A comment from PWC’s Tim Bull, on my summary of The Future of Media Summit prompted a lengthy reply from me. Tim argues for easy, usable media formats for non-early adopters. I agree. I think the issue of early adopters seeking data freedoms that aren’t needed, wanted or even cared about by later adopters that Tim raises is important, although I don’t necessarily agree with all he’s said.
I think my views are worth jotting down here for the sake of my memory, so here goes. This post is effectively a lengthy re-edit of my response in the original comment.
First, there are those, particularly among the technically adept, who would argue for completely open platforms and formats. While I have some significant sympathy for this argument, and it reflects a worldview I certainly agree with, I’d argue that it’s utopian. As Tim rightly suggests, there are many users that exist who simply aren’t in a position to understand or care about the format of their media, documents, spreadsheets and the like. While I certainly do, I accept that others don’t.
I think that the popularity of the BBC iPlayer and similar tools from other media distributors (the ABC is developing such a player) is simply because no effort is made to distribute using open (or at least, more ubiquitous, i.e. iTunes) platforms and formats. Not exposing people to the wide availability of more open or easily accessible formats for their media because they aren’t early adopters is no excuse. Creating walled gardens around your content is simply denying the audience choice.
Most people I know have either iTunes or Windows Media Player on their computers. They aren’t necessarily ideal (particularly in the case of WMP), but these tools are perfectly adequate for playback of movies, TV shows, music and any other media for the average user. To force users to download and install (a task many non-early adopters are significantly challenged by) yet another player in order to watch their favorite TV shows, or listen to their latest favorite song, is an unnecessary impediment on their time and frankly just pollutes their (often already polluted) machines.
Looking only at non-early adopter formats; those for which many tools and players exist, .mp3 is not a complex format to deal with for most (my 62 year old Mum can deal with .mp3 files, but there’s no way she’d download and install a new player). In the case of video, neither is .mov, or ideally, .avi. While these formats aren’t necessarily open, they are relatively well known and many tools – hardware and software, open- and closed-source – exist for their playback.
So, another reason not to force another player down the throats of the audience. The tools already exist.
Availability is not a major issue. Most material is obtainable, legally or otherwise, hours after first broadcast and viewing it doesn’t require technical expertise, and doesn’t require me to view it in an artificially imposed seven-day window. The hugely popular Heroes is a prime example. Its episodes are viewable online at NBC, for US viewers (broadcast markets and concurrent availability is another, arguably more complex issue that needs addressing, but not in this post) for an extended period shortly after primetime broadcast. Not long after that, for a nominal fee, the same viewers can download a higher quality version from the iTunes Store and keep it forever.
In Australia, we’ve recently seen the release here of TV shows on the iTunes Store. Personally, I’d be more than happy to pay for episodes of shows I really want, if the pricing was appropriate. However, yet again, Australian audiences are gouged on iTunes with pricing (audio and video) that reflects a US$:AU$ conversion rate somewhere around 1:0.60, which it’s not been near any time in relatively recent history. Today, the conversion is remarkably close to 1:1.
I currently pay iTunes for my music, as it’s convenient and pricing is competitive with CDs (for which I have no more room), but I balk at $2.99 for a TV episode when something around $2-2.20 seems more appropriate. Equally, I’d be willing to pay for long-form video material (including extras) at a price competitive with DVDs. But it’s just not there.
BitTorrent, while immensely popular and the source of petabytes of ‘Net traffic, isn’t a trivial tool to understand and I don’t propose people ought to have to use it unless they choose to. With combined player/download tools like Vuze (formerly Azureus), though, it is approaching commodity usefulness.
Sites like Hulu too, although still addressing issues of broadcast market availability, has a significant and growing library of recent and historical film and television available in high quality for free through an ad-supported model.
I digress.
What I want, and what I believe would be good and appropriate for consumers is made up of several factors:
- an infinite time window on my watching of post-broadcast material – a 7-day window is nothing more than an annoyance and an excuse for user lock-in;
- to be able to play back on any appropriate device at any time - it shouldn’t matter that’s my Mac Mini and 42″ plasma, or my iPhone, or that I stick it on a USB key and take it to a mate’s place to watch; and
- material available in a format that doesn’t lock me in to any particular vendor – I should neither have to, nor should anyone require me to download additional, proprietary tools. However, I might do that by choice to get an HD version, for example.
I don’t believe this is a big ask, and nor do I believe that it prevents media creators from making a reasonable, if not profitable, return on their investment. I am prepared to pay a fair sum for the privilege of having these choices, or be subjected to advertising of an appropriate type, as delivered on Hulu.
Does this not sound reasonable?
