TV episodes through iTunes

TV episode sales through iTunes

I would not be comfortable if I was a TV affiliate or cable provider. This is the future. The Network’s, the content providers, have a larger economic incentive to sell through iTunes rather than traditional methods and it is way easier on them. Assuming Apple is only keeping 30% of the sales, each episode in the States sells for $1.99 which works out to roughly $1.39 per viewer per episode to the content provider. Selling advertising on a top rated show only generates $0.40 per viewer per episode and your viewers (notice the viewers are not the customers in the old model) hate the commercials. For the HD content Apple sells for a dollar more $2.99, so $2.09 per viewer per episode to the content provider. I am not aware of any additional advertising revenues for HD channels on cable, but I am not very well informed on that side.

My numbers breakdown for the 199 million episodes and 1 million HD episodes:

Network’s Revenue
Regular $277,207,000
HD $ 2,093,000
Total $279,300,000

Apple’s Revenue
Regular $118,803,000
HD $ 897,000
Total $119,700,000


The old model
Total $80,000,000 to the Network’s for the first run.

The other great thing for the Network’s is the fact that all viewers pay the “first run” rates. Conventionally advertisers pay more when an episode is run for the first time and receive a discount when the episode is rebroadcast later in the year. In the iTunes model, if you watch the episode the night it is released or a year later you are still paying the same amount.

The ease for the Network’s is the infrastructure they no longer need to maintain. Once they have finished producing the episode it is electronically shipped to Apple who distributes it to the customers. The Network’s don’t need to build server farms for distribution, this is what Apple is charging for, and the Network’s can phase out the infrastructure they have built to provide content to the affiliates. Even shows like Letterman are tape earlier in the day and played in their time slot. I believe even the news is tape delayed to a certain extent.

Teen charged with sending nude pictures of herself to herself

I just don't understand how the prosecutor can actually believe they are doing the right thing. You may disagree with the girl in sending the picture, but that is purely a person choice disagreement. What I don't get is the leap from disagreeing with a personal choice to making it a felony and force the girl to register as a sex offender.

The story

I think recursion in programming is really interesting, but recursion in the law is troubling.

Why you should never talk to the police

Granted this professor is talking about American law, and it doesn't directly apply to Canadian law. However the principles laid out and the investigation techniques employed do make for compelling viewing.

Part One


Part Two

The upside to high fuel prices

It is entertaining, to me at least, when people realize that capitalism can react very quickly to economic pressure. It doesn't need government intervention, planning committees, surveys, opinions polls, or even leadership to change direction. Everyone everyday looks at the prices of good they wish to purchase and makes decisions that fit their own situation and the sum total of all those actions allows the economy to turn on a dime.

10 Things you can like about $4 gas

More efficient than the Smart car

I was mulling over purchasing a Smart car until I saw this car. It is time to start saving my nickels and dimes now.

VW car that consumes only 235 mpg, 285 imperial mpg.

For the children of the seventies

To all the people who grew up in the seventies and early eighties, this video total rocks!

Tarsier chowing down

This little guy rocks. (S)he has the coolest facial expressions while chewing.



I am guessing he is eating a frog on a stick.

More information on Tarsier's

The best video this week

This video made me laugh harder than any other video this week. And I watch a lot of online videos.

The Best Video This Week

Really Cool Home Office

If you are short on space, this guy came up with an interesting solution.

The garden shed office

Neccessity breeding innovation, maybe the world won't end tomorrow

There are those that focus on the big black clouds and those who see the flowers blooming in the rain. This couple is the later:

Swift Fuel

Lets hope they are onto something. I am also going to have to read up on sorghum production.

Food Crisis or Subsidy Problem

I was discussing the current so called "Food Crisis" and I happened onto an interesting line of reasoning. Looking at this from a libertarian perspective, I have been following over the last few years the problem of the farmer in poorer countries. Typically they have had to quit farming and move to the cities to look for work because they could not compete with imports from either the U.S.A or the European Union. This has always struck me is quite odd. How can a poor substance farmer in Mexico not be able to grow corn for less than what American farmers are selling corn on the open market? These farmers have no substantial equipment costs, no burdensome fertilizer costs, no proprietary seed costs, no real mortgage cost on their land, in fact the poor farmer is only trying to pay for their children's school fee's and maybe a couple of luxuries. And yet the developed farmer with all those costs is out competing the poor farmer.

Then I hit on the idea. The developed farmer is receiving huge subsidize from the central government which is artificially lowering the price of the product below what the developing world farmer is willing to sell at. This tactic did work in the short term but was ultimately doomed. The market is finally correcting the price imbalance that the European Union and the USA have caused by subsidizing farmers. I am surprised that people, and leaders, think there won't be any negative repercussions from artificially lowering prices. Countries investment in food production, private investment by farmers and corporations, has fallen quite dramatically over the last decade as the rich countries subsidize domestic production which is in turn sold at below market value in poor countries. This forces food producers in non-subsidized countries to find jobs or other markets that will provide a higher return. Now the subsidized food producers find other markets for their land production more profitable and global food production starts to fall below demand. Market forces leveraged by this shift snap into action and correct the prices to what they should have been without subsidizes, for the poor this is very painful. It will now be a somewhat slow process as individuals see the potential for profits in food production without subsidizes and labour and investment moves back into food production. Unless the rich countries can be convinced to abandon their domestic subsidizes during this correction period, when the producers find the profits higher back in food production they will return and drive out the poor food producers again.

Here are some related articles
U.S. Cotton Subsidizes
Corn wins again at the UN
U.S. corn subsidies from 1996-2006
U.S farm subsidies from 1996-2006

Guess how long this paint will glow for?

http://blog.makezine.com/archive/2008/06/glow_paint.html?CMP=OTC-0D6B48984890

I am guess you didn't say 12 years.

CURSE YOUR ROUTINEES

I enjoyed this cartoon:

Pearls Before Swine

Best Movie of the Year

I just watched the most hilarious movie you have never heard of. It is in Blockbuster, so you should be able to find it without much difficulty. The movie is called Citizen Duane.

If you remember the first time you were introduced to the movie Napoleon Dynamite before most people caught on to it, that was an experience. Not that is movie has much of anything in common with Napoleon, but that feeling of watching a completely unknown movie and being completely captivated by it. Live that experience again. Also it is a Canadian production, so you get to watch great Canadian actors doing what they do best.

Spy cameras on every plane

This is just getting ridiculous, camera's to monitor your expressions as you fly. A camera embedded in the back of every seat on the airplane monitoring your facial expression to see if you are a terrorist. "No, honest we aren't going to abuse this system."

Get ready for something like is fake broadcast:
"In tonight's news, after 14 hours of water boarding it was learned that a suspected airline terrorist had a glandular problem which caused mild perspiration and was agitated because he was traveling to a funeral of a loved one. Authorities stated they are happy with the result because this is further proof the system works. Although the suspected terrorist was release, Homeland Security has placed his name on a watch list and will continue to monitor his activities to ensure the public is completely safe."

http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/05/30/1333210

The safest place in Europe

It is interesting that the Balkans (Albania, Bosnia, Croatia, Macedonia, Moldova, Bulgaria, Romania, Montenegro and Serbia) are know the safest place in Europe. That is one I wouldn't have guessed 5 years ago.

Balkans are the safest place in Europe.

Advances in DNA sequencing allows greater view into our past

A couple of articles just came out that sheds more light on how humans moved around the earth and how far back we can acquire DNA.

It is going to be interesting seeing the progress of theories to explain the movement of people from the Orkney islands to the far eastern edge of Siberia. Or the interesting migration from the far east Asia to South America. There has been some hypothesis about the 12th century Chinese circumnavigating the global, but limit information to contradict or support it. This article is suggesting a much older migration. As more DNA samples are accumulated it will provide a very interesting read.

Surprises in our ancestry

Acquiring and sequencing DNA from someone who has been dead for 1000 years is an impressive feat. Comparing this person to modern Nordic people and the rest of us will allow research that is incompressible even today to most of us.

1000 year old Viking

Man-Made Dragonflies

How heavy would you guess a remotely controlled airplane with an on board video camera which transmits back to a computer would weight? Try 16.07 grams.

The Make magazine post.

Just another in a long line of cool stuff to spend you money on.

Camping in Alberta

Have you need a campground with specific amenities but you don't know where to look. The Alberta Government has put together a pretty nice mash-up with their park information and Google maps.

http://gateway.cd.gov.ab.ca/2008searchparks.aspx

The continuing trek to a police state

Isn't this wonderful, now the Harper Government wants to make you guilt of copyright infringement if you own an electronic device. The possession of a laptop or cell phone will give the police the right to stop and search you without warrant or cause. And even if you have legally acquired the content, you purchased the CD and ripped it onto your device which is allowed, you will be subject to further review until they are satisfied you haven't "pirated" anything.

Is this really the type of society we want to be living in? Subject to search at the whim of any cop having a bad day.

From The Province newspaper

As for Canada not having strong protections for Intellectual Property, it is a myth. But like any political lie, if you yell it loud and long enough it becomes reality. According to the 2008 World Economic Forum the countries with the strongest Intellectual Property protections are:
1. Germany
2. United Kingdom
3. France
4. Canada
5. Japan
6. United States
7. Italy
8. Russia

We don't have weak laws, we don't to rescind individual protections to fight the crimes of the 21th century, we should not allow political employee's to dictate what type of a society we as Canadians want to live in.

Food Artwork

These creations are just awesome.

http://omgowned.wordpress.com/2008/05/25/what-happened-to-the-food/

In war everyone does immoral things

I have had a bit of an ongoing discussion with some family members about the morality of war. My position has been, and so far continues to be, even if you feel you are morally justified, you and your forces will commit highly immoral acts during, and even after, the conflict. The author , Nicholson Baker, in his new book "Inconvenient Facts about World War II" points out some of the policies from our treasured allied leaders that are very questionable in the least. The book doesn't bother to try and compare the evils of the axis powers, it just focuses on questionable tactics and policies the allied leadership and forces pursued in what is widely considered in Western countries as a morally justified conflict.

I find it difficult to see a justification in a policy to starve to death the children of an enemy country in the pursuit of victory. But this was an valid and defend policy of Winston Churchill in both World Wars. In fact, the embargo of World War I remained after the Armistice of November 11, 1918, which end the fighting, until the German's signed the Treaty of Versailles on June 28, 1919 officially ending the war. It wouldn't be to difficult to argue that World War II was just the Collateral Damage issuing out from that Treaty.

http://mises.org/story/2966

Canada's taxes aren't that bad

Next time I hear someone complaining about the high taxes Canadians are forced to pay, I don't think I will be that sympathetic. Granted I am for the reduction and eventual elimination of coercive taxation here at home, however other lauded countries have much harsher taxation policies.

I think the key is to develop and enhance an egalitarian society where individuals from all walks of life feel their input is sought and valued, while not only allowing but praising innovation, entrepreneurship, personal economic achievement and the accumulation of wealth. Not an easy thing but a wonderful goal.

The true burden in Denmark.

U.S. seeks to control what it doesn't like

It looks like our big brothers to the south are looking to control information they don't like, but they need to mask the proposal in copyright protection.

http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/05/23/1251202

Check this link out if you are not familiar with the organization Pirate Bay.