Television

See the student group project The Internet and Television Wiki.

2008 Summer Olympics

The 2008 Olympics were a big test of internet television. NBC broadcast thousands of hours of content over the internet via nbcolympics.com. According to CNBC, the internet content did not cannibalize broadcast advertising revenues. The price for a 30 second spot was reportedly $750,000. The web site offered an integrated schedule for TV and online content. DeltaTre did the web site.

According to the New York Times of August 26, 2008 the NBC web site generated a tiny fraction of ad revenue. However, that was probably skewed because the most popular events were not streamed on the site to avoid cannibalizing TV.

Television News Struggling

Major networks cut news staff again in 2010.

Other Television Items

In April 08 CBS cut news staff.

WSJ 4/29/08 story on a Chinese streaming video company.

May 10, 2008 NYT story on the "Battle of Kruger" about a YouTube video that became a documentary. This illustrates how the lower cost to produce and distribute video is changing entertainment. YouTube becomes a laboratory where people can experiment to see what the audience likes. It filters out the unpopular videos and allows TV program producers to find ideas that are already proven to work.

"Time-shifting" affects networks TV viewership and advertisers, according to this May 12, 2008 NYT article. However, people with DVRS apparently still watch commercials.

Bharti Airtel in India will lauch internet television in 2009.

HBO may sell TV episodes on iTunes for more than $1.99, according to this May 13, 2008 New York Times article.

Launch in April 08 of theWB.com.

According to this May 24, 2008 New York Times article called "Cable Prices Keep Rising; Customers Keep Paying", the internet has not had much impact on cable TV prices. A big part of that is content licensing. The content providers get a slice of the cable subscription revenue.

Cable operators are planning to trial putting programs online for existing cable subscribers in 2009.

Sony is trying another internet distribution model in early 2009 with a series called "Angel". They will stream the series on the internet and seek to make money from DVD sales afterward.

Saturday Night Live clips of the Presidential election show that viewers are increasingly watching TV content online or on DVRs. So far, this does not appear to be eroding the audience for the live show

Professional Video

Thomson Reuters is competing in the information space with on-demand video for subscribers. In this business, having an information edge is critical.

Hulu

Hulu is an online video web site that shows television content and makes money from advertising. Hulu is distinctive because - unlike broadcast and cable TV - it shows fewer advertisements and viewers can rate ads and choose the ads they want to see.1

Hulu will be looking at a subscription model in addition to advertising revenue as ComCast acquires NBC Universal (November 2009).

Convergence of TV and Computer Moving Along Slowly but Surely

Displaying internet content on TV screens is still tricky, because TVs are not internet devices. However, new televisions coming out in 2009 will have internet capabilities built-in, moving the idea of an integrated TV and internet experience closer to reality. TV content providers are naturally worried about what this will do to their business models.

In Q4 2008 video ad revenue growth was slowing, but it's still a growth area.

XBox is a video distribution platform with enough users to sound like a cable network.

Will Cable Subscribers Cut the Cord?

Those TV companies that are doing well right now get most revenue and profit from cable. But people may start to watch shows online and bypass the cable box. Media companies are starting to make money from streaming, while being careful not to cannibalize their products. They are streaming older shows rather than new ones that attract a lot of advertising revenue.

Advertising and Video

Television networks have long earned revenue by sell advertising space in their programming. As more people move to watching television online, the battle for online advertising spend begins. (March 27, 2009) Google is working to integrate its video ad platform for YouTube and its television ad brokering platform, to try to control the online television ad market in the same way it dominates the online advertising market.

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