On Demand

Well.

SBC is gone and RCN is here. Aside from a mysteriously high ping on one of the servers we game on, the world is suddenly a brighter place and it's not because of global warming.

Through our amazingly cheap package deal with RCN, we have been afforded HBO OnDemand. Once, OnDemand was a myth to me, some promised land of infinite choice. It wouldn't just be the nail in the coffin of network television, it would be the six feet of dirt above it. I could nod in a sort of third plane of understanding, but I didn't know; I had only fables of its power.

Now, like Moses having seen the face of God and returning from the mount, I bring you truth that many will only be able to know as fables.

(click full post, if you haven't already)

Today, on HBO OnDemand, I can choose at any point of any day to watch almost every movie HBO has in its prime-time rotation. I have the first half of the third season of Curb Your Enthusiasm, the entire current season of Bill Maher (a show which is very good even for conservatives), the first season of Oz, the 5th season of Six Feet Under, 8 weeks of Def Poetry Jam, a chunk of early Sopranos, the oft-awarded but seldom seen Angels in America mini-series, (for the ladies) the entire 8th season of Sex and the City and some of the 7th season for context... Should I go on?

When I first heard about OnDemand, I was under the impression that anything from a station's back catalog could be accessed and viewed. While on a personal level, it's disappointing to not be able to get week-by-week analysis of the past ten football seasons with an archive of Inside the NFL (please, HBO give us old Inside the NFL seasons, please), limiting viewer access may be the move that gives OnDemand power. It creates a supply and demand structure in a non-corporeal realm.

Networks have traditionally been under the yoke of Time. If a show cannot gain pre-release buzz, be slotted in a safe time-slot, introduce itself quick enough, remain entirely accessible throughout its growing stages, it simply cannot survive. A great deal of quality programming has been abandoned prematurely simply because of scheduling. Futurama was constantly pre-empted by football games, preventing its core fans from seeing the show and its potential viewers from growing comfortable with it. Joss Whedon's post-Buffy project, Firefly needed a patient introduction to establish the basic tensions in its large cast; its some-would-argue hostile Friday night time slot (X-Files only survived here since it was moved into the slot after it had gained a large following and Carter's follow-up project Millenium died quickly) ensured a short-life. Many, many programs in their infancy have been killed by large, matured shows being murderously reslotted. Hell, large, matured shows in weak periods have been killed by bright, new programs murderously reslotted. Cable networks have tried to combat this by running successful series in instant mass syndication, a move which has been profitable but often compromises a station's purpose. Look at MTV.

What OnDemand does is break the linear barrier of time for television. A station can increase the free supply of a program faced with a difficult time-slot or in need of a cult build-up of viewers, allowing an audience to build at its leisure. Once the demand is at critical mass, a station can postpone new episodes going into the OnDemand catalog, filtering a program's loyal base into the scheduled premiere time where the advertising is. It will work for the same reason that people go to the movies instead of just renting them or watching them on cable. Just because television can escape the constraints of time doesn't mean humanity can.

More thoughts in the future, I imagine.