Dan Harmon’s new showKrapopolishas been renewed for three seasons, made over $650,000 on the NFT market, and nobody’s even seen it.Dan Harmon’s new showhas a different approach to television. In this new world of NFTs, Web3, and cryptocurrency,Krapopolisis a cartoon about humanity’s first city, but in the real world, it’s humanity’s first show supported by a blockchain community. Although it’s still unreleased, it’s making Fox quite a bit of money, and TV executives have seen fit to reward Harmon by renewing it for a third season.
Krapopolisis the most successful showthat hasn’t even aired, and even though no one may have seen a full episode, the creative process is available to participate in online.Krapopolisis making TV more accessible by weaving its NFT sales into VIP passes that allow fans of the unaired show to provide commentary, change elements of the show, and even insert themselves as characters. For the low price of an Ethereum bid, you might also be able to participate in the show. This is how Harmon has managed to get the show so much money without operating in the traditional TV ad revenue model. He might have madeKrapopolisthe future of television.
The Definition of Success
The traditional model of a good television show is based on ratings from the ancient days of cable TV. People would tune into shows at certain times, and depending on how many people were watching, it would determine how popular that timeslot was on a particular channel. So the goal of a television program was to be good, so more eyes were on it, so the ads during that time slot were more valuable. But now, in the age of streaming, it’s more difficult to determine the definition of a successful show.
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It’s easy to harvest data from millions of viewers on a streamer like Netflix. They know how popular each of their shows is. But determining the money made by a specific show is much more difficult than before. Streamers generate revenue through subscriptions. Naturally, the more subscriptions, the better, but it’s not always one show that will get people to buy memberships. Subscriptions to streamers are generally more popular than ones to cable providers. Still, when a production studio is trying to determine which direction to take their programming, they can’t say specifically how much money one show made them on a streaming site. It’s become a system where popularity = value, but “value” might not have a hard number pegged to it. This is a big part of why some streamers like Netflix are considering tiered memberships that may include ads.
Dan Harmon’s New TV Show
Dan Harmon has found a way to generate revenue without forcing a show to have ads. Instead, in what’s become a bit of a social experiment,Krapopolisis selling NFTsand offering opportunities to participate in the show’s creative process. Much like the show’s plot, Harmon is building the world’s first blockchaincommunity based around a TV show.
Though no one has seen the show yet, members with unique NFTs based around the show’s animation style are already getting sneak peeks at animation slides and short sequences drawn by the artists. Right now, you can use Ethereum to buy a Krap Chicken Fan Pass. Currently, they’re selling for around 0.18 ETH, which is about $320. The show has sold many fan passes and made over $650,000 on its own market. The number of Krap chickens you have determines your voting power in the community, and they’re voting on things like “the color of Tyrannis’ double-sleeved ass-tunic… otherwise known as pants,” or what they should name the sacrificial goat in a certain scene. Little things like this create value for fans and give them a reason to invest in the show.
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When fans are paying actual money for power to make little changes like this, the show’s producers can measure at least a part of viewer involvement.So even beforeKrapopolishas aired, they have a yardstick of how successful the show will be. Fox is also probably making a safe bet since anything with Harmon’s name on it will likely be salient in the market afterRick and Morty. It’s likely thatKrapopoliswould have done perfectly fine on its own. It’s got Duncan Trussell, Richard Ayoade, and Matt Berry for voices. But now it will make whatever money it would’ve made as a normal Dan Harmon cartoon, plus all the extra funds that roll in from the blockchain market. No doubt, fan participation will skyrocket when it premieres later this year, and the price of these NFT fan passes will rise with it. If the show is as successful as it’s planned to be, we might see a lot more TV shows or streamer-based NFT communities in the future.
