I run a business where the more people watch ads on my tv shows, the more money I make. I want as many people as possible to watch, because then advertisers will pay me more.
So, I release a show on the television airwaves. Then, being the savvy President that I am, I simultaneously release the episode on the internet. People navigate to my website, and then they click the show they want to watch. They got an array of episode qualities to choose from, the common 350 megabyte xvid file that’s roughly HD, the the super quality 1+ Gigabyte true HD version, and the iPod-sized version.
A user clicks on the episode they want and the quality they prefer. It’s a torrent of the show they really want to watch, maybe once, maybe over and over again. When it’s done downloading, they fire up their viewing device; maybe it’s their laptop screen, or maybe they’re beaming it to their TV. Either way, they start watching it. Commercials are included in the episode, and so it’s exactly like the experience aired on TV. Now, millions of people from around the world are watching those ads. I get paid mad bank.
Now, I realize that some of my viewers will figure out ways to skip my mad-bank-paying ads. Groups have formed to download episodes and re-release it on competing torrent sites, ad-free. Others will find clever ways to skip commercials on their home players with built-in 30 second skip buttons and stuff. But, I realize that going after these people is not really what I need to do.
I’ve figured out some pretty clever ways, as President, to get people to watch the ads. I make sure the webmasters put nice notices on the download pages that say ‘hey dudes, support the show! watch the ads! we’ll keep making the show! because we get paid mad bank!’. I realize that competing torrent sites are way less well known to the average viewer and more cumbersome — my webmasters are smart as crap and have invested tons in making the downloads fast and the website easy to navigate. Also, instead of spending money on people to enforce ad-watching, I spent the monah on increasing the hardcore buzz around the show. Superfans of the show now have better access, more backstory, official support to their own significant support of the shows that I make that are just so funnah or sincerely deep. I’ve also decided not to cancel shows without giving them time to mature and making sure that superfans, and their shows, are giving proper respect when I axe them.
And most significantly, I’ve started to use the internet to update the aging TV advertising model. Finally, I’ve stopped wasting my viewer’s and my advertiser’s time by showing generic, widely-appealing ads to people who have specific interests. Of course, I’ll still do that stuff on the regular TV airwaves, but on the internet I’ll do some clever stuff. Sure, I exploit some data about my viewers, but in doing so I give them ads on stuff they want and probably will like. Maybe even occasionally, they’ll get ads that they enjoy but hadn’t seen or found before. International fans who don’t get the TV feed will love supporting the show overseas! They’ll watch ads built for them in their own culture. Sweet! I love money advertiser’s are throwing at me.
To reflect, I’ve gotten more people to watch the awesome content that I create, and at the same time, have crammed more ads into their heads. More people see the ads, and I make more money. And I’ve created an attractive environment for people to watch their shows, instead of pirate them. I rule!
