An Explanation of Pay-Per-View

There is a nice introduction to the economics of television pay-per-view using a hypothetical boxing match at www.secondsout.com accessed 7 August 2006. Should the link no longer work, search the site for ABCs of Pay-per-view by Jeff Fried. My contention is that lower prices for pay-per-view events could lead to larger revenues with little or no incremental costs. Assuming proper server and telecommunications infrastructure capacity, Viacom stands to make more money by showing SpongeBob SquarePants with advertising and no charge to the viewer. Perhaps content providers like Viacom want to limit redistribution of the content online. This brings me to another proposition: anyone who charges for content like SpongeBob SquarePants is more likely to attract pirates who will make the content available on file sharing networks.

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You may use this content (better still, argue with me!), but please cite my ideas as © 2006, Dr. Bruce Klopfenstein. Find any typos! Don't smite me, let me know!