I’m befuddled by this. Someone turned me on to a tv show called The Profit, and since I’m a budding entrepeneur who likes to learn from other people’s mistakes, I’m finding the show to be extremely educational. I’ve watched all of season 4 for free on the CNBC website. Would love to watch the older seasons also. But… the only place I can find them available on streaming is Amazon Prime Video for $2.99/episode.
I’m not anti-capitalism, but this model has me confused. Why stream the latest/current season for free, but make the old seasons cost money? Shouldn’t it make more sense the other way around?
Would you believe there was a time that content producers gave away their TV shows for free through the air? Just broadcast them out for anyone with a tube and some rabbit ears to watch for nothin’, mere months after they were produced. But if you wanted to watch reruns you had to truck your butt down to the ol’ Best Buy and pick up boxed set of these things called “DVDs”
Joking aside, I’m assuming that when you watched them for free on the CNBC website, there were non-skippable ads? I’m assuming it’s easier for them to sell ad content for a current season, but they’re still struggling with how to best incorporate ad revenue into older seasons. Netflix set the standard that they won’t do ads, and I’m pretty sure Amazon followed suit, but others like Crackle and Hulu will. Content owners have a choice between accepting what Netflix et al will give them, trying to sell the demographic for reruns to advertisers, or accepting what they can get with the direct sales model. There doesn’t seem to be a clear winner.
eta: Just as some commentary, I find Amazon’s per-episode prices to be ridiculous, but they must be working.
Hulu has “The Profit” for streaming. I don’t know if they have all the seasons, but there are a lot. Hulu is a subscription service where you pay a monthly fee and can view their content. They have a version with commercials and one without. Hulu also has the “Shark Tank” series, which is also a useful show to learn from others’ mistakes.
But in general, I’m with you that I don’t understand why single episodes cost so much. It seems like they can put the same commercials in the old episodes as the new ones. Maybe they’re hoping you get hooked so much and you buy them? But I would guess that in most cases, people just leave and find something else to watch.
One thing does make sense is when a current show only has 1 or 2 of the recent episodes on the network website. They’re trying to generate interest for the live broadcast. By having the most recent episode or two, it allows people to catch one they missed or maybe get interested in the show in the first place. Then they’ll watch the rest of the series as it’s shown live.
Well, as I said, I’m not complaining about the cost. Just the logic. If they show the latest season episodes for free (yes, with non-skippable commercials), why not do that with the older seasons also? Conversely, if they want to profit from selling access to the old seasons, why not also charge for access to the latest?
I tried to access them via Hulu, and was even prepared to subscribe. But just before I got the point of signing up I couldn’t find that show actually listed in Hulu’s library! If you do a google search it looks like Hulu has them. But if you go into their site, they’re not there. Or am I missing something?
Probably different markets. Casual viewers will watch an episode at a time (with ads), but people who enjoy binge watching have a higher willingness to pay and will allow themselves to be price discriminated into paying for more episodes at a time.
Why might someone be a binge watcher? Off the top of my head, I’d have expected you to be a potential pay to binge customer. You’re someone who would place some educational value on the show. Alternatively, binging TV shows is super common among my millennial students, and people with weird work schedules might be willing to pay a premium to watch when they want.
of course, the probably just sold the rights to the older seasons to turn them into a cash flow, since you said you can mostly just find them on streaming apps. But that’s a partial explanation for why streaming services would charge for old content.
There’s this website, its name starts with a Y, there’s a T in the middle, and it rhymes with “blue boob” where you might just be able to watch episodes for free.
I just checked my Hulu channel and it does have “The Profit”, but only season 4. There are 11 episodes available. I’m sure they used to have more seasons at some point. Maybe it’s getting more popular on streaming so CNBC is hoping you buy the older seasons.
I also looked at the “Shark Tank” episodes and there is only the most recent season and only 5 episodes: episode 1 and then 8-11. I’m pretty sure there used to be more episodes of that available as well.
It’s a reasonable marketing decision. You want to monetize the show, but you also want to hook people on it without them having to pay for something they haven’t seen.
So you show recent episodes for free. This also allows your fans to watch it if they aren’t able to catch it when it’s broadcast and gives new viewer enough of a feel for the show that they might be willing to pay to see more.
Broadcast networks have been using this model for some time: 4-5 new episodes free, anything older requires a purchase.
I started to watch this show over the summer, when there was nothing else on TV and I like it also (even though I have limited interest in starting my own company). I wonder how much time Marcus spends on these businesses, given that he has a day job.
