tv and music don't have the same problem.

Filesharing has complicated things immensely for the music industry, and everyone knows this.  The core issue is that money used to be made selling CDs (or records, or tapes...) and now the industry needs to develop new revenue streams to solve that problem.

TV never made money selling TV.  The money comes from advertising aired during the programs.  Again, this is obvious.

The thing is, making it dead easy to access something means more people do it, and that people do more of it.  The average music collection size has skyrocketed due to filesharing.  The average amount of TV that people watch is likely similarly impacted by illegal downloads.

If what you sell is eyeballs aimed at a screen, and more eyeballs are watching your content for longer, this is a good thing.  If you can't find a way to make money from these added eyes and hours, you have forgotten what your business it.

Dear TV,

You create filmed content, and then sell advertising based on the data you can collect for who is watching individual shows.

None of this has to be tied to cable distribution, or TV screens, time slots, limited availability, production realities, or what came before.

You attract eyeballs, and then sell them based on demographic information.  Focus on doing that, rather than doing the specific version that worked perfectly, before everything changed.

Sincerely,

Jon