That era ended a long time ago; nobody on a percentage basis watches legacy media any more, almost everyone clicked off. The microscopic fraction of the population who still watch, actually LIKE the five permitted media stories. So changing what's produced would be very risky; might lose the very last few viewers, might not gain any return viewers.
The author is trying to do "startup strategy" in an industry that's in "shutdown mode", that's a tough one.
5 years ago I told my wife how the startup world was drastically underrepresented in bookstores. I suggested that it would change fast. And the book world has in fact caught up. Now it would seem time for some TV action. The challenge will be making the hard work behind a startup entertaining enough for TV. Of course, the HN crowd would find it entertaining even if they were to scroll through code for an hour solid. :)
Cut down your TV time by 1 hour daily
Go to movies only 1 every 2 months
-So here is an application idea
An application that can be installed on as a plugin somewhere (don't know where) that would automatically flash a alert on the TV screen if you go above 1 hour time limit.
But again think about why the human has become so dependent on external stimulus for being constantly entertained.
For e.g My kid wants constant attention or entertained.
He either wants me to play with him all day
Or
Watch TV continuously
OR
Play video games
Finding other ways of getting entertained in order to kill hollywood is not the sane idea. The root of the problem is becoming more dependent on external medium for entertainent
I don't think channel going back 15 years is good example for new creators. I would expect them to keep somewhat relevant as they have been trough enough cycles to keep some audience always.
For a mainstream TV show/station, I'm not sure I entirely agree. What would be more exciting to watch, web/tech with thousands of faceless customers they would likely not interact with outside of email/twitter for at least a year... or tangible product & biz development that a mass audience can see, understand, and relate to easily?
I think web/tech is more exciting to live and build for the intellectual types, but much like computer gaming, it's just not meant to be a spectator event. 90% of footage would be pale faces behind a glowing computer screen, where as retail is a lot about vendor selection, sales and deal making.
That said, I think you could replace those products with anything — what's interesting is watching them overcome challenges in their respective industries. Who knows, could learn a thing or two. :) Some startups need to stick their neck out of the bubble once in a while and breath something different... Perhaps there wouldn't be less me-too-point-oh.
This is almost the perfect poster child for big upfront launch mandated by egotistical senior product people.
CNN+ could have been launched like a startup using Lean Startup/agility:
1. Take a third party streaming technology and create a simple solution and launch for free and see how many people start using it from friends and family. If lots then improve, if not then cancel and save a fortune.
2. If growth continues then launch to existing subscribers for free for 12 months, if not then cancel the project and save a fortune. Review how many people start using it over a longer time frame.
3. If growth continues launch as-is to everyone for free for 12 months and if not, cancel and save a fortune.
4. If growth continues introduce a cheap model after 12 months to entrap people and build out a better solution. If not cancel and save a fortune.
Cancelling and saving a fortune should be celebrated like success.
Instead a Senior Product person at CNN will have either jumped ship already or will jump ship soon to another senior role somewhere else with "launching a flagship online streaming platform" on their CV.
A lot of product people think they are Steve Jobs and shouldn't be questioned about their vision by the tech people. Only one was but a lot of companies still get hoodwinked by a charming Product person who paints a blue sky picture of possibility and the large scary threat of competitors.
"Unfortunately the challenge isn't just "make enough enough money to pay the writers and keep the lights on." They have to do that, and then make enough additional money to keep the corporate overlords happy and interested."
Which rather well describes what just happened to DPReview. One wonders if some of the community there might be able to do something like this...
Are you sure you are not judging by the standards of mass market broadcast production vs what these companies seem to be doing in terms of producing content for smaller, more targeted but still profitable target audiences?
In the broadcast world, the relevant "inventory" (ie. TV Network Channel time slot) is very limited and precious. Therefore only content with production quality that appeals to a large enough audience to attract advertisers gets greenlit.
In the past year, my family has binge watched "blown away" a glass blowing competition, 3 series about weird/exotic vacation rentals/hotels, 2 children's mysteries serises, standup comedy by specific comediens, a series about music production and composition styles of different artists and a series about design. All of these above ran multiple seasons, so clearly there's sufficient profitable viewership for multiple seasons to be made even though it's very likely NONE of them would make mainstream broadcast TV. We didn't see any of the "big/popular" shows.
The only reason we have cable TV connection at all now is when my parents or in-laws visit, they get very bored without their.regular TV channels.
Idea: start a new business model where people agree to being video-taped and then somebody else trims the content to make it more enjoyable to view (remove the non-programming related web searches, work breaks, etc.) - and add some extra voice commentary on what is going on, play by play...
We get it, some very smart people that were early contributors to the beast that is ChatGPT today are mad that a big corporation came in and wants to turn their hard work into something super profitable and "not-as-aligned-with-their-original vision"/go a different direction.
How is that a new story? Hasn't that happened thousands of times in history?
It should be called "ClosedAI" instead, we get it.
I've worked in local tv production for a long time actually, so I completely get what you're saying. But I honestly feared it would be a lame partnering with existing channels to share old product. But then, I'm something of a pessimist.
That said, sorry to hear about that guy. I often wish I had camera presence, just to make one-man-banding a reasonable option. Then again, now that I have time, it's funny how the ideas don't flow as easy. I'm sure once I lose time/resources they'll start back up. Ain't that always the way?
The biggest take-away I had from this is that production value, graphics packages and big studio sets aren't what attract people to some content. If the screenshot is any indication most of these videos where poorly lit handheld streams from a single camera. One hopes that if the television industry takes anything away from this it is that people care less about how you dress your show up and more about what the actual content is. If this had been covered on TV we would have had to sift through commercial breaks, into graphics outro graphics and the incessant jabbering of a couple inane hosts along with the inevitable text crawl at the bottom from viewers texting in (just to show that the network understands social media).
I think this process could also open the door for more niche producers. They won't need to make the network happy, they just need to provide good enough content to profit. It could help get rid of sadnesses like "the learning channel" from becoming TLC -- reality tv that sometimes has a sciencey or sociological twist. Some content may be lost/locked up in a dinosaur's grave for a while, but hopefully that will become moot.
That era ended a long time ago; nobody on a percentage basis watches legacy media any more, almost everyone clicked off. The microscopic fraction of the population who still watch, actually LIKE the five permitted media stories. So changing what's produced would be very risky; might lose the very last few viewers, might not gain any return viewers.
The author is trying to do "startup strategy" in an industry that's in "shutdown mode", that's a tough one.
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