The Affair

24 Mar 2013

When Everything Isn’t Quite Local

We live in a world where everything is local.

Breakfast television in Australia can poke fun at mishaps posted online in Canada almost as soon as it’s posted. This is so often a godsend for oft-harried producers (hey, I’ve been one myself) starved for content. Yet, even though everything is technically available locally, there are times when it isn’t…aka “geo-blo0cking.”

I have come up across this a lot: I’m an American-born permanent resident of Australia who enjoys Japanese pop music as well as television from Canada and New Zealand, as well as that from the land of my birth.

Now “geo-blocking” for those who might not know what it is, is when online content is available in one country exclusively but not in others.

Here in Australia, for example, ABC News 24’s online stream is often geo-blocked except during important news events where Australians overseas would need that information. Entertainment programmes, can be a bit of a catch-22, but in general, not, with commercial content however, it’s a bit tricky.

Let’s take the example of US television, because US television is almost 99.9% commercial.

The production company that makes the show often has different deals with different networks both inside the US, outside the US, and these days: online…and with different companies in different countries. This is because television is expensive to make and getting increasingly so. Most US programmes on broadcast networks don’t make any serious money for their network until they hit syndication (4 years on air or 100 episodes, whichever comes first) .

For cable programmes, particularly those on subscription channels, the money is made mostly via DVD sales, and because the creative teams behind them agree to work for less for the sake of creative freedom. Sometimes they can also get syndicated,(but we’ll save that one for another time).

What it boils down to, is that somehow someone has to get paid, because as much as television is a labour of love, it’s a costly one.

Here in Australia, there’s been a growing chorus amongst the networks about fighting online piracy or illegal downloads, hence the “fast-tracked from the UK/US” moniker.

That’s because those international deals like I mentioned earlier are vital to a show getting produced in the US. These international deals often extend to online streaming these days.

Now, the conundrum of making money from streaming TV shows is somewhat new territory, but I think there’s an old solution to it: simulcasting local commercials.

This has been going on in Canada and Ireland for a long time. Canada is surrounded by US networks and Ireland by UK ones. Yet, when you turn on a Canadian network or happen to be in Canada but watching an American one, you’ll get the show but with localised commercials.

I’m not a technical whiz, this same technology happens currently on YouTube, wherein I might watch the same Madonna video as someone in the US, but I’ll have an Australian advert before it and someone watching in the US will have an American one.

Just a thought.