TrivialTV Links Viewers To Shows Online

 
By Sherri March 17, 2007



With 26,544 links to 949 different television series, there’s no doubt the trivialTV Ep Vid Finder is one serious database. Connected to the trivialTV blog, the site helps television fans track down their favorite shows on the Internet quickly. The caveat is a strong leaning towards sites that offer the shows, but don’t break copyright laws in the process.

Mike “Dr. TV” Vicic, the site’s founder, recently took some time out to answer a few questions for us about his unique site.

Why did you create the site?
I initially created trivialTV (http://trivialtv.blogspot.com) instead of finding a book publisher. Old media looked difficult to penetrate. New media was easy. Both paths likely led to the same place.

About four years ago, "girls club" aired two eps before being canceled, and
my friends bet me that it was the shortest-lived series in TV history. I didn't think so. I took that bet and researched. That research got me interested in other short-lived TV series and I started writing a book, "TV Shorties: A Celebration of Short-Lived TV Series." I reckoned people loved spectacular failures and it was a perfect topic.

To find these not-so-well-known shows, I relied on Nielsen ratings as my source of what actually aired. "TV Guide" told you what would air, but networks often changed their minds between print and air time. That's why I developed the database of primetime shows with Nielsen ratings.

Once I found these shows, I wanted to highlight both the good and the bad. I looked for (dis)honors and the Awards database was born. I looked for famous firsts and lasts, leading to the 'On This Date' blog feature. I developed new and odd trivia questions related to each show. All of this information was in a relational database so I could automatically generate the most recent version of the book at the touch of a button.

About two years ago as I was finishing the book, I realized that most authors don't make much money from their first book, especially non-fiction; so I looked around for other opportunities. I looked at the market for downloadable media and saw the perfect storm. Many people were downloading music and adopting high-speed internet quickly. I looked at file sizes and decided people would soon start to download music videos, then cartoons, then TV eps and finally movies. (Of course, I was completely wrong about music videos and cartoons as intermediate steps.) I looked at my database and realized that I was using about 2% of it for the book. I had developed this huge resource and I wasn't using 98% of it.

A few months later, I then really looked at the market and decided it would
be completely fragmented, especially for older TV shows. Complex relationships between studios and production houses. Copyright issues for moving image, audio and music. Easy ways to distribute video online, letting smaller production companies maintain full rights and maximize profits from their libraries.

That's when I decided trivialTV would be an information portal for TV shows
online, and that decision led to the Ep Vid Finder.

How long did it take you to set it up? (You've done a ton of work!)
I don't think I can count the man-hours, but there's never enough time.

Did you realize going in how many shows are available online or did the end tally surprise you?
Today the end tally really surprises me. I didn't anticipate that delivery
of TV eps online would be adopted so quickly. We've come a long way in the
five months since I released the first version of the Ep Vid Finder.

But if you talk to people at video delivery sites, they'll say it's moving
much too slowly.

Have you always been this much of a TV fan?
Not really. I didn't watch much TV growing up. I've only really taken an
interest in TV in the last four years or so, but I've always been a fan of
pop culture.

I didn't look through every link, but it appears you chose to only list the
sites that are legal. Was this by design?
Definitely by design.

I didn't want to enter site codes for links and then have to change or remove them because of a disagreement over copyright and money issues, like the whole Viacom-YouTube relationship. Even for legal sites I often wait for it to work through some growing pains if it doesn't look like the site will scale well.

What can readers expect next out of trivialTV?
Three things.

Maintenance. It's not sexy, but necessary. The Ep Vid Finder, Awards database and Schedule Finder will all be updated with current content on a continuing basis.

Expansion. Also not glamorous, but just as necessary. I constantly add new
sites to the Ep Vid Finder as I find them. I have a backlog of data to
enter for older awards for the Awards database. I've only released about
15% of the trivialTV database for the Schedule Finder so far.

New features. For the Ep Vid Finder, I'm working on a few things. Better ways to search and sort, including suggestions. I need to really take full advantage of the entire database and Ajax. I used static html pages initially just so that I could draw an audience and make it easy for people to search and find content. As the number of eps increases, the current design is no longer useful. For the main site, I plan to unveil ep lists that include repeat airings and a few other surprises.

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Labels: online tv, streaming televsion, television online, trivialtv