The first panel was moderated by Gregg Spiridellis of JibJab (hopefully he’s “get a mention on New Tee Vee next time JibJab issues a press release for his time”) and offered a round table including:
- Douglas Cheney Big Fantastic
- Kevin Cohen Turner Broadcasting System
- Lisa Donovan Lisa Nova
- Ty Ahmad-Taylor MTV
- Gary Wang Tudou.com
Spiridellis touched on a wide number of issues: measures of success, choice of content, separation of web/TV content strategy and creation,
Lisa Donovan, creator of Lisa Nova, referred to seeing the initial bursts of streams, at first catching you off guard then it becomes normal. Ultimately, having a deal done with Mad TV with no representation showed the power of the medium.
Douglas Cheney, Big Fantastic reflected on their first meeting with Tournante - Michael Eisner’s investment vehicle - and figuring that Eisner might not actually show up to the initial meetings… but he did. Getting Eisner on board validated what they were doing.
Ty Ahmad-Taylor, MTV addressed the challenge for a major content creator offline to identify assets for online. The company looks at Omniture stats, target market studies, but - surprisingly, unlike what Salmi was suggesting in the first Q&A of the day - MTV does go to where their audience is, namely Facebook and MySpace to test things out and then it might reinforce those efforts on their own site. Definitely get a sense that MTV runs a Procter & Gamble-esque shop where they emphasize a lot of data, figures etc., to make decision. That’s not a bad thing at all… “We cannot be gatekeepers to our content all the time”, he concludes: “it’s important for us to be where our customers are”. There are four kinds of customers online: “People who never come to your site, once a week, once a month and those who come every day… and most of our clients fall on the third category - people who come once a month - so there is no need to have a big storefront.”
Wow. Interesting indeed. Ty is very candid with regards to the challenges facing big media: “if you don’t let users take the content, you’re telling them steal it”.
Gary Wang, Tudou: Tudou is widely seen as China’s version of YouTube. Age is the line in the sand when it comes to how much awareness online video has: younger generations are online and consumer video online, older generations (above 30) less so, but catching up. Tudou - unlike others in the panel - is mainly a UGC site and one that offers users copyright content. As such, it sits on the opposing site of the table than most of the others in the panel, but there is one main nuance, explains Wang: “in China, the media companies are not major players, they are scattered and small companies, so it makes our lives easier because Asian content creators are smaller, more open-minded, there is no syndication business, DVD sales are non existent… so when we come in and say ‘we’re an online distribution company and offer a revenue share program’, they are more open-minded.”
Kevin Cohen, Turner Broadcasting System: the company initially invested a lot in infrastructure and is now reaching out via partnerships for content, not just taking TV content and repurposing it. Super Deluxe allows the low cost launch of a network without having to write a billion dollar check. There are no barriers in online space, so we launched Super Deluxe, going after a lot of the talent in Hollywood writing comedy. There is quite a bit of concern over piracy, “25,000 clips are posted to YouTube each day. This has an effect on traffic.” But on the news site, the company is embracing UGC…
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