How much would you pay for a Sci Fi specific version of Netflix/Hulu?

[ksoviero]

I'm doing a little impromptu study on something:

Imagine a company started tomorrow with the mission of bringing back real sci-fi to viewers. This company would do so using the following methods:

• Converting respected sci-fi books to TV shows (paying very close attention not to screwup the story line in the process).
• Remaking older sci-fi shows that were unfairly canceled (Farscape... Why!?)
• Purchasing the right to, and continuing recently canceled sci-fi shows
• Original content

How much would you be willing to pay for access to such a service (once it has enough content to be worth it, of course)?

For the techies among you, it will run flash on the main site, but will have an open API for accessing content from media centers such as XBMC, and allow the community to create desktop and mobile applications for consuming content anywhere there is an interest.

Please choose from the following options:

• Free/I would not be interested in such a service
• 4.99/mo
• 9.99/mo
• 14.99/mo
• 19.99/mo
• Other

[Wyrminarrd]

Exactly how much would depend on the quantity and quality of the programming available. If they had what I'd consider a good selection then I'd be willing to pay 14,99 USD a month.

Personally I would rather want a service where I would simply buy individual series that I like and be able to download them on my computer to archive.

[Morgania]

Depends on the selection of programs, and how often I could watch. And I would want fantasy shows as well, and maybe a little animation.

[ksoviero]

Exactly how much would depend on the quantity and quality of the programming available. If they had what I'd consider a good selection then I'd be willing to pay 14,99 USD a month.

Personally I would rather want a service where I would simply buy individual series that I like and be able to download them on my computer to archive.

A pay-as-you-go option would be interesting. You would sign up for free, and then for each show you subscribe to you would get charged an additional +$1.99/mo or something. You would then be notified of new episodes by email, RSS, etc. and be able to download or stream them.

^ Is that what you meant? Or did you mean just a one-time fee once a show is done airing to download the whole thing?

[ksoviero]

Depends on the selection of programs, and how often I could watch. And I would want fantasy shows as well, and maybe a little animation.

As far as how often you can watch, it would function a bit like Netflix, and since it's a pay service, you can watch whenever, and for however long you want... No limits in that regard.

Fantasy and anime(?) are close enough to be included I suppose.

Just FYI to y'all, I ask because I want to start the aforementioned business model... I'm sick of my favorite sci fi shows disappearing, and even less quality shows replacing them. Damn reality TV!

I just want to see if there's a market for it before I go down that rabbit hole.

[Jper]

Exactly how much would depend on the quantity and quality of the programming available. If they had what I'd consider a good selection then I'd be willing to pay 14,99 USD a month.

Personally I would rather want a service where I would simply buy individual series that I like and be able to download them on my computer to archive.

What ^ said.

Also, since I'm not in the U.S. I'd prefere something more international than the current models.

[ksoviero]

What ^ said.

Also, since I'm not in the U.S. I'd prefere something more international than the current models.

By "international" do you mean the people, stories, locations, or all the above?

[Jper]

No I mean there would have to be a good international availability of the content for about the same (reasonable) prize. Not having to wait 3 months longer than the others, or never having it. Or even having to import it from the UK for example. And then having to pay twice as much. The problem for me right now is that legal options are limited, expensive and don't offer the same quality or quantity as in the U.S. (or even the U.K.).

[Wyrminarrd]

A pay-as-you-go option would be interesting. You would sign up for free, and then for each show you subscribe to you would get charged an additional +$1.99/mo or something. You would then be notified of new episodes by email, RSS, etc. and be able to download or stream them.

^ Is that what you meant? Or did you mean just a one-time fee once a show is done airing to download the whole thing?

I was actually thinking about a format where you buy the show (one season at a time) in advance of it being made and then receive it once its ready. That way a show would only get made if it manages to attract enough interest to largely fund itself

There could also be an option to just buy individual episodes though that would be more risky for the producer since people might stop watching after the first few episodes.

[Spimman]

Sounds cool, but would require a ton of up front capital that would mostly need to be provided via a non-crowd funded program. It's hard so say what the value would be without seeing it, but I can't imagine your average subscriber paying more that the $7.99\month Netflix charges.

[ksoviero]

No I mean there would have to be a good international availability of the content for about the same (reasonable) prize. Not having to wait 3 months longer than the others, or never having it. Or even having to import it from the UK for example. And then having to pay twice as much. The problem for me right now is that legal options are limited, expensive and don't offer the same quality or quantity as in the U.S. (or even the U.K.).

Oh, geez, I completely misunderstood!

From a legal standpoint, the content will be completely owned by us, so there wouldn't be any international access limitations.

From a techie standpoint, I plan to use a CDN (Content Distribution Network). A CDN will cache a copy of all large content, e.g., an episode, on several servers around the world. That way everyone would access the same site, but when you actually click on the video (or other large content), that content would be pulled from a server that is somewhere geographically nearby.

Here is an example of the node locations for CloudFlare's CDN:

http://i.imgur.com/5OAJUSP.png

[ksoviero]

I was actually thinking about a format where you buy the show (one season at a time) in advance of it being made and then receive it once its ready. That way a show would only get made if it manages to attract enough interest to largely fund itself

There could also be an option to just buy individual episodes though that would be more risky for the producer since people might stop watching after the first few episodes.

Unfortunately, with the average season costing ~$10M to produce, I'm not sure there would be enough initial interest in any show to drive that kind of capital.

Sounds cool, but would require a ton of up front capital that would mostly need to be provided via a non-crowd funded program. It's hard so say what the value would be without seeing it, but I can't imagine your average subscriber paying more that the $7.99\month Netflix charges.

Oh, believe me, I know all about the up-front capital... Having said that, I've started businesses before, and there's always a way to get the capital. Otherwise, no TV studios would exist.

On a related note, there's an old saying in investing: "Always risk someone else's money." Well, that's not exactly it, but close enough.

[min min light]

• Free/I would not be interested in such a service
• 4.99/mo
• 9.99/mo
• 14.99/mo
• 19.99/mo
• Other

19.99/mo or more

[knowles2]

No one will ever sale the rights to a TV series, so you can make more, so you can forget ever gaining the rights to Farscape or any other show. Whedon have repeatedly tried to get Fox to sell him the rights to firefly, as I understand they wouldn't even enter discussion about selling the rights, and Whedon has a lot more influence in the industry than I presume you have.

An presuming you don't have a Russian Oligarch or Saudi Prince that will lend you several hundred million quid it would take for you create a few new, high quality tv shows, you will struggle for content and a audience in the first years. You would need at least a couple of shows with the production values of Games of Thrones/Walking Dead to gain that audience.

Your best bet would be to start off small, a you tube channel, with your own branding, then start producing small shows, may be reviews of TV series, small animation shows/low budget live action series, and then slowly build up from there.

Unless you can match the amount of content your competitors have you shounldn't charge more than them, so I wouldn't pay more than £7.99, and if you only offering a few shows, you should charge substantially less.

Not trying to be negative, but creating a channel with a niche audience that want some of the most expensive programming on TV will not be easy or cheap. Hulu and Netflex minus its DVD division are both loss making entities at least last time I look. Youtube have multiple years of running billion dollars losses for Google and only in the past couple of years is said be making a profits.

[Thunderstorm]

I'd prefer it to be a monthly fee, although not very much.

It costs alot more money that people think to make good quality scifi. The cheap/cheesy movies that Syfy shows still cost between 500K and 1 million.

Farscape was cancelled because of money problems at the company that owned NBC Universal at the time (Vivendi) and it was an expensive item they could ditch.. Last I head Henson still owned the rights so that's not a problem. So if you have millions of dollars to spend you might be able to get that up and running.

It's usually money or rights problems that stop shows getting made not desire.