12 Comments Add your own

• 1. Darrien  |  January 22nd, 2007 at 2:59 pm

  Is this an ad? If not they should pay you.

• 2. Stephen Warley  |  January 22nd, 2007 at 3:05 pm

  Nope no ad. In fact we’ve been pretty vocal about making Pipeline completely free in many of our LR posts. Also, many times people are curious to see what all the hype is about, so now they can see for free.

• 3. Joe  |  January 22nd, 2007 at 3:52 pm

  I just don’t see how this subscription model could possibly be making them as much money as a sponsorship model would. Given how little they get from subscriptions ($24.95 per year, or less than 50 cents a week), compared with how much money video ad spots can fetch, and how many times more people will watch free video, CNN is just robbing itself.

• 4. Cory  |  January 22nd, 2007 at 4:30 pm

  At first, they made it a forced subscription, but now they mix both free video and Pipeline video.

  So you could argue, they’re getting the best of both worlds by offering a choice.

  Although you have to wonder if by making Pipeline free all along, how much would they have grown their audience over MSNBC.com?

• 5. discreet_chaos  |  January 22nd, 2007 at 5:26 pm

  Personally, I like the commercial-free content. It does get a little weird in the middle of the night, when CNN-I takes a break and we’re thrown to filler, but most of their content isn’t suited to in-line ads.

  (Excuse me, Chairperson of the Committee, but Pipeline has to take a break. Could you hold your questions for about thirty seconds?)

• 6. discreet_chaos  |  January 22nd, 2007 at 5:31 pm

  Oh, and back during the Ford funeral, I posted a couple of screencaps (click my name) of a camera pointed at the coffin. The night prior, I didn’t take the pics, but I did note that there was a camera setup all night and the surprising number of people who were coming by to pay their respects in the middle of the night. Both times, the Pipeline coverage went all night and though they might be able to do something with banners, you can’t really interrupt a President laying in state for a word from Bounty - the Quicker Picker-Upper.

• 7. flotsam  |  January 22nd, 2007 at 6:32 pm

  but …. if it were a success as “for pay” business proposition they would not be giving it away free on any kind of trial basis. would they?

  bottom line, they have demonstrated again that what the news and information user wants is FREE video and will tolerate it in an ad-supported model.

  pipeline is right up there with new york times select as stabs at paid content in news that essentially stabbed back.

• 8. Echy  |  January 22nd, 2007 at 7:28 pm

  Flotsam,

  HBO, Showtime, various newspapers occasionally give away their content so that non subscribers can try it without commitment. Free trial are all over the place from companies that are making money from the paid service.

• 9. Joe  |  January 23rd, 2007 at 1:14 am

  How about a pre-roll and a strip below the player window featuring the sponsor?

• 10. discreet_chaos  |  January 23rd, 2007 at 3:42 am

  Joe - The problem with a pre-roll would be that so much of it is continuous coverage of non-stop events. Pipe 1 is always a mini-CNN or CNN-I, so it could take some ads, but the other three pipes are UN, State Department, Pentagon and White House Press Briefings, court cases, regulatory or Congressional hearings, press conferences for events or news items (lost kids, plane crashes, etc), plus they often seem to simulcast one of their Asian affiliates, when events warrant.

  So, they could do regular ads on Pipe 1, but some of the stuff on the other pipes are hours long. A banner under the player might also work and it’d be helped by the stay-on-top feature, but it could also increase the size of the window, when it’s not fullscreen and when it’s at its smallest, the thing would be a little less unobtrusive; IMHO

  IOW: They’re not paying me, but I’ve been paying them since day one and I personally think it’s worth it.

• 11. George Creedle  |  January 23rd, 2007 at 9:10 am

  Why does Pipeline stretch the picture from 4:3 to 16:9? Everything is fat. I can’t believe a news gathering organization would distort a primary aspect of their product, the picture.

• 12. Joe  |  January 23rd, 2007 at 3:54 pm

  You don’t need to interrupt long, continuous coverage to run a pre-roll. I don’t see the problem. So what if it’s just one ad? Each time you click on a new pipe, you get a new ad, reinforced by a player that’s cobranded with the sponsor’s logo.

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