The Commons, but not that Commons
Picture this:
A TV channel, streamed using the latest and greatest (open) technologies, over the Internet.
Interactive services allow viewers to vote on both programmes and adverts. The really good (and the really bad) are showcased, or named-and-shamed as appropriate, regularly.
A certain proportion of the ad revenues covers the operating costs, but the rest is handed to the content owners.
The content owners provide the content themselves. They specify how many ad slots they’re willing to allow, and of what length (within reason), and thus must balance annoying viewers with financial constraints.
Ads and slots are married up automatically (perhaps like AdWords)?
Human intervention: none.
Lots of potential pitfalls, certainly, but I can’t help wondering if it would work. The biggest barrier is getting both content and advertisers on board to begin with: my suspicion is that you’d need to “seed” it with both ads and content which worked outside of the normal rules so as to reach a critical mass.
Perhaps, though, this could be the next ITV. Except with a tally of the number of people who said “I never ever want to see this again”.
