Category Archives: Television

The Obvious Reason for Piracy

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Before I begin, I’d like to point out that I have absolutely no data whatsoever that might justify anything I’m saying. I’ve not done any research, nor have I undertaken any surveys to determine whether anything written below is justified. What I do have though is common sense, which seems to be lacking from a great many people (though especially those with all the money).

I’d like to talk about the price of digital downloads. I’d especially like to talk about the price of digital downloads on iTunes and how a change in the price would, I reckon, make a much better alternative to illegally downloading whatever you want.

Although this is something I’ve been considering for some time, a recent TED talk I saw on the subject of “Copyright Math” made me consider again just how insanely priced the media we consume is.

Let’s, for a second, take a look at the price of Buffy the Vampire Slayer on iTunes. Perhaps a random choice, but it was a show I used to enjoy and I fancied watching it again. So I popped on over to iTunes to see if the price matched my expectations. It did. But, not in a good way. Each series of this fifteen year-old show was priced at £24.99 (excluding the short first season, which was £19.99). This meant that if I’d wanted to buy all of the shows, it was going to cost me £169.93. That figure is absolutely ludicrous, when you consider that the DVD boxset can be purchased for just £37.97 on Amazon.

This is a show that, unlike new releases, cannot possibly be generating the kinds of revenue which would justify keeping it at such a high price. The draw of a show which is clearly outdated by modern standards cannot be so high that large numbers of people are downloading from iTunes at such wildly inflated prices.

So what possible reason can the distributors have for charging so much? Apple obviously take their cut, but that’s a percentage and not a fixed fee which the distributor would need to meet. And they’re saving huge amounts of cash on the manufacture and distribution of physical discs. All they have to do is simply upload their shows on to iTunes and leave it at that. They no longer have to touch them or even think about having to stop reproduction due to manufacturing limitations. These are shows which can sit permanently on Apple’s servers without anyone worrying about them, and constantly generating funds from sales when the next person moves into the digital world.

As I said earlier, I have no figures. But to my mind, there’s a case for charge the least amount possible for these shows. I would be more than willing to pay £20 to download every season, for example. And I’m quite sure there would be a great many more people willing to pay the same price to download every single episode.

Just as copyright lawyers seemingly do, I’m going to pluck a figure out of the air now. I’m going to suggest that for every one person willing to pay £170 for all of these seasons, there are going to be at least twenty more people willing to pay £20 for them all. I reckon I’m underestimating that too. And given that there is absolutely no effort involved in changing the price to something more reasonable, nor any extra manufacturing costs to consider, I don’t quite understand why it’s not something they’ve introduced.

Perhaps this is distributors trying to save their own skin before it’s too late. After all, who will need to use a distributor when a moviemaker could simply add their own productions straight to iTunes (or their own online presence) and cut out the middle man? Once cinemas go 100% digital, what’s to stop them downloading the movies straight from the producers too? Distributors are now facing a losing battle. Although there is a current market for physical items, this cannot possibly last forever. Especially if the prices of digital downloads were sorted out to make them more reasonable. Eventually, owning a physical item will be something for hardcore devotes only, which is something distributors clearly must be aware of.

So, distributors have to face up to the facts. It is their outdated business models which are leading to an increase in piracy. For every one person willing to pay £170 for all of these seasons, there are twenty more willing to download them illegally. Twenty people who could be persuaded to pay a small fee to own a show which is otherwise sat on Apple’s servers, only generating a profit whenever someone with more money than sense comes along.

Perhaps I am underestimating the business. Perhaps there are hidden issues which I’ve not considered because I’m not aware of them. But from my limited understanding, looking at this issue with what little common sense I have, there are surely better ways for money to be made by the movie industry, which (as a rather fortunate byproduct) would also lead to a rise in consumer satisfaction?

Reaction to Faking Frozen Planet

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I don’t normally use this blog to rant (in fact, I’ve barely used it for anything in months), but I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to get in my two pennies worth regarding the Frozen Planet furore.

Like most free-thinking, semi-intelligent people in this country, I can’t stand the direction in which television has being heading over the past decade or so. Gone are the vast majority of the thrilling, well-written drama programmes which used to entertain us. Gone are the days when Britain produced comedy shows which rivalled and surpassed anything our friends across the Atlantic could produce. Gone is anything remotely mind-enhancing from the main channels, reduced as they are to lurking in the depths of BBC 4. In their place we have the reality tripe which infests our lives and make stars from people who ordinarily would only ever find work in court-enforced positions, cleaning off the graffiti they themselves have daubed on shop walls.

That’s why shows like Frozen Planet are an absolute blessing. Stunningly filmed, beautifully narrated and wonderfully produced. Nature shows are the one thing our nation’s television still excels at, and none are finer than those produced by and for the BBC. It takes an extreme amount of effort, diligence, hard work and sheer guts to capture footage of such outstanding quality. Weeks and months of tireless drudging up and down mountains in icy conditions, lugging camera equipment around, putting yourself in danger of attack or frostbite or risking falling through cracks in the frozen seas. All so that the people of Britain have something entertaining and stimulating to watch as they tuck into their fish suppers.

But rather than being applauded for all of the work which was put in to producing such a show, we instead have to listen to complaints from the gutter press and the Daily Fail because one piece of footage was filmed in a zoo. A piece of footage which, under absolutely no circumstances, would have been possible to accomplish in the wild. As Attenborough himself has stated ,”If you had tried to put a camera in the wild in a polar bear den, she would either have killed the cub or she would have killed the cameraman”.

Surely that’s enough of an explanation, isn’t it? Isn’t it enough to have forced an 85 year-old man to go on television to explain why the BBC hadn’t wanted to risk the lives of a cameraman or an endangered species?

But, they ask, why did the final cut of the show have to imply that we were seeing the same creatures throughout each stage of their lives when, in reality, they were entirely different bears? And my answer to that is simple; who cares? This is a television show; it’s entertainment. It’s about engaging the audience in a way that keeps them interested, entertained and educated. Television and film have always been about the suspension of belief. In this instance, all we are being asked to imagine is that some polar bears doing what polar bears do entirely naturally are, in fact, some other polar bears who are doing the same thing, just without the camera in their faces. Surely in a world dominated by programmes such as The Only Way Is Essex – where half of a so-called reality show is made up – the public could let this one go? The tabloid press could ignore this one little white lie for the sake of entertainment.

The answer is clearly no. The rags need something to latch on to and to expose as fraudulent. To berate and to mock. So they pick a production for daring to film some bears in a different location to where some people thought they were. These people are, quite frankly, pathetic.