I am thinking of putting together an informal or formal network of online-only video content producers. I am not sure if I am thinking network or association. Associations are good for developed ecosystems, networks might make more sense for something that is taking shape before my eyes.
Here’s my rationale:
Entertainment
The big media companies hold all of the chips: if NBC, CBS, ABC, FOX etc. chose to put their entertainment content online in a format that would make sense, advertisers would be all over it. These media companies hesitate to do so because TV is a $75B ad marketplace whereas all of online (including search powerhouse) is a $15B marketplace. Furthermore, many media firms make lucrative syndication deals that would go down the tubes (perhaps) if the content would all be online, for free. But, the point is, if these issues are addressed, big media will be as powerful online as they are in TV.
That is not a doosmday scenario for online-only video content producers, it’s just something we need to consider. Frankly, a media company can call me tomorrow (or yesterday) and offer to buy us out to use our video library of over 3,500 short, original clips. In other words, I am not sure it’s a competition, it’s a cooperation.
Information
The news companies have a lot of informational content that they already put online. CNN dropped the paid channel for free content, in fact, most people might not even remember that CNN Video was initially a paid product. Many of these news channels, be it MSNBC, Forbes, CNN make a good amount of money from video advertising. The numbers are small relative to TV revenue, but they are not immaterial.
So, what I am thinking is that there is a broad spectrum of online-only video content producers like WatchMojo.com who make content that is of better quality than your run-of-the-mill amateur or user-generated content but clearly not made with the budgets of the entertainment media or informational news producers mentioned above.
Because companies like WatchMojo.com have decent quality and own the rights, we stand to generate revenues from advertising. Of course, to get there, it takes time. I see a lot of networks aggregating video content - from MTV to WatchMojo.com to CNN - and selling ads against the content. Companies in this space are Broadband Enterprises, Tremor Networks etc. Others include Brightcove, I presume. The problem is even if these buys are labeled “blind network buys,” there is no such thing: a media buyer sees more or less where the ads will go.
As such, when a media buyer sees CNN, MTV and then WatchMojo.com, it’s not inconceivable to think that said media planner/buyer will pass on WatchMojo.com and other online-only video content producers. Of course, other media buyers will want the new player. Others might prefer us because we can offer some pretty novel ways of using video in online advertising. In fact, WatchMojo.com is a part of Mojo Supreme, a company that offers advertisers all types of online advertising: search, display, listings, text, and video.
What Does History Suggest?
Of course, as history has shown with print magazine vs. online publishers, the online-only video content producers will be able to hold their own and some will even perhaps defeat the TV folks. I am not being senile, it’s common sense:
One reason is that the TV folks will shy away from letting it all out online. The reason being that they fear the cannibalization of their offline business. They are right to want to protect their TV business.
Another reason is that they just do not know how to go about. One media executive I am speaking to these days tells me that they (his colleagues) are caught in the 22 minutes of content out of a block of thirty minutes mindset.
I’m just looking back at history and my experience. I was a member of the executive team of an online magazine that absolutely trashed Dennis, Esquire, Hearst, Rodale, Emap etc. Our reach was larger than the cumulative reach of those guys. The only one that was close to us was Playboy and come on, that was not a fair comparison. They have more than articles, you know?
Online Video is Not a Zero Sum Game
All to say, left to our own devices, WatchMojo.com will do just fine. We are already doing quite well when you consider the size of our team, budgets, etc., but for us to really hit it out of the park, I think it might make sense to develop some kind of online-only video content producers’ network, which can be informal or formal, as it can be official or unofficial. Think about it, the viewer watching video content on WatchMojo.com is more likely to watch video on other online-only video content producer’s website, it’s not a zero-sum game, I think.
I could be wrong, but I do not think that the online-only video content producers see one another as competitors. Frankly, I thnk the technology providers, file sharing services and platforms might see one another as competitors, but to me, if you are an online-only video content producer, we are more similar than different.
Position of Strength
I am also not saying this from a position of weakness. Alexa is off, sure, but stack WatchMojo.com next to most online-only video content producer and you will see that we are doing fine, but we realize that as a group, online-only video content producers could do much better. In other words, just because the traditional big media companies are too - with all due respect - greedy to cooperate does not that we should be too.
I could be wrong, but I think this is a sure-fire way of making the pie bigger. Not only would the cross-marketing be good for traffic, but if you went up to an advertiser and told him he could reach a broadband audience on 3, 5, 10 online-only video content producers’ websites, I am pretty sure I could make that one hell of a win-win-win deal.
Thoughts? You know where you can reach me. Back to work.
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January 28th, 2007 at 10:30 am
I ‘d lke to try TVKoo, the P2P live TV, no breaks or stops, the quality is much better than brightcove. I heard he cost of streaming by TVkoo is hundreds or even 1000 times less than by CDN of brightcove. One server is enough for TVKoo to streaming world wide without sub-servers. With TVkoo, the time of public TV broadcaster is coming.