Traditionally, when you lumped a number of executives from the TV and film industry, they could not start to trust one another enough to get anything done.
But now, things seem to be different.
Maybe it is because unlike Napster who crashed and burned, YouTube’s success has made old media reconsider. By success we mean 100 million daily video streams and a $1.65 billion exit for the founders. In fact, the fact that a technology company could write that check with no difficulty is what set off the alarm bells.
Or maybe, old media realizes that new media - or in Google’s case, “new tech” - has no qualms about buying a major platform which puts the remote control and programming nobs in the hands of the consumer and removes power from the networks.
As such, the story that does not seem to die is back: TV networks reportedly discussing YouTube rival.
There are a number of interesting storylines here. I personally doubt that this will ever happen. Why? Reasons are aplenty.
REASON #1: TURF BATTLES
Rumor had it that the film studios and networks were initially plannign on using MySpace (once it was owned by News Corp.) as such a platform, but of course, the networks and other film studios are not stupid to give Rupert Murdoch any more power that he already has. Peter Chernin is right when he says that News Corp. is currently the most powerful media company on the Web. More powerful than Time Warner even, who runs AOL. Of course, AOL is so 1990s, MySpace is so 2000s. Alas, the point is, if this shindig takes off, it will have to be something different and separate from anything that belongs to any one player, and therein lies the “why this will never work” rationale.
Think about it: on a given portal - like MSN, AOL or Yahoo! - the various channel managers vie for real estate on the main page, and they all work for the same company! On this website, you would have various companies vying for main page exposure, key channel real estate and so forth. This is bound to fail within the first weekend, the first holiday, the first day frankly.
REASON #2: DEPORTALIZATION
We’ve seen numerous folks out there already cover this point aplenty. I do not want to take anything away from anyone but what this trend highlights more than anything else is that the Web is not following TV’s footsteps. We’re moving away from a world of ABC, NBC and CBS alone to a world of hundreds - if not thousands - of places (called platforms online now as the buzzword) where the “cool kids hang out.”
As such, for the media companies to think of launching what is effectively a portal, it’s slightly too little, too late. People don’t want to be spoon fed content per se, they are more interested with what lies beneath the main page, basically. Think about it, do you ever really care about what is on the main page of YouTube? No. You might be sent a link to YouTube and that is buried underneath. Sure, eventually that video might make it to the main page… but the chicken and egg theory suggests that old media is going around this the old way.
REASON #3: THIS IS A GREED AND ENVY DRIVEN INITIATIVE (TWO OUT OF SEVEN SINS IS PRETTY BAD)
In fact, there is more to why this won’t take off than the companies’ greed. Note that media companies have had at least 5 years, maybe even 10 years to pull this off. They did not, because their inherent greed and control issues made it impossible for such a venture to take off.
When they show interest to do so, it has nothing to do with a sincere desire to give users what they want. They do so because they are envious with MySpace’s massive rise in power to shape musical tastes, YouTube’s rise to the TV platform by default with its 100 million daily video streams, and for the $1.65B that Google could pay without blinking. In other words, their intentions going in are anything but virtuous. When you go into something driven by one of the seven sins, you come out a loser. What’s that saying? Bulls make money, bears make money, but hogs get slaughtered.
REASON #4: USER APPROPRIATED
2005 was the beginning of the user generated trend (odd then that the New York Times writes about this now), 2006 was - in addition to being the year of online video - the rise of user appropriated content.
The fourth reason really, why this will fail, is even if the turf battles can be overcome, even if the various parties can come up wth something of value to give consumers, this idea of having the networks program content and choose how much or how little, when to put their content online is a bit ridiculous. YouTube succeeded, not because it stole content from media companies, but because regular users can upload what they wanted. In other words, if media companies were to upload all of their content online, it might not have succeeded because, well, the content media companies choose to release online SUCKS.
When NBC’s Saturday Night Live’s Lazy Sunday was uploaded, it spread like wildfire to the point that SNL itself decided to come up with another contrite “digital skit” that while funny did not catch on… hmm… wonder why.
Yet months later when NBC penned a deal with YouTube, the content it put up was lame, it was promos for their shows. Interesting choice of “viral content” NBC… for me to poop on!
This media-wide platform idea is nice in theory but in practice will fail. Mark my words.
But don’t take it from me, learn from history and the NCN. What’s the NCN? The New Century Network. Haven’t heard of it? Exactly. Find out more here or here.
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