The BBC has a good interview with David Simon, creator of my favorite television program, The Wire, about what's going on with television. Simon thinks that TV has been "short changed since it's inception" because of advertising, and he's absolutely right. The need to get as many viewers as possible, to interupt the story every few minutes to sell flavored sugar water, and the ideal that missing a ten minutes of the show shouldn't keep you from enjoying it, all these massively drag down TV as a medium.
HBO, he says, is getting it right, by ignoring ratings and advertising. He's correct, but I think they should go further, and start putting their shows online directly, either for a low price per episode, a low monthly fee (I'd certainly pay $5 a month to watch True Blood), or perhaps lower quality video, for free, with an ad at the begining. They could even add social networking components, because hey, why not? I learned about these shows from friends in the first place.
Right now, however, they're simply losing money, as for contemporary shows, there's no reasonable option other than torrents or waiting for the DVDs. Learn from the record industry. Make it easy for me to pay a reasonable price for your content, and I won't steal it.
