Nobody seems to be taking online entertainment seriously. I'll assume it's because you're not paying attention to what's going on in the entertainment landscape.
GoogleTV, AmazonTV, AppleTV, Hulu, Netflix, Microsoft Marketplace are all competing for your viewing attention. More people are watching "On Demand" content, and less people are watching traditional TV. It's all changing. It's only a matter of time before advertisers start paying internet channels more money than they're paying television networks.
As such, these content distributors are all spending TONS of cash to get their hands on exclusive programming for that competitive advantage.
THERE'S A BIG BAD CHANGE COMING
Internet Television is speeding up and growing exponentially. In television, massive growth took 6 years. On the internet, it was4 years. Now it takes MONTHS.
MORE THAN HALF OF ALL INTERNET ACTIVITY IS VIDEO.
This isn't a bubble. Netflix and Hulu aren't going anywhere. The popularity of WebTVs is growing. Mobile viewing is growing.
I want you all to pay close attention to the entertainment landscape.
This is going to be very interesting.
GoogleTV, AmazonTV, AppleTV, Hulu, Netflix, Microsoft Marketplace are all competing for your viewing attention. More people are watching "On Demand" content, and less people are watching traditional TV. It's all changing. It's only a matter of time before advertisers start paying internet channels more money than they're paying television networks.
As such, these content distributors are all spending TONS of cash to get their hands on exclusive programming for that competitive advantage.
- Netflix spent $100m to produce two seasons of house of cards (3.8m/episode). They made their money BACK within a quarter by gaining 3m new subscribers due to the show (worth $21m/month). They have a STRONG incentive to keep producing new content, and keep buying exclusive deals.
- In Oct 2011, Youtuber Freddie Wong crowdsourced $273K for season 1 of a web series called "video game high school". Netflix bought exclusive rights to the series, banning Hulu/Amazon from airing it. Two years later Wong raised another $808K for season two, and is rumored to be in the midst of season 3, sans crowdfunding.
- Producer Felecia Day scored a deal to release 7 seasons of internet show "The Guild" through Microsoft's Xbox Marketplace, Zune, and MSN Video. She used the funds to start internet channel Geek and Sundry which has been constantly expanding since it's formation. Just 2 months ago, she scored a deal with Hulu for exclusive rights to a few shows (Flog, Tabletop, Written By a Kid) and she premiered Caper on Hulu.
- In 2010 Nerdist Industries was founded, it was comprised of a single podcast. Within 2 years it grew to a point where it had a reach of 15million users across multiple platforms. It was acquired by Legendary Entertainment in 2012 (just two years later). This lead to dozens of new web shows and podcasts, a BBCA show, and a new daily Comedy Central show.
- Even former Disney CEO Michael Eisner's getting in on the action. He formed a company called Vuguru which has been going around buying over a dozen web IPs and inked distribution deals with AOL, HDNet, Yahoo!, Hulu, and YouTube.
- Even though it's not what we think of when we think "web TV" Discovery Network has been buying up web properties as well. They bought Revision3 for $35m in 2012.
THERE'S A BIG BAD CHANGE COMING
Internet Television is speeding up and growing exponentially. In television, massive growth took 6 years. On the internet, it was4 years. Now it takes MONTHS.
MORE THAN HALF OF ALL INTERNET ACTIVITY IS VIDEO.
This isn't a bubble. Netflix and Hulu aren't going anywhere. The popularity of WebTVs is growing. Mobile viewing is growing.
I want you all to pay close attention to the entertainment landscape.
This is going to be very interesting.
Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum:
Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.
Last edited: