Paid Content points to a piece on the LA Times that asks the inevitable question: at what point will writers shun traditional media companies and go direct using the Web. NeeTeeVee’s Chris Albrecht sums up the matter quite succintly
But at the end of the day, writers are still writers. Even if they launch studio startups, they’ll have to hire the suits to sell advertising, deal with the suits who gave them money, and work for the suits brought in to run the business.
Albrecht needs to go one step further: writers don’t really care about the business end of things. Sometime after my finance degree but before I was VP of Ad Sales for an online company, certainly before I was the founder of Mojo Supreme, I was a writer. I wrote until I could no longer hold a pen… I published a couple of books… the point is: to a writer, business is really a distraction and a means to an end, and not the main event.
Ultimately, the web is too minor league (right now) for writers to really embrace it (at the expense of TV). I personally never broke through NY-based book publishers (even though my 2 books probably sold more than 5,000 copies on very limited distribution and non-existent marketing) or Hollywood, so I had to embrace the Web. I hate to break it to people, but to most writers who’ve written for TV, the mere premise of writing for the Web is akin to returning to coach/economy after sitting in first class. I’m not saying I feel that way, I’m just saying that’s probably how they will feel.
This past week, Robert Scoble said that he was leaving Podtech (a podcast network) to go work for a print magazine media company, Business 2.0 or was it Fast Company (does it matter?). Does that not speak volume? The simple truth - right now at least - is that the web economy is way too small for TV writers to really consider it as an alternative to TV.
And, let’s be honest: TV is all about vanity. The Web, less so.
Personally, I would love it - heck, I’d play any part in getting TV writers to come to our side - to see more TV writers online… because it would be a small step for Web video content over night but a shift from the perception that video content online is all about UGC and not safe for marketers… but the fact remains:
- writers don’t care about the business side enough to really embrace the Web’s arcane details,
- TV writers don’t have the patience to see web video develop, and will return pretty soon (think Lou Dobbs and Space.com, people!)
- the people most likely to succeed online are people who understand how the Web works and can then create content for it, not people who get TV and see the Web as a new frontier (a post to come, in the future)
- the concept of VCs allowing TV writers to shift their attention online is even more laughable… VCs make studios look like the Salvation Army… I’m not sure who is getting the criticism in that last sentence, by the way…
Subscribe: