Progress in on-demand programming

By Kelly Kilpatrick

With the tremendous growth of the capabilities of the internet over the last decade, companies have scrambled to meet the demands of customers who want what they want, when they want it. Searching for content has become easier, and companies are losing their shirts to webmasters who rip their movies and television shows and post them up on the web without permission. 

On-demand programming has been around for several years, but the content available has not always been what people were looking for. A few years ago, on-demand was limited to old television and shorts for free; everything else had to be paid for at a price that cost more than renting a movie at the video store. This is all beginning to change.

The newest thing in on-demand programming has shows available after they debut on television. AMC, for instance, has made their award-winning show Mad Men available the very next day on Time-Warner On-Demand. This ensures that viewers still get to see the newest show without having to work their schedule around television programming.

Of course, this is the way of the future—or one of them anyway. On-demand shows are still sponsored through advertising dollars, but companies are now given the exclusive rights to sponsor a show. Mad Men, for example, is typically sponsored by one brand per episode, with one interruption in the program. Rather than recording the program with a DVR or TiVo, viewers can save space and simply watch the program with one brief commercial break whenever they’re ready to do so.

Naturally, what follows is creating an interface with which subscribers can view the programming they pay dearly for each month on their other digital devices, something that has been in the works for a long time. However, the ramifications and ripple effect this will have on the future of creative content are mind-boggling, to say the least. 

For now, on-demand programming is continuing to serve more customers as the selection expands and customers learn about what is available. Although it may not always be the go-to medium for viewers at home, it is adjusting to the needs of a market that is in constant flux.

This post was contributed by Kelly Kilpatrick, who writes on the subject of Verizon ISP. She invites your feedback at kellykilpatrick24 at gmail dot com.