Premiere

Well, you should have been there.

The episode three premiere was epic, complete with an audience that ooohed, ahhhed and chuckled at all the right places. My daughter sat next to one fan who was literally leaning forward in her seat, anxious for the lives and fortunes of our heroes.

That’s the way it should be, and it made for a great after-party. Filming an episodic drama makes for a kind of congregation or fraternity of the faithful.  You actually become a kind of township in the cause of telling a township story. As even one of our more laconic crew members said, “this place is becoming a family.”

Sweet, true words, let me tell you. Personally, I wish film premiere parties, like biblical weddings, could go on for at least a week or so. How else can you have a meaningful conversation with each of 200 people?

Performance

Not dramatic performance.  Sales performance.

The future of Courage, New Hampshire depends on some mix of conventional licensing (a cable network licensing the show) and our own grass roots DVD and VOD (video-on-demand) sales.  We are on the verge of sealing a deal with an international sales agency, and they think the product has such high standards it will be gobbled up by the European and Asian markets. That would be nice, of course, but we very much want an American audience too, since, as you know, we believe America deserves this story.

To that end, I’m going to think out loud here about the cable monopoly and the internet

delivery platform. Why? Because I am convinced there is someone in this audience smart enough, on these fronts, to give us good advice.

Whenever someone finds about “Courage, New Hampshire” for the first time we always hear this: “when can I see this on TV?” They want to know if it will be on AMC or Showtime or Hallmark. Well, that might happen, but only if an established cable network wants to let a small, unknown production company lay down the rules for its own show.   We’ve had some conversations with cable networks that are, frankly, hilarious.  We talk about an 18th century drama. They talk about a World War II show they want to do.  We talk about a tavern keeper who is a justice of the peace. They want to tell a story about a little girl who looks out the window and writes in her diary. We talk about using our own writers and researchers. They talk about bringing in their own “professional.”

So, while we may get a cable home someday, it’s not likely until they need us more than we need them.

Reality Number One: The networks and the cable channels represent a substantial obstacle to the upstart digital television series, for a few reasons: 1) people still assume when you announce a show it will eventually be on their cable system, so they wait to see it as part of their $100 a month “free” package of programming, and 2) that “free” programming means you have to talk them into paying a little more to see your show.

Reality Number Two: The DVD and the Blu-Ray disk are eventually going to die.  We don’t know when they will die, but Microsoft has already announced that its next operating system will not play DVDs.  We all know the stories about Blockbuster shrinking in the face of poor DVD rentals and we all see the popularity of Netflix streaming, but what we don’t know is this:  when will everyone just give up their disk players and start watching everything on the internet?   The little disks are supposed to die, but we don’t know when.

Reality Number Three:  A lot of people still don’t know about internet based video on demand. I just had lunch with two of the show’s biggest fans and they told me that other than Netflix, they never really watch anything on the internet and they have never tried a “virtual rent” from Itunes or Amazon video on demand.  We’re at a bit of a disadvantage on the pricing front as well.  A hot show like “Mad Men” can be “purchased” video on demand for $1.95 a show.   That’s because the production company has a broadcast partner who pays for each episode.   Their VOD prices are bound to be cheaper than a show that isn’t getting a broadcast licensing fee.

Reality Number Four:  Some industry observers think that a network or cable broadcast is what legitimizes a program, and that video-on-demand is only there so that people can watch the show they missed when it originally aired. (Maybe, maybe not.  Remember when Gary Shandling was apologizing for not having a “real” show because it was on HBO?  Eventually someone will legitimize straight-to-digital delivery.)

Reality Number Five: A small, independent show can’t just be “as good” as a network show.  It has to be hundreds of times better in order to overcome its small-time branding and lack of star power. Networks can produce a lot of really bad stuff because they have one or two shows that work, and they have an established, fee-paying audience.  Independents look at all the really awful stuff being produced and think, “ours is much better; why isn’t our audience at least that large?” The answer is that the audience in question doesn’t really belong to the bad show.  It belongs to the network retailer of entertainment that included the show in its lineup.

Reality Number Six: the Audience for Courage is building.  We’re not sure if this really means anything, but we have more Face Book Fans than some period shows, and we have lots of email from people around the country anxious for the next episode. This week we won “audience favorite” at the Life Fest film festival, and we had some pretty stiff competition. Most of the paying audience still seems to prefer the DVD purchase, or the “two DVD Join the Colony” purchase, but we close something like 5-14% of the people who visit our “Buy/Watch” the show page.   (During periods of intense news, it’s closer to the 14% number and during slow news periods it’s on the lower end.)

 

Reality Number Seven: Given reality #6, the only thing we really need is more attention.  People like the show and they buy it, once they hear about it, (even if a few of them think they can wait for it to be on cable TV someday).

Reality Number Eight: You might think that entertainment reviewers would like to talk and write about something a little different, but you would be wrong. They talk about movies and shows with multi-million dollar budgets. They talk about what everyone is talking about. You can send them review copies but unless they see Robert De Niro or Hayley Atwell on the cover, you will need to pitch a tent on their doorstep or find a common enemy or take them sail fishing in Cabo.

Reality Number Nine:  even a really well managed, hyper-focused advertising campaign would be facing some of the other realities we’ve articulated here. You could build a lot of excitement for the show, and you might even get people to remember the name of the web site, but it might just have this effect:  “Wow, I can’t wait to see that show on TV.”  That works for someone already parked on that channel three nights a week.  It doesn’t work for someone who needs them to get out of their parking space and over to the computer.

Reality Number Ten: the best way to build the audience is to get existing fans to talk about it, and keep talking about it, but you all have lives too.  We need to give you some incentive to blog and share and like.

Thinking…