The Clicker: “You’re going the wrong way!” - Home Entertainment - homeentertainment.engadget.com

The Clicker is a weekly contribution to Engadget, usually focused on High-Definition television. Much of what he contributes is usually pretty entry-level stuff. In this entry, however, Stephen Speicher has two very good points. First, he suggests, that the networks who want to compete with ABC selling their past episodes on iTunes for $1.99 do so by selling their ‘future’ episodes for $1.99 instead of just saying “Me Too” and selling their past episodes at a lower price point.

Second, he comes up with an interesting concept. Launch a ‘Pilot’ web site (say http://pilot.nbc.com) where viewers could download and watch pilot episodes of new shows for the price of filling out a survey. The survey data could then be collected and used to determine if the pilot should be launched. I would even take this a step further. The networks would probably complain that this idea would only get data from on-line viewers, and not the general population, so theoretically, a show could be a hit on-line, and bomb over the air. That brings me to my natural conclusion that sometimes the networks broadcast different shows on line than they do over the air.
The Clicker: “You’re going the wrong way!” - Home Entertainment - homeentertainment.engadget.com