Question 8: follow up Q7

Follow question 7, will you suggest TV stations applying PWYW for TV series download service in your country? Why and why not?

Yes. Just like what I have mentioned earlier in the other question, TV series can be viewed as a kind of informaiton good. They can be reproduced with a close-to-zero margin cost. Thus, the more exposure the TV series provided on TV stations have, the more revenue they can bring.

By taking the PWYW pricing mechanizm, the TV stations may also take the advange of "long tail," that is, they have more chance to approach the minority group of customers who are willing to pay and increase their profits.

Not yet in Poland:) too few people have constant access to the web and the speed is not sufficient. But in 5 years - probably yeah. And I am counting on it!

I would suggest it because I prefer watching TV series directly on TV and not on my laptop. There is already such a system for movies in Belgium but you can just ‘rent’ the movie, you don’t really buy it. The next step would be the possibility to purchase them and if so why not with a PWYW pricing system. I'm sure lots of people would be interested. Maybe a minimum price should be implemented in case people are really not willing to pay anything and are just there to take advantage of the system.

I think that in France services already exist on TV to pay to watch the movie and the series you want. It is the "tele a la demande" service. So you basically pay to virtually rent movies/series you want to watch the time you need to see them entirely.
I am not sure people will be interested in buying it completely because most of the time they don't care about watching it a second time, and since you cannot lend it to your friends like a DVD....

Like Felix mentioned just now and like I wrote in my answer to question #7, I think VOD (Video On Demand) could be the right platform for PWYW strategy.

Since we can dowload TV series from the internet for free anyway but with the risk of low quality and a long time to download, being able to get the shows you want when you want them right on your TV screen for a small fee, to me sounds like something I would be willing to pay for. Also, since the cost for the TV stations is minimal (they offer the series on VOD only after an episode has already been broadcasted), it could be a really good strategy.

I totally agree with Felix and Naomi. In addition of offering dvds or other materials, television channel could and should propose everything on line. It is already the case in the united states with some channels like ABC or fox tv. TO pay just a small amount and be able to watch all the series broadcasted on this channel would be a god way, and less expensive for the customer than buying the dvd. Yet in France, a pay what you want system would not work at all, i could bet on it. People would pay the minimal amount (zero if possible), just to benefit from the situation!

In St.Luia, It may or may not work. In any sense reservation price would not be very low, because people WTP is low for such a service once it can be accessed elsewhere for free.

Florent_Blanchard wrote:I totally agree with Felix and Naomi. In addition of offering dvds or other materials, television channel could and should propose everything on line. It is already the case in the united states with some channels like ABC or fox tv. TO pay just a small amount and be able to watch all the series broadcasted on this channel would be a god way, and less expensive for the customer than buying the dvd. Yet in France, a pay what you want system would not work at all, i could bet on it. People would pay the minimal amount (zero if possible), just to benefit from the situation!

... Man is a wolf for Man ! Why would you pay if you can get it for free ? If you have no other way to get access to it, then you will be okay to pay.

I don't think that PWYW is a good pricing strategy for TV shows. As for now consumers are ready to pay for it only a very low price, close to zero. It's difficult for me to imagine customer paying a high price for TV show because of altruistic impulse. In order to generate revenue with the PWYW pricing model it's important to have balace between those who pay a very low price and those who has strong incentives to pay more. In that case I would rather think of setting fixed prices for additional services, related to tv shows.

I agree with Florent. Always the same probleme. If you cannot prevent customers from downloading illegally TV-series without paying, why would they buy it on your website, even with PWYW?

No, it's pointless.

It would be a waste of money for the TV station to put all the infrastructure to support this system when no one will use it...

People will do one of the following before paying a TV station:
a) Wait for re-run b) download it for free c)watch it on their DVR or a friend's DVR d) get the dvd e) ask me to act out the entire episode they missed with a Zoolander voice.

I would say take the PWYW approach, and care less whether or not anyone pays. Because almost all of it is freely obtained anyway (for one reason or another), why not take the opportunity to get some income for it. Also, if the content provider can provide high quality for low cost, and immediate availability of the show online will attract the consumer. This can also generate advertisement sales (since they are the content owners and can continue to put advertisements before/during/after the program) then there is a good opportunity to make some money. As for the consumer paying, that is the long-tail approach...why not make some money if you can.

I wouldn't apply this strategy in my country, because I think the derteminants of fairness and income are not present in the market, so it would be very easy to "cannibalize" the seller offering prices down the costs.

In Belgium, I will not use PWYW model for TV series but for real high perceived information reportages.
What I notice in Belgium is that some TV series can be download for free but serious subjects , I mean interviews from CEO's who explain the strategy from their companies in details, podcasts focused on a special economic subjects are not free. Seems that to get real high level informations, I mean informations with added value from researchers, you have to pay for it but in case of watching series, it relatively easy to get the show for free.
I can compare this situation to readings that you can get on internet. When you want informations from Harvard Business Review, you have to pay for it (related to the high perceived image of the company and the quality of informations) but when you want to get informations from wikipedia,you don't have to pay for it. Seems that we have a kind of hierarchy depending upon what the nature of informations that we want to get.
So, according to the nature of the product, I would rather think about using the PWPW model or not

I guess that attitude i going to change. pay-per-view TV becomes more popular - like in US, where you pay for sports events you want to see. Yes, you can still see it somehow on the web, but the satisfaction and pleasure are much higher to watch it on big screen TV.

Besides, there are already on-line movie rentals, while TV series should not be added to it? The only problem is that dubbing or subtitles have to be added very quickly. But I am quite sure that producers will come up with some awesome idea soon enough:)

I think, or at least I want to believe, that watching TV like that is a future of this business! Just imagine: you have, for example, 1000NT's on your TV account. Watching each TV series episodes costs 3$, and a movie is 10. And not that you can watch it once - it is added to your library so that you could watch it whenever you ant, or your family can watch it as well. How cool would that be?

To answer this question, we need to remember that the revenue of a TV company basically is generated from AD rather than selling products. If a TV company allows the customer to download the TV series for free, it may increase its exposure. If the TV Company could include the ADs in the download version of TV series, maybe it is a good idea for PWYW. If not, then I think the TV company had better release less current TV series for PWYW strategy or they may reproduce different language versions for download to increase its global market.

Of course such an option is possible. There will be one - two commercials each time before the movie will start, or instance. or some logos in the menu and stuff...

But on the other hand - if you pay for it, it means that the company is already profiting from you, so they should not add any extra as. You are paying to have the movie/series without commercials, right?

Coming to think of it, there are dozens of options, like less commercials - higher price, many commercials - get it for free (no option of rewinding )

In Taiwan that model for TV show probably won't work very well. Here are the reasons:

1) There are many online websites out-there that provide downloads either for free or for a monthly fee; some TV stations already provide those services for a monthly charge (except for news).
2) You can download via P2P softwares
3) Downloading is attractive only to certain age groups (ie between 16 to 35).

If the show is highly unique and attractive.. let's say.. "Family Guy" .. then I would consider paying a SMALL fee (since I can find it else where".

Ted_Chiang wrote:In Taiwan that model for TV show probably won't work very well. Here are the reasons:

1) There are many online websites out-there that provide downloads either for free or for a monthly fee; some TV stations already provide those services for a monthly charge (except for news).
2) You can download via P2P softwares
3) Downloading is attractive only to certain age groups (ie between 16 to 35).

If the show is highly unique and attractive.. let's say.. "Family Guy" .. then I would consider paying a SMALL fee (since I can find it else where".

2) You can download via P2P softwares

Is this legal in Taiwan?