend/brag about to friends and people at work.

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To the logical conclusion… that Blue Fairy is part of the great human flaw to wish for things that don’t exist, or to the greatest single human gift – the ability to chase down our dreams.” — Professor Hobby, “A.I. Artificial Intelligence,” Warner Bros., 2001

Money has been important in the WGA/SAG-AFTRA strike– and you name it strike; but that’s a discussion for a later discussion.

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