Tarpon Springs

Wednesday my parents and I headed off to Tarpon Springs, Florida, at one point one of Florida's major tourist destinations. These days other places have greatly surpassed it in popularity -- in part because, as I discovered to my sorrow, Tarpon Springs might be quite close to the Gulf of Mexico -- on it, even -- but from the marina/sponge dock area, you can't see the Gulf unless you go out on a boat, although you can see mangroves. And boats filled with sponges.

Also, I got sick on the way there, which meant I spent most of the trip there, and all of the trip back, prone, which meant I didn't see much of Florida on the way there or back, and most of my pictures did not come out in the slightest. But here are some:

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Chuck

About that providing content, oh content providers...

Chuck really, officially ended last night, after several almost deaths. I had vague ideas of watching the final episode, but by the time it started, I hadn't written enough words for the day and the hordes of unfinished projects were yelling at me, which is not conducive to watching anything, so Microsoft Word came on and Chuck did not. No big deal, I thought. I could catch it online later – Hulu always had Chuck episodes up in a couple of days.

This morning my Twitter feed featured a couple of Chuck related thoughts, which reminded me of the episode, so I clicked on Hulu. Various clips, and links back to first season episodes on WB.com. No big deal. I popped over to NBC.com. No episodes. Then to Amazon, out of curiosity. Amazon.com has streaming episodes from the first four seasons available for $1.99 per episode (mildly ridiculous when the WB is streaming several of these from the first season for free now and presumably will be streaming more from later seasons later, but I guess if you really want something from the latter seasons or if you really hate commercials, hi Amazon). But not a single episode from the fifth season.

Ok, granted, Chuck was never a huge revenue maker for NBC – fans had to run to Subway for financial support for the show for a reason, and the endless "yes Chuck is ending no no it isn't" could not have been helpful. And I assume that NBC is hoping that Chuck fans, unable to find the final episode online, will be rushing to stores to buy the season 5 DVD set. But until that DVD set arrives, the only options fans have for that final episode are pirating or waiting. Meanwhile, NBC/Hulu/Amazon/iTunes are losing out on streaming revenue from either direct sales, Hulu subscriptions or online advertising.

(I am aware that the online advertising revenue stream is incredibly small – it has to be, otherwise more networks would be focusing on online episodes – but I keep thinking that it could easily be larger.)

On a related note, just a short time ago I was praising TNT for offering their shows for free online one week after initial airing. Yeah, that ended – now, to watch online, I have to enter information about my television provider. I don't have one. But even if I did, entering that info is yet another step.

I at least understand where TNT and HBO are coming from here – they depend on cable subscriptions and want me to get one, and if I watched more TV or wasn't on a budget, they'd even have a point. (I cracked the numbers though, and waiting/paying for both Leverage and Game of Thrones DVDs (even HBO's overpriced DVDs) is still cheaper than cable for me, so waiting it is.) But I'm mildly baffled by NBC. After all, Chuck is over; no one is going to be tuning into NBC to watch it anymore. Was this part of their agreement with the WB? Or are they expecting that keeping the series finale offline will help increase DVD sales?

It just seems odd that as the number of devices capable of watching streaming video increase, the number of legal outlets capable of showing streaming video seems to be decreasing. Perhaps it's just my perception.