Could the writers strike, now in its second month and with no end in sight become a catalyst for a shift from OTA/Cable to online/IPTV?

There has been a drain in Ad revenues for premium programming and advertisers have been forced to compensate advertisers with cash (verses time). The trend has been one of declining viewership for OTA with a corresponding increase for Cable. In addition, revenue from OTA has been flat. Even if the strike were settled today, it would by some estimates take two or more months too ramp up production and inventory to offset the drain in revenues.

In the meantime, the Internet is not waiting. Shows like “Quarterlife” and sites like “MyDamnChannel,” “Funny or Die” are marching on. Some WGA writers are reportedly in talks with venture capitalists about funding their own online programming, which would bypass the studios model.

On the other hand, the traditional model is far from dead. Couple that with fragmentation from DVR’s, VOD and Place Shifting, i.e. Sling and there exists lot confusion on the part of the public how to make it all work in a lean back environment.

Also see; I'm Not Dead Yet

The sky has been falling on TV for a while now, see Business Week, so I would not short the stock for tradition Television just yet...

(Barbara Davidson / Los Angeles Times)

As reported in today’s LA Times,
Striking writers in talks to launch Web start-ups some striking writers plan to by-pass the studio system and produce content directly for the web.

At least seven groups, composed of members of the striking Writers Guild of America, are planning to form Internet-based businesses that, if successful, could create an alternative economic model to the one at the heart of the walkout, now in its seventh week.

This brings up all sorts of interesting questions:

Will the WGA sanction writers setting up companies sidestepping not only the studios but also potentially the union?

If the strike is settled, will writers be able to play in both sand boxes?

Will writers be will to work with people, well like us outside the system?

Under the Hollywood system, writers, in most cases, is employed by the studios to create and manage TV shows and movies. The studios own the copyrights and pay writers for the initial use of the material and a small percentage of the licensing fees they collect when the work is rerun or sold on DVD.

In case you did not see our panel as well as other's from Streaming Media West, ScribeMedia has them posted.

Selling Content Online And IPTV

Moderator
Adrian Smith, Executive Producer, IPTVEvangelist.com

Panelists
Antonio Otalvaro, COO, Barrio 305/Taste Digital Media
Miguel Monteverde, Director of Video Programming, AOL
Tiffany Shlain, Filmmaker and Founder, The Webby Awards

There has been rumors of late that Yahoo! will bring back the vision platform to add to their best in class financial portal renamed, TechTicker

Yahoo! FinanceVision was the first ITV platform, which launched back in 2000. I know something about it as my department lent equipment and personnel within the company to assist them.

Despite what has been written, the demise of Finance Vision was not due to its "supremely buggy technology" it was more a combination of factors; the companies internal direction, lack of broadband deployment outside of U.S. offices and almost no advertising for the program. For its day, it was a technological Mount Everest and set new standards for live programming five days a week, all within a customizable browser. See; Do You Remember Yahoo! Finance Vision

Mike McGuire, a media analyst with Gartner Inc., said he thought it would be difficult for TechTicker to distinguish itself. “If they can get an audience aggregated around the site, it can provide an off-ramp to other Yahoo properties,” Mr. McGuire said. “But we have a ton of stuff that’s available on TV and any number of blogs and Web sites that provide close to real-time accounts, so this will be a real challenge for Yahoo.”

Brian Nelson a spokesperson for Yahoo said, “Yahoo Finance already maintains the Internet’s largest finance audience. When we think of developing new products, we’re focused on serving that audience.”

Read on for more about Yahoo! FianceVision, plus behind the scenes video clips

Can Yahoo! make a go of it the second time? I think they can, if they employ the following:

Make the viewer experience within the browser as customizable as possible

Use as much original content as possible, i.e. more in-depth News and Analysis, bring in heavy hitters with draw power

Make sure it works well on mobile platforms and in Podcast formats.

Don't skimp on the production values, this is not YouTube there are certain expectations.

Make it available as both live and on-demand viewing, archive all segments and employ good meta tagging

The first time around it was called an "experiment" by people inside the company, this time commit 100%

Y! Promotional segment, video © Yahoo!

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It has been ten months since we began measuring page view's and reader visits which have trended nicely with over 35,000 page views.

Starting with Wowza Media Systems, we have begun to solicit best in class companies to advertise for our reader's and extend our service offerings. The addition of Google Ads was a harder call as much of what I see online is off message however, one of our programmers knows how to teak it so placements are more in-line with ITV and IPTV products and services. In addition, if you are interested in sponsorship programs, please email us.

Thank you to all our loyal readers who have supported us and offered email and post feedback. We welcome your input for sections and topics for the coming year.

Regards,
Gilbert

Writers and actors in sympathy have employed the very technologies they say is and will impact their future incomes, namely Internet video. The Speechless campaign is an episodic series featuring established actors and sends a very well crafted message in black and white terms. Making use of viral video on YouTube, their own site and over the Brightcove network, the WGA has one-uped the studios with this campaign and makes you wonder about the long term value proposition for studios in this on-line and IPTV age.

As content creators who have been in the space since the mid-nineties when streaming media began we can certainly understand the through line here. On the other side however, as business people we also know that more people are chasing fewer and fewer ad dollars with cpm's for even the best watched shows do not generate much in the way of revenues, so this is really about the potential for future growth if it occurs. Still, this does not mean content creators should not have protection in place for future sales, it's just difficult to formulate revenues on projects that are not making money

While much has been written about the points on both sides, one aspect concerns me from a perspective of an Independent Producer/DP, namely that there exists a social stratification of professionals who are working and mostly making a living and those who have made it, most fall into the former category. That the majority of the writers who work on hit shows enjoy more perks and power (in addition to income) is part of the rewards of success and as it should be in our society. The concern however, is what about the other 70% or more of the people working in their crafts that are not the super-stars, will they share from this new revenue stream and if so in what form?

Its a tough problem and one that will surface many more times I think as mobile and fixed platforms mature.

Other sites:
Deadline Hollywood Daily
United Hollywood Blog

Yaron spoke about his company, Pando Netwoks, what he calls a Peer Assisted Content business model. This allows media companies the ability to offer up too HD quality over IP using P2P based technology. In addition, he spoke to some of the following topics such as
Pando Networks combines classic CDN with a node-based delivery or shortest path. In essence, by the user installing an application that shares a small amount of their bandwidth to assist other peers all benefit from improved quality.

P2P is geared best to deliver of large video files

P2P economies of scale make the most sense for long-tail content that many people view at the same time.

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