This quote from CBS president and CEO Les Moovnes really gets to the the core of the matter with regard to traditional broadcast TV vs. online -- the money.
“The problem is, I’m only getting pennies online,” Moonves said. “If too many people shift to online, I’m not going to be able to produce CSI.” The CBS chief noted that each episode of the procedural costs $3 million to produce. “That’s why we’re not on Hulu. And until the model works, we won’t be.”
MediaWeek
I don't think there's any stopping the move to online nor do I think ad revenues will increase to the point that they can support $3 million dollar webisodes. Some people *might* be willing to pay a monthly fee for a premium Hulu service but are there enough of them to support shows like CSI?
Of course most "broadcast" TV is actually viewed on cable, a good example of a successful monthly subscription model, which is why the broadcasters have been demanding a bigger slice of that pie:
Fox, Bright House Networks reach rebroadcast agreement
Cable operators are also facing the same production cost issues with their own original programming:
"We taught consumers that they can watch shows of the quality of a Mad Men or The Closer, but they don't have to watch the commercials -- and that's bad," he said. "If we move to where the digital asset is controlled by a centralized headend or by authenticated programming, we should be able to reclaim the commercial inventory, because without that, there won't be more Mad Men, The West Wing or Lost."
Multichannel News
Traditional televised media producers have been steadily moving away from high end production for y ears now which is all too obvious when you consider the amount of low budget reality TV crap they've been pumping out. While it seems that the production values of the past may be disappearing I don't think it means we'll eventually be watching nothing but horrible reality shows. While the internet appears to be the cause of this dilemma its also part of the solution. There are now a large and ever increasing number of excellent web tv shows that have modest production values as the
Streamys awards illustrate nicely. The online model may never allow for traditional $3 million per episode production values but maybe its time for something new anyway?
