You watch Meet the Press?

Yep. Not every week, but usually. It's one of the few news shows I can tolerate.

Meet The Press is available as a free podcast from NBC (audio only).

Yeah, there's definitely a cut off of some sort -- above the line and A La Carte costs too much, below and it's a great deal.

I'm below the line, so I'm just waiting until I can cancel my cable and live the All A La Cart life.

But it's gonna be a while. :-)

I like the idea of paying per show, partly due to the fact that I would watch less tv (and certainly less crap). Jason Kottke asks how would you find new shows and I think that it would work much as it does now with music only it would be much easier becuase there are som many fewer shows than albums coming out each year.

Note that buying full seasons of TV shows on iTunes is also more expensive (with worse quality) than buying the same seasons on DVD (well, with the exception of HBO's extortionally-priced Sopranos sets). Most shows are out on DVD only a couple of months after the season ends on the air or cable, with better picture/sound quality plus extra features. Not as timely as iTunes, which is itself not as timely as cable/broadcast.

I can see iTunes video being useful for catching up on a missed show (especially for those without TiVo), or auditioning new viewing, or having stuff to watch on a train or plane, but not replacing cable.

Finding new shows with a la carte opens up a new marketing avenue for networks. Offer ad time on the downloads to competing networks. Maybe?

I'd love to just pay for the channels I use. Live is fine. I have a Tivo.

One cost offset that I might point out is the TiVo monthly service, for those who don't opt for the (more frugal) lifetime service. That levels the playing field a little bit and seems reasonable to include since you'll have digital files both ways.

Also, a cost saving measure to point out: keep watching critically acclaimed shows like "Arrested Development" as they get canceled prematurely, resulting in shorter seasons.

Matt,

Can you do the match on what it would cost to get these programs on DVD? Wonder what the savings are here over viewing on cable and iTunes.

I was similarly excited about ala carte programming, but the pricing issue isn't a good one. Additionally, 30-minute episodes and 60-minute episodes cost the same amount. What gives with that?

Have also heard that networks are trying to figure out how to include ads in their ala carte programming. Don't know that this will come to iTunes, but it's something broadcasters are pining for...

A) Yeah this is just a nitpick, but 24 is officially 24 shows. This season premiered with 2 shows on Sunday and 2 shows on Monday. So if you COULD download them from iTunes they would charge you for each ep and it would be $4 more (24 is not yet on iTunes)

B) Also just think about the prices when they would charge you $2 for a 15 minute show (Sealab 2021, ATHF), $2 for half an hour (Arrested Development), $2 for an hour (24, Lost) and $2 for a 90 minute show (SNL).

ATHF would cost roughly 20 cents a minute (10 minutes show time) whereas it would be 2.5 cents/min for SNL (75 min?). (took out time for the commercials)

You watch quite a bit of television. Are you addicted? $54 a month is a lot to spend on a time-consuming, unproductive habit.

That Sporanos show sure sounds cool :)

Hey Invisible Man – question: spending 20 hours a day in front of your computer is productive?

Capn – love your viewing habits – I watch Meet the Press as well – Tim Russert is the toughest interview in DC, and makes the whole show worthwhile.

Gotta nix Love Monkey though - Entourage has this "Sex in the City for Men" genre covered...

There are 24 episodes of 24 hence the name "24" (24 1 hour episodes)

Ben,

I'm not sure how finding new shows after switching to A La Carte would "work much as it does now with music". The most common ways that a person would find out about new music would be a) radio, b) MTV, c) reviews, d) word of mouth from friends, e) a live show. I really only see Reviews working in that sense, as none of the others really have analogues in the television market.

For clarity's sake, I changed the numbers at this point in the discussion.

carpboy: What about video blogs, similar to music blogs. mblogs like music-for-robots have turned me onto many, many bands.

I see network websites + bloggers creating more than enough buzz to get shows off the ground.

Besides, MTV and radio aren't in the music business anymore and music sales are doing fine, right?

Have you thought about breaking this down into free (network) and non-free (cable, premium) categories? It seems that that might be a more valid comparison since you're often compelled to pay for a lot of unnecessary channels just to get your daily fix of the Daily Show (or, Project Runway) and a la carte would be a nice alternative.

Actually, the main driver of the high cost of a la carte downloading is The Daily Show. Although this makes cable look like a good deal (it's the reason I can't get up the nerve to call Comcast and shut off my service), most of the episodes are posted for free on the web within less than 24 hours. Essentially then, you're paying for quality, convenience, and timeliness.

Is this a fair comparison? Downloads from iTunes are commerical free. You're paying for cable twice, once with your cash, once your attention.

If ad supported shows made their way online, I suspect the cost would be far lower, or perhaps non-existant

I didn't read through all the comments, but did someone note that a lot of these shows are on network TV. Scrubs, Lost, 24, SNL, American Idol, The OC, The Office...all of these are free.

Interesting breakdown, but the choice isn't "TV or Download," the choice is "TV and/or Download," which makes all of the difference.

What cable service do you have that has HBO incuded and is still $54 a month? I'm in San Jose, have 2 cable boxes, one with HD and DVR, and the lowest digital package (no specialties like HBO) and it's $70+.

Funny, subtract the OC and Meet the Press, and add Dennis Miller reruns and Hannity, and you got my Tivo.

/plus way too many 80 show recorded as well, but that's neither here nor there

//listen to Larry Elder, the sage from South Central.

What you need to compare aswell is the cost of watching the commercials. A rough estimate:

with commercials
570 episodes x 1hr =570hrs of tv

Without

570 episodes x .40hr = 228 hours of tv

whats an extra 342 hours worth to you?

I think they will (or should) end up preselling seasons at a discount. For instance it may cost $1.99 per single episode for Lost but if you buy the entire season at once you get a deal. An example where they have already done it is the ABC Family show "Wildfire" on iTMS. The first season price is great, now I just wish I could purchase season two and get the episodes as the come out.....On another note has anyone noticed that the Track # information is messed up if you don't buy the entire season at once? If you buy the tracks as they come out your track numbers will be like 1 of 1, 2 of 2, etc..

Your math's a little off Sam. 40 minutes would actually be .66hr. Regardless, I use a tivo to watch my television so I can skip past the commercials anyway. That might make it only .7hr if you include the time it takes to fast forward, but the difference (a little more than 20 hours) is negligable for me over the course of a year.

Also, many of these shows are only 30 minutes while some are only 15.

But surely you wouldn't watch all your shows al a carte, would you. I know in my tallies, I almost immediately broke down shows by ones that I had to keep at least reasonable abreast of during the actual season, and those that I perfectly fine catching up with in the summer or off season.

Typically, the full seasons sell at a discount, if you can wait for them. If you can't $2 a pop. Also your cable bill is cheaper than mine. Mine's is closer to $70/mo. I admit to being content to pick up the OC, Scrubs, Good Eats, Desperate Housewives, and Entourage as seasonal packages. And at least the OC, and possible Desperate Housewives would be cheaper that way then the original DVD costs.

24, the Daily Show, Commander and Chief and some other shows would require any episode I missed, but not every episode.

Veronica Mars, L Word, South of Nowhere, and Gilmore Girls would probably require I catch every episode on TV and purchase them. And with the exception of Veronica Mars and Gilmore Girls not even because they are so good, but because I also make music videos from the show; and downloading it saves me a lot of time.

$2 per episode for digital downloads from iTunes shouldn't be compared to what you pay for cable, since you're buying a more-or-less permanent copy.

You should compare this to the $40 or so you might pay for a season of a popular TV show on DVD, but then you have to wait for it. Or compare it to the value of your time in converting your TiVo (or other source) recordings to a format you can watch on the iPod.

Yes, the quality is mediocre, but $2 isn't bad in comparison to waiting a year for DVDs or investing your own time to edit out ads and rip the shows to the iPod yourself.

just a quick back of the envelope calculation, you are guranteed to watch 487 hours of television in a year, that is 1.3hrs a day.

I wonder how much of that is advertising.

I too think comparing iTunes to cable isn't a balanced comparison. For one, you are supporting the show either way, though in a more tangible way on iTunes. Another is that TV ads are a total waste of time. I would probably pay $1/ep for some episodes, generally I'd rather just wait for the DVDs.

I don't really consider ripping DVDs to be time consuming, I can set up a batch-rip of DVDs and walk away from the computer or do other things. I don't have much reason to do that yet, but I am ripping a few things for my sister.