According to this article, Murdoch feels “people are going
straight to the sites” and that portal deals aren’t necessary. I’m not so sure I agree with him.
His Fox television network is a good example to consider in
this. Of the few television shows I
enjoy these days, I’m hard pressed to tell you which ones (any?) of them are on
Fox. I used to be better at knowing facts
like ER is on channel 12 at 10:00 on Thursdays. Now I just let my DVR do the work and I play everything back through
the equivalent of one channel (the recorder itself). I’d argue that DVRs have made individual
networks even less memorable than they were 5 years ago. In other words, DVRs have eroded some of the
brand equity the networks built up over the years.
If that’s true, what are the chances someone will go to
fox.com to watch/buy an online version of their favorite show? Google certainly helps, since a quick search
of “House” points me to Fox’s website. But
if portals and other video aggregators rise in importance, is it dangerous not making
your content available on all the leading sites? You can still offer it on your own site, but
as a consumer I’m more likely to go to one site where I’ll be able to find all
the networks together and all the content I want.
Hi Joe! I think you're right on here. People are going to search online for content, and the more you have your content in front of them, the better. Some networks are getting on the train by offering their shows on iTunes, and this will surely just expand to other portals and other content outlets. If the networks don't release their content, it'll just get pirated on YouTube. As we've seen from the runaway success of iTunes, the best way to combat piracy is to make the content easily purchasable on the web. The sooner the networks adopt this model, the sooner they will make money from it.
Posted by: Joel Downs | September 21, 2006 at 06:09 PM