Of course this replaces traditional TV. The time I spend watching TableTop I might have spend watching a traditional game show a decade ago. I talk with other people about what happened in the latest episodes. Those shows don't fill a vacuum - they replace something else. And that something is a certain part of traditional TV.
You are right that content produced for Youtube does not in general replace scripted drama/comedy. But that is only a tiny part of traditional TV.
> There are no profitable 30minute episodic videos on youtube that aren't pirated.
I'm not sure what you mean by this sentence. Are you really suggesting that there aren't people / companies that make money with longform, original Youtube content? Or are you missing a "high quality scripted fiction" in there?
If not, here are a couple of episode lengths of shows I watch on regular basis:
Niche content? Yes. But in all three cases it's their primary occupation. So those are profitable, longform Youtube videos. And they are far from the only ones.
The author assumes that there is a linear relationship between the amount of money that a creator has at their disposal and the resulting "production quality". So, once Jenna Marbles starts making some real bank, out come the camera crews and director and post-production effects and...
No. There is no path from Jenna Marbles to the traditional kind of television that the author is used to. They're just...different. Jenna has a specific way that she likes to create things and more money doesn't necessarily change that.
To make the kind of TV that the author imagines, you need to drop some money up front. Let's be charitable and say $300,000 for a pilot. Needless to say this is out of reach for almost 100% of the content creators on Youtube, so it's unsurprising that the content that has risen to popularity within Youtube has its roots in methods that cost essentially nothing.
Now, there are some interesting exceptions. The Lizzie Bennet Diaries [1] was nowhere near a "real" TV show in terms of budget but it had writers, production staff, and hired actors. Vice produces a lot of content that seems like it could fit into a normal TV program [2] -- almost. There are some other interesting shows that are sort of half-way there (well, more like 1/10th of the way there) in that they actually have production crews and do things like post-production (see: Wil Wheaton's Tabletop series [3]). I'm sure there are a ton of other examples.
So, the community is sidling up to high-quality content, but it's still unclear exactly how they're going to get there. By my estimation, to create a "TV-ready" drama, you'd need at the very least 100k subscribers paying $3/mo. Obviously no one is going to sign up for something if they're never heard of you, so you've got to make some free content that people love, then maybe make the jump via a Kickstarter? Or will true "channels" appear that bring the money and the subscribers and that then fund the shows of their choice? This is a really fascinating time for video content -- I'm excited to see how the economics end up playing out.
I'm not a big Wil Wheaton or Felicia Day fan, but I'm really enjoying Tabletop. Fun show with excellent production values. I just wish the episodes were a little longer (ie, fewer cuts) for some of the more complex games.
Internet broadcasting just keeps getting better and better. It's probably not a great model for fiction where you have to pay writers and real actors, but for entertaining nonfiction it's perfect.
Hacker Cinema
4 comments on Hacker News
Of course this replaces traditional TV. The time I spend watching TableTop I might have spend watching a traditional game show a decade ago. I talk with other people about what happened in the latest episodes. Those shows don't fill a vacuum - they replace something else. And that something is a certain part of traditional TV.
You are right that content produced for Youtube does not in general replace scripted drama/comedy. But that is only a tiny part of traditional TV.
> There are no profitable 30minute episodic videos on youtube that aren't pirated.
I'm not sure what you mean by this sentence. Are you really suggesting that there aren't people / companies that make money with longform, original Youtube content? Or are you missing a "high quality scripted fiction" in there?
If not, here are a couple of episode lengths of shows I watch on regular basis:
* TableTop: 30-45min * Day9TV: 90min (!) * Nobbel87 lore videos: 20-30min
Niche content? Yes. But in all three cases it's their primary occupation. So those are profitable, longform Youtube videos. And they are far from the only ones.
The author assumes that there is a linear relationship between the amount of money that a creator has at their disposal and the resulting "production quality". So, once Jenna Marbles starts making some real bank, out come the camera crews and director and post-production effects and...
No. There is no path from Jenna Marbles to the traditional kind of television that the author is used to. They're just...different. Jenna has a specific way that she likes to create things and more money doesn't necessarily change that.
To make the kind of TV that the author imagines, you need to drop some money up front. Let's be charitable and say $300,000 for a pilot. Needless to say this is out of reach for almost 100% of the content creators on Youtube, so it's unsurprising that the content that has risen to popularity within Youtube has its roots in methods that cost essentially nothing.
Now, there are some interesting exceptions. The Lizzie Bennet Diaries [1] was nowhere near a "real" TV show in terms of budget but it had writers, production staff, and hired actors. Vice produces a lot of content that seems like it could fit into a normal TV program [2] -- almost. There are some other interesting shows that are sort of half-way there (well, more like 1/10th of the way there) in that they actually have production crews and do things like post-production (see: Wil Wheaton's Tabletop series [3]). I'm sure there are a ton of other examples.
So, the community is sidling up to high-quality content, but it's still unclear exactly how they're going to get there. By my estimation, to create a "TV-ready" drama, you'd need at the very least 100k subscribers paying $3/mo. Obviously no one is going to sign up for something if they're never heard of you, so you've got to make some free content that people love, then maybe make the jump via a Kickstarter? Or will true "channels" appear that bring the money and the subscribers and that then fund the shows of their choice? This is a really fascinating time for video content -- I'm excited to see how the economics end up playing out.
[1] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KisuGP2lcPs&feature=c4-overview-vl&list=PL6690D980D8A65D08
[2] (Warning: NSFW) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JsUH8llvTZo
[3] http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL4F80C7D2DC8D9B6C
> Geek & Sundry's Tabletop
I'm not a big Wil Wheaton or Felicia Day fan, but I'm really enjoying Tabletop. Fun show with excellent production values. I just wish the episodes were a little longer (ie, fewer cuts) for some of the more complex games.
Internet broadcasting just keeps getting better and better. It's probably not a great model for fiction where you have to pay writers and real actors, but for entertaining nonfiction it's perfect.