Archive for March 11th, 2008
Who would watch TV on a computer? 20% of the people who watched NBC’s The Office premiere back in September watched it on their PCs. “I think what we’re seeing right now is a great cultural shift of how this country watches television,” said Seth MacFarlane, the creator of Family Guy. “Forty years ago, new technology changed what people watched on TV as it migrated to color. Now new technology is changing where people watch TV, literally omitting the actual television set.”
March 11th, 2008
This is scary stuff for broadcasters. The nation’s six largest cable companies are teaming up to allow advertisers to buy targeted ads across the entire network. While there is a ton of work to go before it’s ready for prime time, the ability for advertisers to target specific TV spots to specific set-top boxes on a massive scale would give the cable industry a big, big boost. Of course, the question remains, can six cable companies work together to pull this off?
March 11th, 2008
Despite the best efforts of Yahoo and Microsoft, the European Union has approved Google’s $3.1 billion bid to take over DoubleClick. In other news among Internet giants, Newscorp says it will not be fighting Microsoft’s bid to take over Yahoo.
March 11th, 2008
Depending on how you look at it, this is either good or bad news for the grumpy newsasaurs that are plodding through the tarpits of journalism. A new Harris poll shows that most Americans don’t read political blogs. I’m sure we’ve all heard the “blogosphere” dismissed and narrowly defined as an echochamber of political opinion with poor ethics and no facts at some time or another. But of course, we all know that only represents one niche of a much wider realm of content and voices. The poll has some interesting findings that burst certain bubbles: it turns out that more people over 65 frequent polyblogs than do younger readers. Of the total sample, 56 percent never read them, and only 22 percent responded that they read them with any frequency.
March 11th, 2008
I remember how giddy I was when one of my sites first hit 1 million page views in a month, then 1 million uniques, but I would certainly like to be giddy about making $1 billion online, as Disney is. The mouse made bank online from advertising during its ABC network hits such as “Lost” and “Grey’s Anatomy” that are rerun on ABC.com; ads on sites such as ESPN.com; subscriptions to online games; downloads of movies and music; and e-commerce that is not related to its theme parks. Combined, online sources account for less than 3 percent of company’s total revenue.
March 11th, 2008
Hulu is live to everyone. Here’s coverage from New York Times and Variety. At launch time, Hulu is offering full-length episodes of 250 TV series and 100 full-length feature films, more than quadrupling the beta content spread. All is free and ad-supported. The product looks good, and will be a major test of how to create valuable advertising inventory to narrow the digital revenue divide.
March 11th, 2008
