The day TV died …
… will be marked in history as the day that was yesterday. Apple puts a subscription system into the iTunes music store for TV downloads and per se its not subscription. Its more like a bundle price for more then one TV show of a certain kind and drive down the cost per show to something like 62 cent... Now with rocketboom showing how TV news can be made without a TV station behind it and Apple showing how people can get their favorite shows at a price point that almost makes sense without any advertising and long lost hours and no roadblock apearing on the horizon and maybe an Apple Portable TV (yes I for one do believe the fullsize Video iPod rumors on the web are true - they make hell lot of sense at least) you are set to a media revolution. Noone is forced to watch anything - the diversity will spread once Apple allows Indies to sell their shows too. The "Anyone can be a publisher" metapher will likely come to fruition and everyone may be earning money - more or less - through a modell like that. The pitfall? Apple will rise to global entertainment power and be a monopoly - I for one think an Apple monopoly in the entertainment market (music and TV) is as bad as a Microsoft monopoly in the OS market - even if it only is because they are an american company and I do not like to see forced content from a fascist state. Other then that Apple seems the only capable company of overlooking distribution problems, technical difficulties and has the talent to convince the big guys from giving up control so its the only company set up to make this media revolution happen - as long as TV dies a faster death I am for the moment all for it. And yes I for one still think a real movie distribution would even rock me - I have never bought a single song through iTunes - I just listen to webradio and get mixes from "friend DJs". I have no iPod. A movie store would lure me in. I mean I pay like 1-5 euros for a DVD rental per day around here - most of the time I double and tripple that because I forget to return the suckers... So a movie store where I OWN the a copy of a certain movie for like 4.99 Euros or the like or a "subscription" of 10 movies per month for 19.99 Euro that I can keep after watching would be killer and Apple would have gotten me to become a Apple Entertainment Customer too.
Imagine a world where TV shows will be produced and continued on their TRUE value because each and every viewer finances it. No marketing trailer hype artificially inflating the value of a show - its all down to the real quality and value for the customers. I see golden times ahead for actual usefull programming - but maybe the couch potatos have already degenerated to a point where this is just pure philosophical and Big Brother would be the best seller on iTunes TV store?
Then there is a George Lucas - rising to richness through a multibillion dollar imperium of six well know space sagas - telling the world the time for multimillion dollar movie productions is over - the next years will see an indie movie revolution with budgets of maximum of 15 million dollars. This view fits perfectly into an iTunes Movie Store concept and is a wise foresight - seeing all the KingoKongo remixes fall flat on their faces money wise and new triology phantasie books with original content are in short supply.
So seeing all this it seems we are on the eve of the revolution that will lead to a complete reorganisation of media distribution in the next five years and the media conglomerates have to put on that warm jacket - the creativity corner in the ring is waiting for that final punch.