Set the Record Straight: Freecaster's Raymond Dulieu
Recently, Freecaster.tv announced that they would be charging to watch their live UCI World Cup broadcast. The response from the MTB community was passionate, but often mis-informed. Vital MTB decided to go straight to the source to find out about Freecaster's decision to charge for World Cup viewing. Below is a quick Q&A with Raymond Dulieu, founder of Freecaster TV.
What prompted Freecaster to charge a 2 EUR/3 USD fee to watch your live, online World Cup broadcasts?
My objective, when I created Freecaster in 2004, was to offer free access to action sports to the largest possible audience. When we launched, there was no YouTube. The assumption was that if the audience was large enough, we would be financed by advertising. In 2009, both traffic and viewing time surged. We used 1000 terrabytes just for LIVE stream and replays for one year. And that is when the advertising market plummeted. We were hoping to see a resurgence of advertising revenues in 2010 but our viewing figures are too small for outside industry brands. The bike industry doesn't have endless resources and were in no capacity to sponsor us sufficiently. With not enough revenues in sight, the only source left available to us are the fans. Just as they pay for their favourite print mag, we think that if they value what we do, they might accept the principal that we can't provide that service for free.
Any idea as to why sponsors (inside or outside of the industry) have not stepped up to support your live coverage?
Companies such as Braun shavers supported us for years, but our viewing numbers are just not there for such large companies. For them 80.000 LIVE viewers is a drop in the ocean. The bike industry doesn't have endless resources and they currently invest primarily in producing their own web clips. The LIVE coverage we provide is a bonus, not a priority for them. The same logic applies to print titles. How many have outside industry advertisers?
Do you feel like the decision to charge for the live broadcasts will hurt your viewership?
Yes it will hurt viewership. For the first XCO race of the season, despite FREE access to codes courtesy of Scott mountain bikes, only 3500 people redeemed their vouchers. That is 10% of last year's audience.
What will the fee give viewers?
The fee is 2 EUR / 3 USD. It will give access to either the XCO or the DHI race. I'm looking whether we can technically allow access to LIVE and replay for the same code. I know that people who will have purchased a LIVE code will share it with others who will want to see the replay and at such low fee, every viewer counts.
Many comments about coverage from the 2009 season refer to the lack of cameras on course and their placement. Explain how the coverage works. Is Freecaster in charge of cameras and placement?
Freecaster is not producing the TV signal and is not responsible for the position of the cameras. We share our viewers' frustration and do all we can to improve the situation but those are decisions only the UCI can make. UCI invests a lot of money already to produce with 6 cameras without any brand to sponsor the World Cup. They too have a limit in how much they can invest for the sport.
How can I pay to watch the World Cups on Freecaster? I've heard you're working on "season passes" and other option. Is that true?
Considering some people had issues accessing the streams in 2009, I didn't want to offer season passes right away. We are looking to offer that option yet have limited tech development resources. We're just 3 people at Freecaster. I also thought that people would prefer paying via SMS rather than PayPal and thus credit card. We will now offer that option too. Ultimately, I hope that other companies will follow Scott Bikes' example and purchase codes from us to offer them free to their fans.
If money was no object, what would your dream World Cup broadcast look like?
The dream webcast would be to have the same level of TV production as at the world championships and to add multilingual LIVE commentary. This is unfortunately unrealistic.
What prompted Freecaster to charge a 2 EUR/3 USD fee to watch your live, online World Cup broadcasts?
My objective, when I created Freecaster in 2004, was to offer free access to action sports to the largest possible audience. When we launched, there was no YouTube. The assumption was that if the audience was large enough, we would be financed by advertising. In 2009, both traffic and viewing time surged. We used 1000 terrabytes just for LIVE stream and replays for one year. And that is when the advertising market plummeted. We were hoping to see a resurgence of advertising revenues in 2010 but our viewing figures are too small for outside industry brands. The bike industry doesn't have endless resources and were in no capacity to sponsor us sufficiently. With not enough revenues in sight, the only source left available to us are the fans. Just as they pay for their favourite print mag, we think that if they value what we do, they might accept the principal that we can't provide that service for free.
Any idea as to why sponsors (inside or outside of the industry) have not stepped up to support your live coverage?
Companies such as Braun shavers supported us for years, but our viewing numbers are just not there for such large companies. For them 80.000 LIVE viewers is a drop in the ocean. The bike industry doesn't have endless resources and they currently invest primarily in producing their own web clips. The LIVE coverage we provide is a bonus, not a priority for them. The same logic applies to print titles. How many have outside industry advertisers?
Do you feel like the decision to charge for the live broadcasts will hurt your viewership?
Yes it will hurt viewership. For the first XCO race of the season, despite FREE access to codes courtesy of Scott mountain bikes, only 3500 people redeemed their vouchers. That is 10% of last year's audience.
What will the fee give viewers?
The fee is 2 EUR / 3 USD. It will give access to either the XCO or the DHI race. I'm looking whether we can technically allow access to LIVE and replay for the same code. I know that people who will have purchased a LIVE code will share it with others who will want to see the replay and at such low fee, every viewer counts.
Many comments about coverage from the 2009 season refer to the lack of cameras on course and their placement. Explain how the coverage works. Is Freecaster in charge of cameras and placement?
Freecaster is not producing the TV signal and is not responsible for the position of the cameras. We share our viewers' frustration and do all we can to improve the situation but those are decisions only the UCI can make. UCI invests a lot of money already to produce with 6 cameras without any brand to sponsor the World Cup. They too have a limit in how much they can invest for the sport.
How can I pay to watch the World Cups on Freecaster? I've heard you're working on "season passes" and other option. Is that true?
Considering some people had issues accessing the streams in 2009, I didn't want to offer season passes right away. We are looking to offer that option yet have limited tech development resources. We're just 3 people at Freecaster. I also thought that people would prefer paying via SMS rather than PayPal and thus credit card. We will now offer that option too. Ultimately, I hope that other companies will follow Scott Bikes' example and purchase codes from us to offer them free to their fans.
If money was no object, what would your dream World Cup broadcast look like?
The dream webcast would be to have the same level of TV production as at the world championships and to add multilingual LIVE commentary. This is unfortunately unrealistic.
Visit www.freecaster.tv and support the UCI World Cup Mountain Bike live broadcasts.
Casey Hoffman
5/19/2010 6:57 PM
$3 is more than a fair price to watch the world cups. Think about how much people pay to watch ufc fights or wwe wrestling. $3 is cheap and if you don't want to spend the money then don't complain about it. nothing in this world is free.
mattdallas
5/17/2010 12:12 PM
quite happy to pay to watch my beloved sport in the comfort of my own home!........but....if they are charging for a service they need to ensure that they are delivering exact;y that....you can assume 80% of households now have a pretty sweet broadband connection so streaming really shouldn't be an issue....
im all for paying more if it means they can stick more cameras on the hill !
great to see freecaster are pointing the coverage in the right direction...its just not quite there yet.
eldeme
5/16/2010 7:07 PM
just for u'r info guys..i live in malaysia. In the sms listing i couldn't find malaysia, so i couldn't watch it live. I don't mind paying but...malaysia wasn't in the list.
i voice out as well that for some of us who don't have credit card would be a bummer to. so hope freecaster can update the sms country list soon
thanx
Zoro
4/26/2010 8:53 PM
The thing is if you can pay for a DH bike, a car to get to the mountain, spare parts and beer, you can probably shell out 3$ for an excellent service dedicated to show the year's best races
scriz
4/26/2010 5:43 PM
$3 is nothing, there are only 6 world cups this year, so that's a whopping $18 for a "season" pass. Heck, I bought last years DVD for twice that just to say thank you to Freecaster for an EPIC season. Warner is f'ing hilarious and the interviews / Q&A with the pros are awesome. DH coverage is so damn slim as it is.... time to step up fools!
Luis
4/26/2010 3:32 PM
Shit! I´m unemployee now, I live in Spain!
Turnerdhr23
4/26/2010 3:29 PM
thats true, I forgot about how loaded the server must have been with all the viewers last year. Maybe it was just my computer but I remember last year the feed would cut out like every five minutes and I would have to reload the page, it wasnt anything major but it was just enough to be annoying. If that problem along with some of the other minor ones get fixed then I am sure they will have success getting viewers. I definitely support freecaster, but I doubt I will tune in to all of them like I did last year, It will be interesting to see what people think of the new coverage and system etc.
sspomer
4/26/2010 3:17 PM
definitely understandable and valid points Turner. the thing is, i don't remember a large number of times things were glitchy with the webcast. i do remember a couple, but never enough to not want to see what's going on. i would also think if number of viewers is smaller b/c of the fee, that will help with bandwidth/glitches.
Turnerdhr23
4/26/2010 2:50 PM
If they fix all the problems like the cutting out every 5 minutes or the loss of audio half of the time I might pay. when the service was free and it had problems it was like "oh well, its free, it's a privilege just to be able to watch it." But if I am paying for it I expect it to be spot on. No cutting out and great coverage. I mean I know $3 is an extremely reasonable amount to be asking and I understand why they are asking for money now, but What Im saying is if I am paying I expect a higher quality service. I will probably chip in to watch val di sol or champery, but I wont be tuning in for every round like I used to.
sspomer
4/26/2010 2:36 PM
are you guys serious? you won't part with $3 for a LIVE world cup broadcast? buy 1 less energy drink this week and you'll have your $3 for maribor webcast.
bturman
4/26/2010 1:04 PM
You guys can't afford $3? I bet you can scrounge up enough dimes and nickels from your ashtray to pay for several hours of live entertainment...
Turnerdhr23
4/26/2010 12:41 PM
Looks like no more world cup watching for me. Kind of a bummer but I understand where they are coming from. Hopefully they switch it back to free.
kaibrabo
4/26/2010 12:21 PM
paycaster^ or notfreecaster^ lolz
Pwest
4/26/2010 12:11 PM
Well i don't think you can call it Freecaster anymore.
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