When I haven’t been helping filmmaker John Pavlus make videos for Nature, I’ve been collaborating with him on a fun, accessible, but thoroughly researched weekly science show called Grand Unified Weekly. (It’s an outgrowth of a series he used to do for Scientific American, called The Monitor.)
As 2008 wound wound down, we started cranking out episodes of the show, one a week, all of which you can watch on the homepage of Grand Unified Weekly. Somewhere in the middle of that, the global economy collapses.
Also, surprise surprise, science, no matter how much you sex it up, remains a niche interest. So a week ago the really lovely people at SlateV, as politely as possible, let us know that the budget for the show just can’t be justified in this climate, at this level of viewership. Totally understandable. Here’s the summary, courtesy of the Columbia Journalism Review:
Slate V Puts Weekly Science Roundup On Hold
“Grand Unified Weekly” shelved despite positive response from audiences
But here’s the thing: The show is only three months old. We’re on episode 11 (and it’s weekly).
That’s the half-life of a product on the web. It’s hit-driven, expectations run high, and budgets are tight. Everything has to start justifying its existence sooner rather than later because, frankly, unless you’re charging people for content (like Nature) no one really knows how anything other than, say, blogging and aggregation, is ever going to be self-sustaining on the web. It’s a temporary situation, I’m sure, but I can’t help but wonder if the future of science media isn’t almost entirely composed of either journals like Nature, whose primary interest is not, after all news; blogs; and the barely re-written press releases that comprise most science journalism these days.
If anyone knows a science or tech company that has the courage to sponsor a critically-acclaimed show, drop me a line. Seriously.
Christopher, sorry to hear the bad news. You touch on some interesting points about business models. Did you see this article from Time, proposing a micropayment, iTunes-like system for online content? Very interesting.
Hi Corie – thanks for chiming in. I would respond to comments on this blog only I just realized it wasn’t emailing me when they went up!
Anyway, I think micropayments are interesting, but they aren’t new, and I’ve heard a lot of chatter from authoritative-sounding techies about why they won’t work. (Many have pointed out that, among other things, they kind of already exist — both Amazon and PayPal allow for micropayments.) Or, as Owen Thomas at Valleywag put it — charging for your content is fine, but others will simply smartly summarize it elsewhere and give it away for free.
That said, I think charging for content is not a bad idea in and of itself.