Polymathica TV

Soon, radio and television will move to the Internet. Actually, to a limited degree, it already has. This will be good news for most people, but really great news for polymathic intellectuals. It means that refined, erudite television programming will become economically viable and, therefore, available in large doses, 24/7. It also means that a whole new community of producers of refined, erudite television will emerge. What is astounding is how completely Internet television and specifically Polymathica television will change the economic dynamics of the industry. Today, television programming requires massive audiences in order to survive. USA Network’s The Starter Wife was canceled due to poor ratings despite routinely attracting audiences of 2.5 million. Consequently, when new show concepts are considered, appeal to large demographic audiences is never far from the producers’ thoughts.

Internet television can survive on 100,000 viewers or less. The cost of producing a serviceable one hour program has been decreasing due to improving technologies. Today, costs in the $200K to $300K per episode are not impossible as long as the producers stay away from high cost talent, special effects or sets. At a download fee of two dollars, break even is between 100K and 150K viewers. Television that is produced with the Polymathica audience in mind will surely find secondary markets. Consequently, actual viewers required to sustain a refined, erudite show on Polymathica may be no more than 50K to 75K.

The critical difference between the old and the new is that broadcast, cable and satellite Networks have a limited number of time slots to fill. If, in the experience of the Network, the performance of a show is below the potential for the time slot, they will cancel the show, even if the producers are making a profit. Polymathica Television, however, has no such limitation. Its only concern is that it doesn’t oversupply the market and thereby cause the producers to lose money. If the average Polymathica subscriber acquires ten hours per week of content and the average show requires 100K of viewers per episode, a naïve calculation would conclude that Polymathica can support 2.5 million X 10 / 100K = 250 hours of production per week. Comparisons can become complicated, but this is generally equivalent to saying that Polymathica Television, in pre-Internet terminology, could support about six channels of programming. Another way of looking at it, an economically viable Polymathica show will only require 4% of the subscribers to watch.

It will, however, not work that way. Pareto and entertainment Darwinism will take over and the fittest programs will get more than 4% of the viewers, thereby eliminating some of the marginal ones. To a degree, large, mass audience programming will impinge upon the viewing time of more quintessentially Polymathica programming. The problem is a complex one. However, a back of the envelope monte carlo simulation suggests that the actual number of hours of production per week that can be supported by Polymathica will be about 120. Since all of it is community appropriate, it should be more than sufficient to produce a golden age of erudite television.

Polymathica is creating a community in advance of the content, products and services that will satisfy the appetites of the community. Particularly visionary Members may choose to create the content in advance of the community. Those so interested should consider joining our Founders’ Group. We are behind others. There is a Gaia.com. It does not yet have television, but it will. It already has some of the group specific products and services being advertised. We are behind them, but this is not a race. Gaia.com is good to look at because it is where we should be in six months.

Polymathica is just now embarking on an exciting journey. Simply by clicking the facebook ‘join’ button, subscribing to our blog or visiting Polymathica.com and subscribing to our mailing list, you can join us. It will be a lot of fun and you will meet some wonderful and amazing people.