Via PaidContent:

With the TV upfront season gearing up, many media executives have been touting the increased web-related efforts of their respective networks, most notably, the NBCU-News Corp. online video venture. But as AdAge notes, Time Warner President-COO Jeff Bewkes isn’t going to be one of them. In an interview with the magazine, he expresses the view that the hype about online video is too one-sided. Secondly, he feels that cable VOD has the most potential to bring in revenue.

TW had $44 billion in revenue last year, with cable bringing $12 billion in revenue to the table, followed by AOL’s contribution of $7.8 billion. Filmed entertainment, which includes Warner Bros. TV programming, and networks and houses HBO, each accounted for $10 billion. HBO is the top driver of VOD streams in homes with cable, AdAge noted. The reasoning for Bewkes view is simple: studios like Warner Bros. will have an increasingly difficult time garnering $13 million from advertisers for an episode of ER, if an iPod user can cut out the middleman and download it for $1.99.

As a video content producer, you’d think I would cry foul, but I actually agree: there’s a lot of hype in online video, but truth is, that doesn’t mean all online video is full of crap.  That would be like me saying that all cable was crap, all of AOL was crap.  It’s not, some of AOL is crap, some of cable is crap, etc.  But then again, not sure I should be bashing the heir apparent to TW.

That being said, I am not sure I agree with VOD and any of these lofty projections for pay to view models online, again, from PC:

iSuppli forecasts the global IPTV market will grow “at a compound annual rate of 92.5 percent over the next five years”, from 3.9 million subscribers in 2006 to 103 million in 2011. TeleClick reports: “Subscription revenue will grow more than 40-fold over the same period, iSuppli predicts, from $960.5 million to $39.1 billion.”

How did those subscription forecasts pan out for text content online?  Yeah, right, not so rosy.  You know my thoughs on subscription models for any type of content online.

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