Heroes Producer: Honored To Be The Most Unauthorized Downloaded Show
from the recognizing-the-future dept
One of the talks at SXSW was apparently about "multiplatform storytelling," which fits in with a point that we've discussed here in the past. Content creators are realizing that they no longer need to pigeonhole themselves as "just musicians," or "just filmmakers" but can reach out and tell stories in very different ways. And, in the end, that's what every content producer is really doing: they're telling stories. It doesn't necessarily matter what the format is, and there are no rules that say you're restricted to telling your entire story through just one platform.This talk was given by Tim Kring, creator of the popular TV show Heroes, and he made some interesting points -- noting that he's "honored" that Heroes is the most "illegally" downloaded TV show out there, because "we'll take audience anywhere we can get it." But he's not just sitting back. The reason he doesn't care if people are watching the show on TV or elsewhere is because they're really working on ways to connect with fans in much deeper ways, including creating a pretty complex and massive alternative reality game that had true fans of the show actively involved -- such that they knew about certain characters and important plot points way before they appeared on the small screen, and were made to feel like actual participants in the story. As he noted, "people want to participate in their TV shows."
Again, this is a point that has been made before -- but so many of the suits upstairs still seem to think that TV is a purely broadcast media, not one where people want to communicate and participate in meaningful ways (and, yes, that means a lot more than just calling or texting a phone number to "vote" on something). It's great to see the folks actually making these stories are understanding this, because eventually that thinking will begin to become more common, rather than seem like some crazy idea to appease "the internet folks." We're not there yet, of course. NBC, which airs Heroes is still freaking out about those illegal downloads and wasting tons of money and resources claiming that it must be stopped -- all while its basic network schedule has been a huge disaster. If NBC top brass listened to folks like Kring, and realized the challenge is to make people happy, rather than spending so much time trying to force them into "the way NBC wants things to work," perhaps the network wouldn't be in so much trouble.
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Filed Under: connect with fans, heroes, sxsw, tim kring
Companies: nbc
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Its never going to happen that the current tv studios try something new. They are frozen with fear. They have seen what has happened with the record labels and see that happening to them. In this end this need to control every aspect of every download and view is going to destroy them. They are alot like a deer caught in the headlights of an on coming car. The headlight being the internet.
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The studios are alot like a deer caught in the headlights of an on coming car. Frozen in fear. They can only see the headlights (internet), but not the car (reality).
Thanks!! that works better as a last line to the above comment
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By giving people the content they want at quality they could minimize illegal downloads and give advertisers added value by inserting their commercials into the downloaded versions.
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Thats exactly what I was thinking, it would spread the load out and they wouldnt have to worry about infrastructure. Server farms, bandwidth, etc.
"give advertisers added value by inserting their commercials into the downloaded versions."
Here is the actual value added stuff, extended versions with scenes that didnt make it into the 40-45 minutes avail on tv. If they did multiple versions each with a different "scene excluded from tv" some people would download all versions. This would also allow for different advertisers in different versions and location specific adds based on language. The studios have a problem with this in they are contractually obligated in different countries to do the first run on TV.
number??? note/entry) Add this Idea to the business plan.
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As far as contractual obligations, might be time to start re-negotiating bad contracts if they are losing you money...
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Multiplatform crap
Not to get too snarky here, but even if they take Kring's advice on "multiplatform storytelling", it wouldn't change the fact that his show is crap. Putting a show that's lost its way on multiple platforms won't get NBC out of the trouble it's in. Making better shows will.
Oh, and one more thing...
Conan forever! Leno never!
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So that would be an adolescent horse?
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Nope. Just someone who got bored of a meandering and increasingly non-sensical story line.
Heroes has the largest following of any TV scifi currently on the air.
So, by your logic, Britney Spears is the best artist of the last decade. I'm not knocking popularity, but it's a far cry from proving quality.
As for Leno vs. Conan, I didn’t like how NBC handled it, but I’ve never been a big fan of Conan
Again, to each his own. On top of the shitty way that NBC handled it, the real issue is that NBC chose Leno who is guarenteed to appeal to more (mostly older) people in the short to very short term over someone who will appeal to a much broader audience in the longer term. Short sightendness FTL.
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Stories
No, every "content producer" is not telling stories. Many of them are, and virtually all of the most marketable ones are. You're romanticizing what artists do here, but you're overgeneralizing a bit. Many artists chose their medium because they are attracted to the specific characteristics of that medium, and many of the best examples of film art are neither story-based nor easily transferrable to other mediums. The same goes for music, painting, photography and all sorts of other types of culture.
I'm all for being multidisciplinary and telling stories in multiple ways. It's what I do. But the phrasing "no longer need to pigeonhole themselves" irked me. It sounds like marketingspeak for "content production" without a good understanding of what actually motivates many artists.
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Are you sure you want to go there? I enjoy arguing semantics and story is a pretty easy word to argue over.
Semantics aside, you seem to draw on some fictional suggestion by Mike that everyone needs to embrace multiple mediums. I thought he was just presenting it as yet another way for those in the creative industry to embrace technology to reach a wider audience. It doesn't matter if a business model doesn't work for everyone because not everyone has to use the same business model.
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YES and free is good
ive been doing the same thing wiht music as tv for oh 15 years
now im the old one and hte next gen is doing movies buy the buckits even the crap ones you can see them and you see popular movies get hundreds a takes per site and not so get few
thats marketing data that they dont have....that could and should be paying for stuff, add advertising around a torrent site and .......invest into seed box companies and make money on distribution again
NO DRM no back doors....
the solutions for a future have been there for 15 years only the margins are vastly reduced due to technology.
so do more and use the tech.
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Except that's not even close to true. What Kring noted in his talk was that Heroes is making a lot of money. It's deal with Sprint brought in $30 million, I believe...
he downloaded versions have no commercials and make nothing for nbc
Isn't that NBC's fault? They could easily solve that by offering up their own high quality download with commercials.
it is a perfect example of content companies stopping making content when there is no money in doing it.
Except they're not stopping and they are making money.
So basically, you're right other than being 100% wrong.
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You know that if they did they'd do something dumb like trying to make the commercials unskippable.
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"This is a chair. Buy one."
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Downstairs is the telco connection, both cable and internet, cable running to the television, which is playing Heroes and then there's the internet.
So, if I have this right, if I decide to download an episode of Heroes in torrent form then I am a pirate? Because I am too lazy to spend ten minutes making a home-made DVR? Because I treat the internet like a massive DVR?
I have watched Heroes (insert any television show) on cable, telco, torrent and streaming from the channel that has the licensing rights.
But that handful of times I've chosen to torrent the show I am a pirate?
Sure I am.
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why heroes is most downloaded
there just aren't any other sci fi shows
and if you call some people that barely do special affects sci fi , then your more on glue and thsi show has sooo lost its way form season 1 , and when they stopped it for 6 months
thats what killed it for me
NOW go look at the numbers for SG1
if you htink heroes will get ten seasons , 3 movies and two other spin offs your on hte crack alright
seriously
WHERE is the sci fi?
go look on torrents they consider LOST to be sci fi?
YA sure, kinda like how smallville was PURE drama with 3 minutes a sci fi for what 6 seasons.....
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Red vs Blue also is funny.
If TV broadcasters don't do somethng they run the risk of being left behind.
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Not "scare" quotes -- just trying to be accurate. What he claims is illegal may not be illegal.
(And why change the quote in the headline (from "illegal" to "unauthorized."
Because that's more accurate.
get that your opinion of whether such downloading is a good idea or not (and the degree to which it helps/hurts various players) is different from, say, NBC's. And maybe you think that unauthorized downloading shouldn't be illegal at all, but I thought your view was that, regardless of the legality of downloading, content producers shouldn't be enforcing it to the hilt, because that's a better business model that benefits producers and consumers. Is there some legal argument you're not sharing with us as to why downloading a full-length, unauthorized copy of a commercial work is not infringement?
I'm just saying that it may depend on the situation, and I don't think it makes sense to declare it illegal, when the circumstances may not make it illegal. Depending on what they're talking about, it could be fair use. I don't think it's right to make a blanket statement.
Do you think it's right to automatically declare all unauthorized use illegal? Because that's not what the law says.
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Stating the Obvious..
Since you can watch the series ONLINE free..
Why is this a problem? or a concern?
At least using the Backdoors on the net, MORE people can watch it. NOT just those in the USA. NOT those that can goto NBC and are willing to DL the crap drivers to watch it.
HULU and VEOH had a good start, but the corps interfered with the Idea/concept..Problem is that they STILL want money from the Videos. and when others are making money they are Jealous.
They are NOW trying to install their OWN services.
But, until they understand...that we want 1-3 locations to watch the shows..rather then 20+ locations.
They WONT GET IT.
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