Physical media? How quaint.

Last Updated on Wednesday, 20 May 2009 02:08 Written by Kelsey Brookes Wednesday, 20 May 2009 01:23

Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, has been cancelled.

While I thought that Chronicles became a particularly compelling bit of prime-time sci-fi, I'm not here to mourn its demise. If I can get over Firefly I can get over anything.

What's really pushed my 'Big Media Just Don't Get It' button is the possible plans for future stories from the series: Apparently straight-to-dvd movies are the way to go.

Despite the stigma of this kind of production, Warner Brothers are still bound into their shiny-little-disc strategy and feel that this is the way forward.

I've got an idea:

How about monetising international online distribution?

I mean, it's not like the distribution channel doesn't exist: Hulu would be all over the opportunity to feature mainstream content that can only be delivered online.

So why devalue a fantastic brand with such limited potential for distribution? Especially when only the desperately bored are even willing to attempt straight-to-dvd anything. (Cruel Intentions 3 anyone?)

So, what's the holdup?

Right now, Hulu is verboten to all outside the U.S.. Content distribution rights simply don't allow it. Of course this is bound up in licensing rights to local stakeholders and I don't deny that it would be difficult in the extreme to get everyone to the party.

However the true problem is the lack of international monetisation of online content: delivering region-specific advertising to local viewers everywhere.

GM sponsors a show for its U.S. broadcast. Their ads should rightfully be shown to everyone watching in the States. Unfortunately, the thought-process seems to break down right there.

Rather than find international advertising partners and leveraging existing geo-targeting technology, distributors simply block overseas streaming.

This in turn creates piracy. Big media are trying to sue their customers into submission. Right now, they're trying to bully Australian ISP iinet into 'admitting their customers are pirates'.

The problem is, their customers have access to the same technology as their American cousins but not the content. It's simply easier to pirate shows right now.

People will always take the simpler path. If content distributors developed the will to do so, Australians could be watching the same content as Americans, with local advertising and sponsorship adding funds to the coffers.

Hulu is easy. Piracy is hard, but it's easier than running down to the shops to pick up a shiny disc.

Stop suing people. Start investing in worldwide advertising distribution technology. Put the deals in place with local advertisers. Release simultaneously across the globe.

That's the solution to piracy.

So tell me again why a direct-to-dvd release is a good idea? So it can languish on the shelves around the world? So it can be added to the end of a NetFlix queue by the morbidly curious? Why taint a product with such a shameful end?

Chronicles rating numbers were always better after DVR (digital video recorder) views were taken into account. The demographic for this show is clearly the sci-fi loving, tech-savvy geek crowd. I'm one of them. We watch our content online, on our computers and via AppleTV or XBMC or Boxee or (god help us) Windows Media Center.

If there was a time and opportunity to explosively launch a New Way of Doing Business™, this would be it. Give it the prestige of being the herald of new opportunities, new deals, new money rather than the ignominious death of mild curiousity.