LOS ANGELES —Credit unions that serve the entertainment industry could eventually feel the effects of a new venture here that demonstrates how actors and the TV and movie crews that support them are being threatened in the era of constantly improving AI.
A television channel airing nothing but artificial intelligence-generated programming and commercials around the clock is testing a potentially disruptive proposition for the streaming business: whether extremely low production costs and broad distribution can make money even if audiences and critics are unimpressed with the content, a new analysis states.
Fairground AI Creator TV launched this month on The Roku Channel’s live programming guide and is available on more than five connected-TV and free ad-supported streaming television platforms, Variety reported.
Fairground Entertainment, the Los Angeles-based company behind the channel, calls it the first FAST channel built exclusively around AI-generated content. The service operates 24 hours a day, seven days a week, with AI-created programs interrupted by AI-generated advertising.
Funding Raised
The company has raised $4 million in funding led by Viant Technology and is headed by Colin Petrie-Norris, the former CEO of Xumo, an early FAST platform. Petrie-Norris left Xumo to pursue opportunities in synthetic media, according to Variety.
Fairground draws programming from more than 100 AI creators around the world. But rather than presenting the videos as an endless social-media-style feed, Petrie-Norris and his team program them much like a traditional television network, Variety reported.
Shows are placed into scheduled blocks, including primetime programming, while specials are planned around events such as Halloween.
The Contributors
Contributors include Los Angeles-based AI visual artist Kelly Boesch, who has about four-million social media followers and delivered a TED Talk on AI and creativity in April. Other contributors include Kavan the Kid’s Phantom X Studio, filmmaker Ryan Phillips, Wonder Studios and Massive Studios.
The TV-14 programming includes science fiction, drama, animation, true crime and comedy, along with AI-generated versions of public-domain properties such as “Dracula” and “Robin Hood.”
Critics Question the Quality
The channel’s technological novelty has not translated into favorable reviews.
Boing Boing criticized one medieval drama for unnatural-looking physics, awkward dialogue and characters that did not blink while speaking. Futurism went further, describing Fairground as an “AI slop channel” and its programming as “abominations.”
Fairground, meanwhile, has promoted its programming as “premium” television.
The Larger Issue
But Variety’s reporting and analysis point to a larger issue than whether Fairground’s current programs can match traditionally produced television: The economics of FAST channels may make production quality less important than cost, scale and distribution.
Unlike traditional television, where studios can spend millions of dollars producing individual episodes in hopes of attracting large audiences, FAST channels generate revenue by placing advertising across enormous amounts of programming, the analysis noted, adding themodel can work without every program becoming a hit if production costs are low enough and the channel generates sufficient viewing and advertising inventory.
Generative AI could dramatically alter that equation.
No Longer Needed
Producing another hour of conventional television typically means paying actors and writers, hiring production crews, securing locations or sets, shooting footage and completing post-production. AI-generated programming can eliminate or sharply reduce many of those expenses, potentially bringing down the marginal cost of creating additional programming.
That means a channel such as Fairground could theoretically produce far more programming at a fraction of traditional television’s cost, allowing even modest advertising revenue to support the business.
Roku Distribution Offers Major Test
Fairground’s distribution may ultimately prove more significant than the programming itself.
Roku reaches more than 100 million streaming households globally, giving Fairground access to a connected-TV audience far beyond what individual AI creators could typically reach through social-media algorithms.
Fox Corp. agreed in June to acquire Roku for $22 billion in enterprise value, further underscoring the value placed on Roku’s distribution platform and audience, Variety noted.
Landing on Roku’s live television guide effectively moves AI-generated entertainment from experimental videos circulating online into the same viewing environment occupied by conventional television networks and FAST channels.
It also creates a large-scale test of whether viewers will watch synthetic programming when it is presented alongside traditional content rather than deliberately sought out online.
Grappling With the Issue
The experiment comes as Hollywood and other entertainment companies grapple with the growing capabilities of generative AI and questions surrounding intellectual property, employment and production costs.
Hasbro said in June it is creating AI-powered versions of its characters through a new studio called Sixth Wall. The toy and entertainment company cited unauthorized AI use of its intellectual property as one reason for developing its own capabilities.
AI-generated productions also are beginning to move into established film venues.
“Dreams of Violets,” a fully AI-generated film, premiered at the Tribeca Festival on June 10, becoming the first full-length, live-action feature created entirely with AI to be accepted into the official lineup of a major film festival, Variety reported.
