Entire Daily Show archive goes online
Viacom has announced that it's going to post the entire eight-year Daily Show archive, with advertising, to the web, and include with it a bunch of community and mash-up features. This is great news -- but can Viacom deliver a service that's 0.25% as good as YouTube (whom they're suing for $1 billion)? Given that, as of this moment, I can't get the Viacom site to serve me any video, the signs are not hopeful.
Link (via /.)Viacom's decision to post its entire archive--while fighting YouTube in the courts--sets the scene for a battle between the established media players and their high profile entertainment brands against the user generated content sites, most notable YouTube.
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Um, isn't using Youtube as a benchmark for internet video sites setting the bar pretty low?
Um, isn't using Youtube as a benchmark for internet video site comparisons setting the bar rather low?
According to IMDb, Stewart's been the host since 1998. Craig Kilborn was the host from 1996-1998. I wonder if they will include the older episodes.
Yeah, the last 8 years of the Daily Show isn't the entire archive by any means. I'd love to tune into some of the Craig Kilborn episodes with his hilarious "Five Questions" to many unsuspecting guests.
this is something i've been wondering about for a while...why dont the networks just put their shows online with ads intact? basically their revenue comes from a) advertisers and b) dvd sales, right? putting shows (with the ads intact) on youtube (or anywhere/everywhere else) is good for:
broadcasters: viewers watching the ads=advertising revenue...greater attention=more dvd sales
viewers: can easily find whatever shows they want to watch whenever they want and only have to watch ads if they're too lazy to fast forward...basically it makes youtube into the infinite tivo
advertisers: get to show their ads around the clock/whenever the shows are watched, as well as having a (reasonably) accurate view count...the whole 'rating' process is integrated
plus broadcasters can change the ads/videos whenever they want and charge advertisers accordingly...
the current situation seems to be that broadcasters are assuming that people will refuse to watch shows with ads online...if that were true, nobody would be watching tv at all...
sure, folks could copy the show, strip the ads out, and post a commercial-free version online, but people are lazy. aren't they more likely to just watch the show on the ABC or NBC youtube channel rather than combing the web for a secret, hidden 'commercial-free' version?
and NOBODY wants to download a propietary player to watch ABC shows...who came up with that retarded notion? i don't want to buy a new tv for each channel...
can't even access dailyshow.com right now ... guess too many requests ... that does not happen with youtube ..
once i can access the video archive I fear i get the 'cannot be played in your region' message .. after seeing a bunch of commercials ..
I hope they did this one better than those other big TV sites ... otherwise .. more power to bittorrent piracy ...
YouTube is just a hacked-together collection of 20,000 lines of Python script code whacked together by a tiny startup and running on a decent server farm. It isn't magic, and there's no reason why Viacom shouldn't be able to produce a service of at least the same quality. If anything, they should be able to do better, since YouTube has to accept any of dozens of video formats and do a lossy conversion on them, while the Daily Show people would have full control of how they do it.
If they were archived with the original advertisements, as they aired, I'd be keen. Old commercials are fun. But not loaded up with NEW ads.
The problem is that a company like Viacom could throw 100,000 man-hours at the problem and still not come up with a workable, enjoyable solution -- in large part BECAUSE of the 100,000 man-hours (most of which would be devoted to figuring out the optimum speed to make all 37 simultaneous items of Flash garbage rotate differently).
YouTube's success is in very large part BECAUSE it's a hacked-together thing. It's about the videos, not about the boring stuff that goes on around the videos.
At least it can be played in Firefox, and I don't have to open IE or IE Tab.
The full archive isn't up yet. Look like just the last month or so. Wish they'd just post the whole episode, not split it up into clips.
"If they were archived with the original advertisements, as they aired, I'd be keen. Old commercials are fun. But not loaded up with NEW ads."
yep; if only commercials from 10, even 5 years ago were worth anything... (to Viacom)
Is it a coincidence that the same day Viacom puts up the daily show, Canadian IPs are banned from the Comedy Central website?
This is what I got directed to when going to comedycentral.com:
A crappy redirect to Canada's Comedy Network.
At least they have recent episodes... but the Silverlight video player is no better than the Flash one for Comedy Central.
Great to hear!
Viacom is finally publicly exercising their right to do, with their media, something that the online community absolutely loves to see. It's been a long time coming, and I'm sure almost as long in development and committee.
It's also great to hear the complaints against viacoms offerings (DRM: yuck! adverts: who needs em spliced in like that, well aside for profit...)
It's nice that we finally see the start of something that might work. To get the interweb on their side they just have to do start moving in the direction of creating a way for users to upload edits of their videos, I'm sure they will want final cut (yuck, but also understandable) I'm fairly sure the time is coming when every media company has a youtube like offering, it's too bad youtube didn't work with the media companies, who's work they where profiting off of, to offer custom solutions for the media companies holdings, you know, act like a cable company/service provider for them, and also offer up a place for the average user.
Having every media company using youtube to allow sections of their work to be used mashed up with other media companies work with everything properly cited would have been absolutely amazing, but youtube didn't understand how much of an effect cooperation and a huge amount of support would have had. Now we just have to wait for Viacom to do the same research and development youtube did, and the extra effort of figuring out how to get user created work into the mix, and then how to cooperate with other media giants to merge their holding together in a way the interwebs would enjoy. It's going to be a long ride, but at least we've hit another mile marker, I'm having a beer to celebrate.
#5 posted by sexyrobot , October 18, 2007 3:48 PM:
(quote:) this is something i've been wondering about for a while...why dont the networks just put their shows online with ads intact? basically their revenue comes from a) advertisers and b) dvd sales, right? putting shows (with the ads intact) on youtube (or anywhere/everywhere else) is good for:
broadcasters: viewers watching the ads=advertising revenue...greater attention=more dvd sales (eof quote)
jgb: You can research it yourself online, and it's complicated, but the short answer to this is that broadcast airings are sold to affiliates, who sell regionally appropriate advertising (but not online aprropo) alongside the national ads. This is what will happen on ip delivery systems like the web and mobile as well, with targeted interstitial advertising, it's just logistics.
As far as youtube goes, they blew it with *everyone* really fast, and are going to have to get damage control out of the way, and then think about how to make it work commercially.
#8
quote:
If they were archived with the original advertisements, as they aired, I'd be keen. Old commercials are fun. But not loaded up with NEW ads.
:quote
Err.. that's nostalgic and all, but then where is their profit stream?
And err, what #10 said!
I am not a number, I"m a free man. :p
Ironically, the new Daily Show site makes it just as easy to download clips as it ever was on YouTube. I made this tool to demonstrate:
http://makedatamakesense.com/download_daily_show/
Viacom has every right to manage their own video portal. It would be a terrible world where a Google-owned video host became the only fount from which pop video culture could flow.
If it weren't for negative repercussions to Safe Harbor, I'd actually be pulling for Viacom. Google shows incredible hubris on the YouTube issue.
Forget about watching the videos, I like how people from outside the US aren't allowed to even look at the site.
#14 posted by cavalier , October 19, 2007 6:04 AM:
"I am not a number, I"m a free man. :p"
If you live in the USA, you are not technically free, and if you use the internet, you are definitely a number.
To all the comments about not the content not being available outside of the USA, this has to do with domestic vs. international distribution rights, contracts drawn up before this scenario was even on the radar screen, another massive headache everyone is trying to work out. Just use a proxy.
Gimmy the full length shows!
I want the full length shows!
Where are the full length shows!
Gimmy the full length shows!!!!
I want the full length shows!!!!
Where are the full length shows????
Clips are for freaks! - Sure have clips if you must, bug GIMMY THE FULL LENGTH SHOWS! This really sucks. I can't even order the clips by start time!
Why cut a segment short just because somebody somewhere feels you've had enough? I haven't had enough... actually I was watching that... Its like a big brother who decides to turn over just because 'ok you saw that - now its time for MY show'.
I am used to watching the show from start to finish, and not on youtube either. I'll be happy when they release the whole thing on BT.
That reminds me, where is BBC-BT? Why won't broadcasters release more media on BT? For the love of Peat! The internet is like a massive magic media pipeline! Gimmy it!
"Given that, as of this moment, I can't get the Viacom site to serve me any video, the signs are not hopeful."
Indeed. Trying to watch clips crashes my browser with 100% regularity. Team Viacom!
Hey Folks
You know I tried the makedatamakesense Daily Show downloader and it seemed to work(flv clips) but 3 didnt converters werent able to convert the file to Mpegs for burning. Will any FLV "capturer" work? Any suggestions? It's driving me a bit bonkers.
Thanks!!!