Advertising Age - Apple Chomps Into Forbidden Fruit: Ads
As we’ve said- the biggest news with the video iPod wasn’t watching movies- it was that Apple began selling TV shows on the iTunes store (sans commercials) for $1.99 ea. These were shows you could have seen for free the previous night.
Now- Apple has started to show ads on the store interface. Is this setting the stage for ad supported content? Will the ads be targeted to the customer- one can only assume so.
This is the end of the Network, the end of Cable- and the birth of IPTV. Are you paying attention?
I’ve said I’ll watch a whole bunch of spots to see the Sopranos for free- or pay $5 a show to see it in HD without having to get HBO-
What do you think?
But how would you know about the Sopranos in the first place if it wasn’t available on broadcast? The itune sales only account for a tiny market share and although I see it growing I can’t see it ever killing the traditional set-top. For example, there are a lot of DVD movies for sale that I’ve never heard of and wouldn’t want to buy. I think the idea that a producer can take advantage of multiple sales venues (i.e. theater, pay-per-view, broadcast, VOD, web, mobile and home video) keeps expected profits higher and ultimately allows for higher production value. There are performer unions, weriter unions, technical union… and they all represent people that earn their living making content. It’s a tough sell to an investor to say that there’s one platform you’re delivering your product on and that you need to sell over one million units through that single point of sale before the production breaks even (in the case of a single network tv episode). Investors need better numbers and so I can’t see the merging of TV and the net / mobile any time soon. It’s in the best interest of the content producers to keep them segmented but well supplied.
To answer your question JohnDoe- you’d know about the Sopranos the same way you find viral videos, the same way you get your news- through “intelligent agents” (either computer based or human based)- just think- Amazon does a pretty good job of recommending alternative titles don’t they?
The power of a few well seeded “though leaders” or “Influencers” is all it takes to start the ball rolling- and since IP based delivery doesn’t have the time slot restraints of Sunday at 9pm- or the audience restraints of HBO subscribers- you can create new fans every day (especially important for storyline based series like “The Sopranos).