Monetizing TV Shows and Movies on the Net
Posted on August 6, 2010
Most film producers and other companies associated with conventional television fear the Internet. They don’t see how they can profit from it. Instead they worry it will erode revenues from conventional sources, replacing them with lower amounts. To date their concerns are well founded.
For audio to iPod, iPhone, and iPad click here (six minutes)
For example, few Internet users will pay a subscription fee for shows already on television. Moreover, the Internet provides no “carriage fees” like those paid by satellite and CATV operators to the networks — and indirectly the producers. While movie downloads admittedly provide revenues from sales and rentals, they are at least partly at the expense of DVD rentals and sales. Finally, online advertising revenues at video streaming sites like Hulu and YouTube are pathetically small by comparison to those available from conventional television. Much like the record labels, it’s likely that the Hollywood studios and television show producers wish that the Internet had never been invented. Read more…
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Apple’s New Move into Living Room
Posted on June 28, 2010
A couple of weeks ago Apple introduced a “redesigned” MacMini computer. It’s the unit’s biggest upgrade in five years making it especially attractive as an Internet gateway and media center for televisions.
Download audio to iPod, iPad, or iPhone.
A MacMini is a computer typically sold without a monitor. Increasingly it is often mated to an HDTV, just like a DVD player or video game console. As a result, the television becomes a gigantic computer monitor. Users often buy a wireless mouse and keyboard in order to control the MacMini from a convenient viewing distance such as the living room sofa.
The unit includes lightning fast dot-11n WiFi enabling it to connect over a home network to the Internet. Consequently, broadband ISP subscribers get high speed Internet right on their televisions. They can choose to watch conventional TV with a one-button click on their TV remote by selecting, for example, the CATV input. Alternately, they can chose Internet access on the TV with a one-button click on the same remote by selecting the socket where the MacMini is connected. Read more…
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Future of Cultural Programming
Posted on June 7, 2010
Phil Leigh
Last year Michael Kaiser of the J.F.K. Performing Arts Center lamented that Arts Programming was vanishing from TV. Since most PBS stations lack the money for quality recording of local performances, he concludes that PBS should reorganize. Instead of relying upon local affiliate productions, he prefers that the parent organization “determine the best in American arts and fund its broadcast across the nation”. Presumably that means PBS must reduce its financial contributions to affiliates, or get Congress give more than the $400 million it presently donates annually – 90% of which passes thorough to local stations.
Download Audio Narration to iPod, iPad, and iPhone here.
Like many leaders of slowly changing businesses, Kaiser fails to recognize how fast the Internet already shifted the ground under his feet. While focusing on PBS and taxpayer subsidies, he neglects to notice that a critical mass of top-quality cultural programming already populates the Net. One example is YouTube which provides three advantages over conventional television. First, it’s free. Second, viewers may watch at anytime instead of designated broadcast times. Third, it’s searchable. Read more…
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Video Summary: Future of Apple
Posted on May 27, 2010
To Download Video (rather than stream it) click here.
Today’s video podcast narrates a PowerPoint presentation summarizing our recent Future of Apple market research report.
Although the report is 68-pages, it is also a multimedia document that includes links to videos and animations to demonstrate key innovations instead of merely describing them with text. Included is a five year revenue forecast by business sector as well profitability analysis by product line. We identify four growth engines; two already existing and two yet to be announced. Apple’s ecosystem strategy is forecast including an analysis of whether the company should license its operating system in response to Android’s open platform. Read more…
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Hulu and the Cowboy Philosopher
Posted on May 4, 2010
The following post was first written by me and released by Online Video Insider on May 4, 2010.
Hulu and the Cowboy Philosopher
by
Phil Leigh
As Will Rogers put it, “If I don’t see things your way, well, why should I?”
To Play six minute audio version on iPad, iPod, or iPhone click here.
The Los Angeles Times reports that Hulu.com’s Internet video streaming of popular TV shows will soon offer a premium version featuring more episodes and additional shows in exchange for a monthly subscription fee. They may discover that a number of constituents will fail to see things their way. Read more…
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Apple and The Digital Living Room
Posted on February 23, 2010
About 20 years ago a character named Ray Kinsella in the movie Field of Dreams heard a voice urging him to plow under a portion of his Iowa farm to build a baseball field. Purely on faith he built it. Soon long deceased legendary players began to show-up for practice. Strangely, only Ray and his family could see the ghosts.
Later the same voice told Ray to visit a famous novelist who had mysteriously stopped writing after the 1960s. In the book upon which the movie is based, that author was J. D. Salinger. Ray brought him back to Iowa where he too could watch the players. Read more…
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Rewriting Apple’s History
Posted on February 6, 2010
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As Mark Twain put it, “Very few things happen at the right time, and the rest don’t happen at all. The conscientious historian will correct these defects.” Normally the winners write history, but Apple’s success and lofty stock price has given a number of media executives a bad case of P/E envy. They’re distorting the past by accusing Apple of dictating terms of media consumption on the Internet.
For example, when Apple convinced the recorded music industry to sell digital downloads in 2003 it allocated seventy percent of the sales proceeds to the record labels and music publishers. One might suppose a business partner would be happy with a 70% share of incremental revenues, especially when that partner incurs almost no added cost. Perhaps they actually were smugly pleased with the deal originally. Maybe they figured Apple had been suckered into giving them more than twice as much as it kept for itself. Read more…
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Content is King (Like Cotton)
Posted on December 12, 2009
Phil Leigh
Comcast bought NBC to gain control over content distributed by its CATV system. Time-Warner advocates that popular TV shows be made available on the Internet only to consumers already subscribing to conventional Cable and Satellite networks. Prominent publishers require that new book releases be hard-cover-only thereby delaying ebook versions by four months. Such actions reflect the spurious notion that “Content is King”. Unfortunately it’ll prove to be about as effective as King Cotton diplomacy was for the Confederacy. Read more…
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