160 Fox affiliates to switch to MyFox sites
Cory Bergman August 15th, 2007
In a sweeping deal, Fox Interactive Media will manage 160 Fox affiliate websites and bring them into the MyFox network — the same network already in use by Fox’s owned-and-operated station sites. “It’s important for local affiliate stations to have a web strategy and compelling online content, and we believe the MyFox platform is the best solution to help them deliver it,” said Joe Denk, chairman of the Fox affiliate board of governors. As part of the deal, FIM will have access to half of the inventory on the sites for national inventory, and the revenue share arrangement will be “similar” to Fox’s earlier arrangement to stream network shows on affiliate sites. One of the biggest Fox affiliate ownership groups, Sinclair, is still evaluating its options and is not part of the 160 site deal.
The move fits an urgency in the media industry to scale up quickly to attract higher-quality national advertisers who are hungry for unique, easily-executed, targeted campaigns across a large audience. Two semi-recent examples are Internet Broadcasting’s deal with CNN and Yahoo’s newspaper consortium. And I imagine you’ll see plenty more ad network partnerships in the near future.
27 Comments Add your own
1. youknowwho | August 15th, 2007 at 5:26 pm
this takes the two examples you give another step (the reader can decide whether it’s ‘forward’ or not).
both of those examples focus on the ease of use for the advertiser buy when it’s the user who’ll determine the revenue. no users…no revenue (at least with cpm pricing).
the myfox branding from coast-to-coast will make it a natural for the lazy user (read: most everyone) to bypass google/search when the story dejour hits and they want to access it. pretty top-of-mind stuff.
direct navigation is not a new concept. but it makes branding by call letter inferior when looking at 160+ competitors all promoting each other.
2. el guapo | August 15th, 2007 at 6:23 pm
The big winner is likely to be whoever owns the URL “myfox.com” (currently a parking page via hitfarm).
3. Mike Escutia | August 15th, 2007 at 8:04 pm
A WHOIS search reveals that myfox.com is owned by “Moniker Privacy Services” in Pampano Beach, Florida.
This sounds like a great deal, though I wonder if the 160 stations include the LIN-owned affiliates FIN is already managing sites for.
4. Anonymous | August 15th, 2007 at 10:52 pm
Our local Fox affiliate actually has a pretty nice website. And now they’re going to have that blinding red and blue myFox template replace it, scrubbing out the heritage call letters in the process and stamping out any local creativity. Hooray for “a web strategy.”
5. Rex | August 16th, 2007 at 1:13 am
If you’ve ever done with with affiliates, you know this is quite a coup. That’s a mess load of sites to manage… “herding cats” doesn’t even get close to describing it.
6. Channel 2000 Alum | August 16th, 2007 at 5:03 am
Nothing earth shattering here - CBS did this in the late 90s with the CBSNow network - FIM doesn’t know what it’s in for. Rex is right - it’s quite a coup - just ask CBSNow alum.
7. Steve Boriss | August 16th, 2007 at 5:33 am
I think this is a very big deal. One day, all local news outlets — newspapers and TV — will converge on the Internet and will be competing against each other, one mouseclick away. At the same time, metro news will not be as big as it is now because people will be able to get their national and international news from the best sources in the country, and will prefer hyperlocal to metro news because it affects them more directly. Murdoch wants to grab the metro advertising dollars that are left over, and he plans to do this by transforming his Fox affiliates’ web sites and their reporting staffs into the market leaders of what’s left of the former newspapers and local TV affiliates. (Steve Boriss, TheFutureOfNews.com)
8. ykw | August 16th, 2007 at 5:35 am
i’ll agree fox’s template is a bit tough on the eyes.
but 160 is now the standard… and one that will easily be taken out by someone.
it’ll have to happen.
there are a shiiteload more cities and towns in America (let alone the world to be conquered!).
but who?
9. Anonymous | August 16th, 2007 at 6:25 am
I do not think you will see 160 fox stations switch. The deal is not a great deal for the fox stations. Fox controls the URL and many other aspects of the site. Stations must control their own destiny and be willing to step up to the plate and put the nessesary systems and technology in place. Would you allow a network to control your transmitter and all the product that is revenue that it can generate?
10. Anonymous | August 16th, 2007 at 6:35 am
The “myfox” template is lame and loads slow.
11. ! | August 16th, 2007 at 6:38 am
i’ll do a little commercial for ar&d here (hope i don’t piss anyone there off).
they do something called SimulPath. check into it.
12. ! | August 16th, 2007 at 6:44 am
was sinclair the staion group that refused to run nightline the night Ted read the names of those KIA?
13. Mike Escutia | August 16th, 2007 at 7:02 am
I wrote something profound here but the spam filter ate it. Dang it.
14. David Johnson | August 16th, 2007 at 7:26 am
this makes sense. major sense. dollars and sense.
FIM has the horses to provide their own advertising solutions, so they don’t have to work out third party revenue sharing deals to get national inventory into local sites. this is a case of eating your young before someone else does. smart of the network to offer this to their affiliates and grab the cash that would be going to google, yahoo, doubleclick, whatever.
non o&o stations have such a strange situation of serving two masters, the network and their owners. the ownership groups/parent companies should try to provide some kind of similar services to their stations to keep the balance there and protect their interests. not compete with, mind you, but dovetail to strengthen the local outlet’s position.
15. a non-anon | August 16th, 2007 at 7:50 am
yeah, do as nbc does online, not as fox.
nbcu stole that blockbuster ivillage for about the same ridiculous price rupert paid for that flop myspace.
16. Steve Safran | August 16th, 2007 at 8:18 am
This is a mistake that will badly hurt the affiliates. I’m working on a longer essay right now (lucky you), but what this does is cede control to a central authority when decentralization is what’s badly needed. FIM wins’ of course’ because they aggregate an instant national ad network. Locals lose because they cede access to half - half! - their potential ad inventory.
Would they allow Fox to come in and take half their local TV newscast ad inventory in exchange for a graphics package and a switcher?
This is a 1.0 play, and a bad one at that. Rev shares do not make the locals rich. Taking control - FULL control - of your own destiny is the way to maximize web revenue.
The locals will wind up giving away in revenue every year what it would cost to build their own sites just once.
The path of least resistance has no precedent for success online.
17. Randy Hoffman | August 16th, 2007 at 8:41 am
I’m falling in line with Steve here. This is a national reach play, making it easier for advertisers to make their coveted reach-type buys. Instead Fox should help create platforms that would make it easier for LOCAL advertisers to begin fully enjoying the benefits of online advertising.
18. Anonymous | August 16th, 2007 at 8:41 am
hmmm, i thought ad inventory ONLINE was infinite.
ceding half of what?
19. Rob | August 16th, 2007 at 8:47 am
Channel 2000 alum is spot on about CBSNow … I used it in the late 90s and it was cumbersome, technical and customer support was non-existant, you could make few changes to your site beyond cosmetic graphic changes … but the one thing that’s different with the Fox concept is the proposed revenue model.
Back in the late 90s advertising support on CBSNow was non-existant, advertising on the web was still ‘added value’, so the benefit for some of these Fox stations might be that if you’re in a really small market and don’t have the capital to build your own site, you see a turnkey solution that ties in with the network that provides some revenue opportunities. Of course it would be interesting to know if the network will charge affiliates for bandwidth, hosting and technical support like WorldNow or IB would.
Not saying this is a great solution - it isn’t - but I understand why a small market station might jump at this opportunity.
20. as seen on p.c. | August 16th, 2007 at 8:56 am
btw- philly.com just joined the yahoo newspaper consort.
21. jake | August 16th, 2007 at 9:03 am
Smells a bit of the WeatherPlus.com concept that NBC hasn’t expanded beyond their O and Os…
I wonder how long the deal goes… and how quickly these station groups start raising hell when they realize they’ve lost control on the content and revenue side….
Good for Fox… I’m very impressed they were able to pull this off.
22. Rocker | August 16th, 2007 at 9:24 am
I think this story has been a little misread here. Each station/group still gets to decide whether or not to sign up. What was agreed to with the affiliate board is what terms all Fox affiliates will be offered.
23. David Johnson | August 16th, 2007 at 9:50 am
@randy: really good points. all publishers should be looking for the ways into turnkey advertising solutions for the local market.
24. Rex | August 16th, 2007 at 11:52 am
Steve: I look forward to this essay (seriously! I’m not joking this time!), but keep this in mind: most of those FOX affiliates now have zero to one person staffing them. They’ve probably got some rinky-dink CMS made by a local company that is also doing the hosting. Should the FOX affiliate in Tallahassee invest in 10 people to do IT, sales, and content? Maybe…. but that’s the issue I’d like to see you address.
25. mike jones | August 16th, 2007 at 4:34 pm
Excellent point Rex.
Budgets are tight for the little guys, and this is an attractive, low-cost turnkey solution — especially for a GM who is scared of the internet.
I’m Mike Jones…
26. Chris Jahn | August 21st, 2007 at 7:49 am
As a webmaster for a small fox affiliate…this is a bad idea! deals seem to be in place to provide ALL the local content from outside sources. This will lead to a dramatic drop in our monthly numbers! Promotional opportunities seem to be at a minimum in the new platform…again taking away from local content…I can only hope stations decide against this to send a meesage to fox that they may not know what is best for someone outside of a major market!
27. ray electric bklyn | January 9th, 2008 at 4:46 pm
lets not forget hillary has 8 yrs in the big house. her resume should not be taken lightly. this country was founded on democrocy which took hundreds of years 2 build. lets get fiscally sound and leave this 7 year war in the desert where it belongs.
Leave a Comment
(Please keep URLs out of the comment body or the spam filter will block you.)Subscribe to the comments via RSS Feed