As we approach opening week in the NFL and following the recent re-launch of NFL.com there is a lot of discussion over online regulation and monetization of popular content. Americans are serious about their entertainment especially when it comes to sports and if someone holds a monopoly on content they want to see, most will fork over a hefty subscription fee to view it.

But the content making the most money online is the same content making money on TV. So the price question remains, if content is not popular enough to sell subscriptions online, how are you going to sell ads?

The optimistic answer is that niche content will offer greater relevance thus getting brands closer to that holy grail of engagement, more valuable than mass media. But how low is the break-even? There are essential costs in quality production. At what point do the economics force content out of existence for lack of people to create it for free?

The financially viable portion of the long tail ends at the break-even. The rush to acquire online video rights has driven more content online than can be successfully monetized, and in that sense we are seeing a bubble.

This entry was posted on Monday, September 3rd, 2007 at 10:31 pm and is filed under Video Portals, advertising, editorial. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.