posted by RICK : 9:43 PM
Today,
ABC announced that this May and June it would be streaming four of its hit primetime shows on their website free of charge. "Free?" you say to yourself loud enough to make your co-worker and/or roommate turn their head. Yes, free (asterisk). The inescapable catch is you have to watch the series WITH commercials-- you know, the way god intended them to be seen.
I find this to be a perfectly acceptable alternative to the current option, which is at best moderately immoral and at worst cause for being prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law-- downloading of the series off BitTorrent or the like.
I don't mind watching commercials, and frankly, in a show like
Lost they actually add to the suspense (and an excuse to get more Dr. Pepper from the fridge), but for this plan to take off in the eyes of the web-watching masses, ABC needs to do a few things:
- The quality needs to be better than YouTube and hopefully as good as iTunes (which would be great for free video, though as I've said before is kind of crappy for something you're technically buying).
- The shows need to be archived. ABC has come out and said that this entire last season of Alias will be available for streaming, but they need to do this for the other series as well. There are many people who would probably love to jump on board with Lost, but want to do so from the beginning. This is a perfect way to increase audience size and cater to those people who might not otherwise buy the DVDs (the company isn't losing money, because the scores of people who go to this site every week are buying the DVDs despite the fact that they have it saved on their DVRs and downloaded on their computers).
- It kind of goes along with quality, but you need to be able to watch in FULL SCREEN. Even if they're streaming a crystal clear picture and 5.1 surround sound, it means nothing if you have to watch in a tiny window on the screen.
Chances are none of these recommendations will be implemented off the bat (despite the fact that the stat-tracker for WhatIsRecoil.com shows hit after hit from the domain "newyork.abc.networksuits.com"), but I'm hoping that a positive reaction by the web-watching populous will make them realize that there is still a model for ad-based television and people will watch if you throw them some bones.