Hi everyone,
This is quite a big announcement for us. We've detailed our motivations for it below, but if you don't want to read everything we encourage you to scroll down to the Conclusion and Tldr.
Introduction
TVmaze was launched 2 years ago stemming from the desire of a small group of friends to provide the most accurate TV related information resource on the Internet.
We consider ourselves extremely lucky. In the 2 years we've existed, we've seen tremendous growth on all fronts:
- Tens of thousands of users using TVmaze to keep track of their favorite shows
- Thousands of developers using the API to serve their users on their own platforms.
- An ever increasing number of users finding joy in our contribution system, making it possible for TVmaze to cover a wide range of TV shows/networks from over all over the world.
Fast, reliable and user friendly. Those are just some of the values we uphold on a daily basis. The thing is... We don't want to stop. We want to make our service even better. We want to speed up development. And we want to increase the quality of our service by providing more tools, data and faster workflows to everyone who needs it.
The problem with this vision is that our current business model doesn't allow David and myself to work on the development of TVmaze as much as we'd like to. Currently almost all of our small revenue goes toward keeping the site up and running like hosting costs, legal fees and external dependencies.
Although our visitor count continues to increase, the revenue from advertisements keeps dropping considerably. The main reason being the increasing amount of adblockers being used : currently between 25% and 50% and quickly rising.
Also, we don't even have to mention the overall dislike and aversion people have towards ads in general. We don't like them any better than you do, but right now they're the only thing keeping TVmaze alive. We already display less ads than the average website and are not planning on increasing the amount per page , as this would just conflict with the positive user experience we want users to have.
'Premium' is perfect for users who dislike ads but want to support TVmaze.
On a personal level
David and myself(Jan) have always dreamt of being able to work on TVmaze fulltime. To be able to hire others with a natural instinct to assist and help others. And having budgets set aside for small promotions and rewards, and much more...
And so...
We're excited to announce TVmaze Premium, an expansion to our already existing TV show management tools.
What is Tvmaze Premium
TVmaze premium is a subscription package of exclusive tv show management tools. The aim of the package is to provide users with a cleaner interface, faster workflow and more management control.
Current Features
- No advertising: for a faster and clutter-free interface
- Enhanced privacy: no tracking by external services like Google Analytics
- Weekly calendar
- Read-write user API: access your followed shows and watched episodes
- Early access to new features
- Future premium-only features
- Premium achievements
- Comment & Forum badge: show the world that you support TVmaze
- Influence pending features
- Support a TVmaze independent from advertising
Check out the premium page for a detailed overview of the premium features and an overview of the 3 different packages available.
Future upcoming Features
These can be found in the Pending Features section, although there is no distinction listed yet. Some of these features will be implemented as free functionality, some will be exclusive to premium members, while others will premiere for premium users and be released to the rest of the public at a later time.
Points to note
- Everything currently available on TVmaze will always remain free.
- The exclusivity of Premium features can be temporary, meaning some features from Premium eventually end up being part of the free version.
- TVmaze Premium's development DOES NOT exclude the development of free features.
- Not all new features go to Premium first.
Even if you don't want to subscribe to Premium and still choose to use an adblocker on TVmaze, we don't have any plans to restrict your access. However, we do reserve the right to nudge users with an adblocker to try to convince them to switch to Premium instead. As of today, users with an adblocker will start seeing gentle and lightweight banners for Premium instead of the regular ads.
Conclusion
Premium will be launching next week on September 26th. However it's already possible to pre-order it today. Early birds who subscribe before the 26th will receive the first 4 months of premium for free if they use the discount code: 'PREORDER'.
On launch day you'll have instant access to the new features and a richer user experience. At the moment we're beta testing everything, tweaking and still finishing up features (not currently listed) before the final launch.
Finallly we'd like to thank everyone who has supported us and the project, making it possible for TVmaze to come this far. We look forward to what the future has in store.
All the best,
Jan & David.
P.S. If you have any questions about Premium, checkout the Premium FAQ and don't hesitate to let us know below or in the forums if your question isn't answered there.
Tl;dr
We've created a payed subscription called 'TVmaze Premium' with an ad-free experience and exclusive features. One of the goals is to give TVmaze financial stability independent from advertisements, increasing development time and support of new features.
@augur Thanks for signing up! I believe the zipcode you enter is crossreferenced against your creditcard details as a fraud protection, but perhaps this is not the case with Paypal. Your mileage may vary.
Regarding the recurring subscription: you can always cancel at any time - even right after subscribing. :)
Signed up for Bronce, happy to help develop a tool which i daily use.
I will not be buying. You still cannot show a list in the proper order but insist that it is shown newest first. I've commented on that before but was shouted down as it being too difficult. (really? Sorting is hard?) But setting up a premium paid (payed is not a word) service is possible and easier.
I signed up for the Bronze package, but I had to lie about my country as i live in the UK but wanted to use some of my paypal dollars to pay since I have a surfeit. I said my postcode was 12345, I can't believe that white lie still works (smh) maybe I should have used 90210.
I use adblock because I hate ads, always have, even on tv. And I'm sorry to say but I blocked your "Have you tried our adblocker" images automatically before it really registered what they were for. Then I went looking for what they were referencing.
I really don't have a use for any of the premium features but I'll happily throw a couple of bucks a month at a site I use daily to help keep the lights on.
The only niggle I have is that I intensely dislike recurring subscriptions, it made me think twice about subscribing. I'd much rather lose premium status when my subscription runs out (and have to renew) than realise a payment was taken without express permission.
Thanks HeleneF, much appreciated that you're willing to turn off the adblocking. That means a lot to us.
For what it's worth: The 4months free coupon is actually a 33% discount. Bronze costs +-24$ for the first year.
cant afford Premium, but I disabled uBlock for this site (I have no problems with ads as long as they aren't intrusive like loud music etc)
Thanks for being one of the first subscribers @WilliamWade!
signed up for the Bronze package