Networks love live streaming because the average user can’t save a copy of the file. It’s a way to have your cake and eat it too – something TV is very used to. But it also requires an Internet connection that can handle the speed, on (horrendously designed) websites usually geared for Internet Explorer and all too often comes bundled with software that seeks to ascertain that you’re not pirating stuff.
Personally, that last is the biggest deal breaker for me. While I’m not fond of websites that have a preference for IE over all other browsers and I hate the lack of thought that goes into sites that forget that not everybody is on a superfast connection, the software part just skeeves me out. I don’t care how safe and specific that thing is, I’m not about to voluntarily download something that spies on my machine.
Not when I can go to any old torrent site, using my preferred browser, and download an AVI file that I can keep on my machine for as long as I want without some grubby spyware (legal or not legal) crawling around its innards.
As far as iTunes goes, it’s a good thought, but people will always pause to think twice at the idea of having to pay for something that they currently get for free, however much they wish to toe the legal line. Plus one of the main advantages of going online is that you get to create markets where none existed. And not everybody in them might be on the iTunes bandwagon or have access to an acceptable mode of payment like international credit cards.
Craig Ferguson, for example, has just begun finding his feet in America much less around the world – and yet, thanks to Youtube, he has fans in countries that have never heard the name "CBS".
A site like Joost is a step in the right direction, even if it has an intense Google complex. The consumer really is king. Ad supported downloadable free vids are the way to go, all around. Remember that song, “Video Killed the Radio Star?” If TV doesn’t want to write a corollary to that, then it better see where the audience is headed instead of trying to herd us in like sheep. These here cattle bite.
Article comments
1 - TV and Film Guy
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2 - Amrita
Thank you!