Now that Warner Brothers has announced a streaming service for DC Comics programming, the question is, how do you program it? I have a few suggestions, hopefully some will agree.
First, WB needs to provide 2 versions of the service. The first version is the live stream only. They can use commercial revenue to pay for the live stream, and use their shows to fill a 24 hour schedule. This version would be free to view. The second version would be a live stream and an on demand service combo. With this, you could call it a premium package, and actually charge for the on demand capability. This would give you 2 sources of revenue for the network. It would also give to the fans who cannot afford another pay service, while still generating subscriptions to make the network a success.
Next, you have to figure out programming blocks. Personally, I see a block of animation every morning from 7am to noon. Say, a Filmation hour, followed by an hour of the Super Friends, and so on. At noon, you start the live action series. The live action blocks can go one of 2 ways. Either you could have daily programming, or you could run block of shows through the day. For instance, you could do “Metropolis Monday,” “Gotham City Tuesday,” “Wonderful Women Wednesday,” “Smallville Thursday,” and “The Flash and Arrow Friday.” With these choices, you could give a variety of programming, or you could just do a daily schedule and run the shows everyday. Also, you can run shows that are from WB that fit the bill of the network, as in Chuck, The Man from Atlantis, Time Trax, Witchblade, and so on. This would give you more potential programming and would not go against the foundation or genre of the network.
Third, you HAVE to provide special and original programming to be a success. Titans and Young Justice Season 3 are great starts. I would also love to see a JSA series set in WWII. I think a great (and relatively inexpensive to produce) companion series to Titans would be The Question. My final and favorite idea is a series of movies based on the Just Imagine Stan Lee Presents line of comics. This would take arguably the greatest and biggest fan favorite comics creator and bring his stories to life, stories that otherwise would probably never get made into live action OR animation.
(image courtesy of bleedingcool.com)
Finally, I would love to see a weekly, hour long news show, like DC All Access on YouTube. You could easily find a spot for it in the line-up. For example, you could run Wonder Woman Monday through Friday at 5. Since there was such a limited run of the series, you could pre-empt the show every Wednesday and run the news program. This would not only give a regular time slot to the news show, but it would also extend the number of weeks that Wonder Woman would be able to run without re-airing the shows as fast.
After the network has built up revenue and support, you could then look to branch out. With the addition of revenue, you could start to buy programming like The Bionic Woman, the Six Million Dollar Man, Xena, Hercules, The Misfits, The Tick, Misfits of Science, and so on. Obviously, Marvel will probably never be available, as it is owned by Disney and the biggest rival the network would have, but there are plenty of options available without using Marvel shows or films.
Thanks for taking the time to read and be sure to comment on what you think I got right or wrong and your ideas as well...