BUSINESS BLOGS
BUSINESS BLOGS
category: business
08 Nov 2007
related tags: Viacom | CBS | Sumner Redstone |

It’s always very easy to knock on established, successful media moguls, but I must say, as a media guy myself and content producer, Sumner Redstone’s staunch defense of content and copyright is a breath of fresh air.

He said a lot of things today that were true (“It seems fairly clear that advertising will for the most part pay the way on the internet, just as it has on traditional media platforms. …I think in all the public clamor in all the doomed fortunes of traditional media, people miss the greater trends at work”), one thing that certainly stuck out was the following:

“Professionally produced content only increases in value as digital platforms multiply.”

I agree 200%. We see this day in, day out. We’ll produce content and publish it on WatchMojo.com, simultaneously we’ll syndicate it across the Web to places like YouTube, Veoh, Revver, MySpace, etc.

But then, we’ll also branch off into wireless and out of home digital networks. The web is still a pretty young place, and web video much younger. Wireless and out of home are embryonic at best… but the beauty of broadband content is that it can spread like crazy. I’ve given up trying to track where our videos pop up.

Regardless, the statement that professional content rises in value as distribution rises is very true. In fact, when you start a business, you’re always looking at scaling, but scale is a function of content production and distribution. I have yet to figure the right balance and mix of production vs. distribution in the scale equation, but we’re getting there.

Not the first time I find myself agreeing with Redstone. I thought there was nothing crazy about CBS working with YouTube while Viacom was suing YouTube (he’s Chairman of both). It’s odd, had one deal gone the other way, Redstone would have been my boss, indirectly, of course (turned out Rupert Murdoch got that title, albeit briefly). Funny how life has a way of unfolding.

Read more on Forbes and Paid Content.