Image used under a Creative Commons license courtesy of autowitch.
Nicholas Carr's piece in the New York Times Magazine on how the blossoming availability of free television programming is affecting how we watch things is full of fascinating philosophical insights. For example, I think this is largely true:
The communal mode of TV viewing isn’t gone, but it’s becoming less common. As screens proliferate and shrink, and as the Web allows us to view whatever we want whenever we want, we spend more time watching video alone. That’s one funny thing about the Internet: it’s an extraordinarily rich communications system, but as an information and entertainment medium, it encourages private consumption. The pictures and sounds served up through our PCs, iPods and smart phones absorb us deeply but in isolation. Even when we’re together today, we’re often apart, peering into our own screens.I've done some communal TV watching, and I do like making an event or an evening of it. But I do watch a lot of TV either in the background while I'm blogging, or in a small window on a small screen while I'm on the elliptical or while I'm doing something else on my computer. I do think it's worth exploring how we watch television or interact with other art. I'm not entirely this is due to media's freeness, though, than it is to formatting and devices like iPods that let us experience art wherever we go, and to isolate ourselves to a certain extent. Still, I'm glad Carr's interrogating it.
But where I think he goes wrong, or at least partially wrong, is in his conclusion on the economics question. He writes:
The smartest, most creative TV shows, from “Deadwood” to “Mad Men” to NBC’s own “30 Rock,” tend to be the most expensive to produce. They have large, talented casts, top-notch writers and directors, elaborate sets and generally high production values. If the changes in our viewing habits stanch the flow of money back to studios, producing those kinds of programs may no longer be possible. In their place, we’ll get more junk: dopey reality shows, cookie-cutter police dramas, inane gab fests. The vast wasteland will become even vaster.It's true that "Deadwood" and "Mad Men" have complicated sets and costuming, though that isn't actually remotely true for "30 Rock" which operates mostly on a limited group of sets that are used repeatedly and are basically unelaborate, and has almost no substantially complicated costuming demands. I'm sure the salaries are quite substantial. But in a world where Dollhouse could have been turning a reasonable if not substantial profit, on a fairly low per-episode budget with pretty high production values, complicated sets, and many, many costume changes, I'd want to know how much it actually costs to produce 30 Rock before rushing to judgement.
And more importantly, while losing revenue might result in more junk on the networks, that's not proof that the stuff developed for online consumption would be bad. Take things like The Guild, which is quirky, funny, and well-acted. And there's not actually proof that going online means going to zero revenue. Advertisers have been entirely willing to buy time on Hulu streams. Audiences have demonstrated in large numbers, that they're willing to make small payments for content like they do on Netflix and iTunes. The future of television doesn't actually look as free, at least not as much as it does for newspaper and print media more generally.