Pandora TV is not a TV
'13 text + 2 none text' paragraphs, 1000 words, 5972 characters(incl. spaces) - About 3 pages
Created 232 days ago, Updated 226 days ago
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The moving pictures have become one of the symbols of 20th century.
Most of us can’t imagine living without TV, and the movie has become the most-enjoyed cultural product. Further, those video industries have been leading technological enhancement thanks to its characteristics of embracing all types of media technologies such as text, sound, images, and video. -
Video-based businesses, like other industries, have run their business under the mass production and distribution mechanism. Major national TV channels have been skewed toward broadcasting top programs which can attract millions of TV viewers. Movies are not very different. They invest millions of dollars (much lower than in Hollywood blockbusters, but still a significant money) aiming at millions of viewers. And they recruit best talents, who are winers in the fierce competition towards fame and fortune. However, this capital-intensive and elitist industries are seeing new trends led by creative mass, which may ultimately threat their basis.
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According to AGB AC Nielsen research, the audience rating of 4 major national TV networks dropped to 31% in 2005 from 48% in 1998 whereas those cable TV networks rose to 13% in 2005 from a mere 4% in 2001. Cable TV networks are composed of hundreds of channels who on average spend less money to produce or procure programs. That means, on average they present cheaper programs than the major terrestrial TV stations. And they focus on niches. Baduk (Asian board game better known as Go) TV, which I watch a lot, shows Baduk played all the time. However, at major TV stations, Baduk must be lucky to be played once a week at non-prime time. People are marching to the niche, and cable TV is supplying what they want. Supply and demand.
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However disruptive Cable TV is to terrestrial TV, it is still an elitist industry. If you want to have your content played on a cable TV, it will require quite a lot of money, license (government or trade) and network (human as well as technological), not to mention time and efforts to satisfy the expectation of cable TV management. So, I believe that its potential as a mass niche model is still limited in its current form.
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Pandora TV image (logo or UCC capture) UCC
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A really interesting change empowering nobodies and outsiders is taking place on the Internet in the form of so-called user-created contents, many of which are shorter than 5 minutes. Pandora TV started its video service in October 2004, a few months earlier than YouTube. In late 2007, only 3 years after the service launched, it was attracting 2.2 million visitors everyday (source) which is a remarkably high penetration considering South Korean population of 48 million. YouTube had about 7 million visits per day, but it was drawing at least from the US population of 310 million.
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On the other hand, the internet sites of national TV networks are losing visits. Comparing 2007 Q1 over 2006 Q1, KBS, MBC and SBS lost by 8%, 15% and 16% respectively according to www.100hot.co.kr. On the other hand, visits to Pandora.TV, the leading provider of UCC video service, jumped by an whopping 168% during the same period.
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From video specilists (Pando.TV, Mgoon and Aura) to generalist portals’ video services (especially Naver, Daum and internet community Cyworld) they all are growing explosively by providing users with easy-to-use editing and posting tools. Online movie editors allow users to edit any part of the movie clips if they are in digitized file form. Editors enable users to adjust size and viewing quality and to insert subtitles. Now anyone can turn home videos into the clips and post them online to share with communities.
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The amount of UCC video clips is enormous. At Pandor TV, the daily number of new video clips was on average 2,000 and the accumulated number of video clips is hundreds of thousands (such approximation might be more accurate since it is growing at an unbelievably rapid rate) in Summer 2006. As of Summer of 2006, Pandora.TV is a gigantic database of movie clips with over 1 million registered members, 750 thousand unique visitors and 12 million pageviews per day. The accumulated number of video clips that Naver or Cyworld, servicing UCC video clips from other sites like PandoraTV as well as their own, exceeds 1 million each. (update data?)
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However, many of the UCC video contents are not really user-created but excerpts from existing TV or movie contents which raise serious copyright violation issues. While pure self-created UCC video clips are increasing, 70~80% of total postings on those UCC sites is either contents of broadcasting companies or edited version of contents owned by original copyright holders. The US has a similar issue, but the percentage seems a lot lower if not less than 10% as reported here.
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There are optimists and pessimists on this copyright infringement issue; optimists argue that pure UCC is increasing and will continue to increase, and pessimists believe that UCC is not increasing and won’t increase in the future. Nonetheless they both seem to agree that the copyright issue is a problem to resolve in one way or another to make a lasting economic model out of UCC contents.
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However, I would like to suggest looking at things from a totally different angle, not one of “Will people stop copying and start creating?”. I think people are in a way already creating. Let me discuss this more in the later chapter about Tuning.
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It is very encouraging to see skyrocketing popularity of UCC because it shows the potential of people armed with limited resources creating video contents that were the domain of very few ellites and large companies. The only thing left for this UCC video industry to become a true mass niche market is a sizable profit generation (when wanted) for both platforms and content providers. A good news is that some people, though limited, do make money with for-fee contents. I am very certain that UCC video is progressing to be a great mass niche ecosystem.
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