More news on the liberation of content and corresponding explosion of television as the Wizard of Oz. Today AOL and Warner Bros announced a deal to put oodles of content on the Web, ad-supported by 15-seconds of commercials every 15 minutes of content.
Series like Wonder Woman or Welcome Back Kotter will be available to all and sundry from January, 2006. While these “vintage” series don’t necessarily represent new content, they do represent potential in the form of cultish revivals, proxies for box office success (Teri Hatcher as Wonder Woman –hmmm, bracelets) and of course a magnet to this blog’s sponsor’s portal (is it possible to have a double possessive in the form of apostrophe apostrophe?)
Personally, I’d like to see the content available for download such that it can be viewed, without a live connection. It remains to be seen that consumers are going to watch 30+ minutes of content in a single sitting in front of their screens when there are so many viable alternatives out there.
Other ideas? I’d like to see a smarter targeting (or self-targeting) system put into play in order to deliver a more relevant suite of ads. I also wonder if the reverse-TiVo-to-go model could be applied for this and other offerings i.e. transfer content to both PC and even TV (hint: Time Warner and boxes) and in which case, could AOL get away with a branded environment or shrunken logo on the screen in the process. (Just wondering and speculating at 35,000 feet)
At the end of the day, we’ve seen the production/movie studios move incredibly slowly, cautiously in a most paranoid and confrontational fashion. With the revival of their dusty and musty archives, one would only imagine that there would be a relaxation or liberal stand taken to the consumption of that content. But of course, one would probably be wrong, wouldn’t one?
Classic quote takeaway from LA Times: (it just conjures up funny images)
Three paralegals working full-time for the last year have managed to clear 300 of the studio's 800 television series.
On a related note, execs at TVLand are updating their resumes and visiting Monster with increasing regularity
