As I was channel surfing last night, I stopped off on Larry King when I saw the finalists from this past season’s Apprentice being interviewed. At one point Larry King asked “The Donald” if race had played a part in his decision. Larry cited his notes that some bloggers were accusing Trump of racism. Trump became very upset with the question. The part that came to be most interesting is how out of tune with technology Larry King portrayed himself. He said quote “I don’t even know how to touch a blog. Do you know how to get a blog?” Even Trump didn’t have any interest in blogging when he said “Me? I have no interest.” Larry asked “Do you know how to reach a blogger?” to which Donald replied “I have no idea. Everybody that works for me knows.” It makes me wonder if Larry or Donald has even looked at blogs or if they have been quick to dismiss them. Maybe they should be since some people are making six figures off of it.

I honestly had no idea my last topic would spin off into even more but so it has. After doing some research on the video iPod’s network episodes downloads, I found some news (to me at least) that the advertising revenue losses studios are experiencing are making them start to freak out and consider having viewers pay per television episode in general (similar to on-demand shows). Post-gazette.com has a “Q&A: TV’s future” article with some interesting details – also touching on the benefits of using “added extras” as an incentive for increasing interst, i.e. go online to chat about a show, view web-only extra scenes, etc. Even the big networks are looking to offer online downloads the next day, commercial free, for a price.
While I am absolutely for the benefits of “added extras” online, I’m pretty torn about the new direction the television media might be going in general. On one hand, it’ll give networks an easier time keeping up with shows that aren’t as popular off-the-air and still accessible. On the other, why not buy the DVD if you really want to the show – Best Buy has several aisles dedicated to this. And I can’t even imagine how this will end up affecting the cable companies with their already high prices.
In the end, as Steven Spiecher ponders the problems with per episode charges becoming an epidemic, I think — ok, I hope — that people will simply become more interested in finding other interests to occupy themselves versus losing themselves in front of the television screen. For everyone’s sake… picnic, anyone?

Christopher Kenton makes a really good point about a recent B2B article in which the ‘best and brightest’ of the media world had very little reference to the online space. His rhetorical questions at the end of the post seem to say it all.

I was watching a show the other day promoting the new video iPod and how you can now download actual television episodes and thought — What a great way to promote something: offer it on TV, available for download, maybe even include it to view online. — Two seconds later, they mention that it costs $1.99 per episode. $1.99?? Most of these shows are on the local stations, not to mention I already pay some crazy amount for cable. Why would I want to pay more – especially when I can DVR them?
Now, I’m not a huge iPod user – I find mine works well for airplanes and working out – but it seems like this is asking for a lot more out of the user than it really should considering the popularity of TiVo and DVR which are already endangering advertiser revenues. I understand the reasons to charge people money to download the video (maybe even make up for lost revenues), but I think it would be a better direction to offer network television downloads for free, and charge for other more valuable items (music videos, maybe actual cable channels, or special artist interviews – I haven’t really thought this part through but I’m sure there’s something better that could be done).
So, while I feel networks are losing out on growing their audiences with download incentives such as iPod’s network downloads, my very small point to tie this in to Web sites is that it’s important not to ask your visitors (or potential visitors) to jump through hoops to do what you want them to do. Find out what makes your customers loyal (or brings them in initially) and focus on building from there. In my case, I would be much more receptive to the video iPod’s episode downloads if there was an incentive – such as free network shows – to draw me in.