On Venture-funded Writer Startups…
There’s been a lot of discussion today surrounding an LAT article about striking WGA members working with VCs to start digital content companies. Writers can start all the digital content sites they want, it won’t make any difference. Online video in its current state is most valuable as an extension of TV, and MSM owns the most valuable portals.
Independent writer-driven portals? We have those, they’re called Funny or Die and My Damn Channel and they have been at most modestly successful. Their long term potential will never rival that of longer form content distributed on TV.
What these sites have driving their success is star power more than writing. Hollywood will have the eyeballs and as a result the big bucks for talent and promotion for the foreseeable future, and writers is are kidding themselves if they think they can compete on their own.
Tags: Writers Guild Startups
December 17th, 2007 at 10:57 pm
Modestly successful? Longterm potential? Rival to longer form content? More questions: Who Are You? Do you believe in alternative distribution for quality content? Do you favor creative freedom & the possiblity of just profit and revenue sharing? Was “writers is kidding themselves” a play on words?
December 18th, 2007 at 1:34 pm
Rob, in answer to your questions, some answers and some more questions:
Modestly successful? - Are you profitable yet? If not when do you foresee profitability?
Longterm potential? - Short of being bought by a major content distributor, how do you reach a large enough audience to have the economies of scale necessary to create a product that can compete with TV?
Better questions:
Who am I? - I’m not worthy. Don’t take my opinion for lack of respect for you or what you are trying to do. You have far more experience than me, no argument there and I have no doubt that you are far more qualified to make this successful than most - I enjoy a lot of your content and I really hope you are successful in reaching a larger audience.
Alternative Distribution for quality content? - Sure I believe in it, my point is that writers want to reach the largest audience and online is not going to compete with the distribution machine MSM has in place. If I’m wrong, you’re certainly in a position to prove that - again I hope you do.
Creative freedom and possibility of profit and revenue sharing? - The conflict between the money and the producer has always been an issue - And there have always been alternative sources to get around that conflict, all of them less profitable and reaching a smaller audience than MSM. But I value the idea that online can be used to create a fairer deal, I doubt it can be nearly as lucrative but hope it will.
Thanks for the correction, poor grammar always helps prove an argument…like I said, I’m not worthy.
December 18th, 2007 at 1:52 pm
Jeepers did I stumble into a food fight? Ben’s right to be skeptical about the chances for new media ventures spawned by the WGA strike. But no more skeptical than he should be about the chances for Big TV to recover from this debacle. They had enough on their plate back in October. The writers may not be able to get indie programs going on their own….but…by keeping the strike going past the Upfronts, they will totally destroy (almost) their Big TV competitors. Someone will pick up the pieces.
December 18th, 2007 at 9:30 pm
Ben: You’re as worthy as anyone. That’s one of the new realities that MSM fears most. Don’t pull any punches. No secrets - only winners and losers who’ll be entertaining, funny….or….dead.
Yer answers:
On success: we’re four months old & starting to raise enough revenue to get to break even on the content production.
On mass distribution, we’ve hit as high as 160,000 uniques in one day & we’re regularly on the home page of YouTube where MyDamnChannel.com videos have nabbed over 1 million views.
We’re not in competition with TV. Think ALT. Think FREE.
February 21st, 2008 at 3:44 pm
I gather always different opinions about web 2.0 and how to market with the different mindset of the \”new\” Internet. Will social interaction and networking really make the web different? Thanks for your thoughts on this!