Skip to main content

TV Networks Missing the Internet Opportunity

Dow Jones reports on a puzzling story that leaves me wondering, why have the TV networks waited so long to place their own shows (or excerpts) on the web? It's as though the TV network executives are having the same kind of denial problem as their net-challenged music and film industry peers.

"Saturday Night Live" was the unlikely star of a recent spat over online piracy.

The show's rap parody, "Lazy Sunday," which expounded on the joys of watching "The Chronicles of Narnia" while eating cupcakes, became one of the most popular video snippets on the Internet, downloaded by millions of viewers. Soon after, another Saturday Night Live clip, this one featuring actress Natalie Portman in a profanity-laden rap, also gained a big online following.

The problem? The circulating clips were bootlegged. NBC Universal decided to put a stop to it by sending notices to Youtube.com, a video-sharing site that was hosting much of the traffic. But though Youtube.com complied, the problem hardly ends there.

The "Saturday Night Live" clips were just two out of more than 3,000 illegal files NBC has tried to remove from the Internet. Since the beginning of the year, NBC "has been engaged in the ongoing process of notifying viral video sites," said spokeswoman Julie Summersgill. In addition to Youtube, NBC also demanded that eight other sites take down pirated content.

"One of the reasons why media companies are now getting into broadband TV is to head off piracy," said Craig Leddy, a senior analyst at Points North Group. In other words, this is the excruciatingly slow approach that you take when you have too many lawyers, and not enough net-savvy marketing people.

Popular posts from this blog

How AI is Reshaping Business Communication

The typical customer engagement model is undergoing a dramatic transformation, driven by the convergence of Conversational AI, Generative AI  (GenAI), and an emerging technology called Agentic AI. As business leaders seek to automate and enhance their customer interactions, these technologies are creating new possibilities for more natural, contextual, and efficient communication at scale. The numbers tell a compelling story. According to Juniper Research's latest analysis, the conversational AI market is poised for substantial growth. Revenue is projected to surge from $14.6 billion in 2025 to over $23 billion by 2027. Artificial Intelligence Market Development The vendors in this industry are expected to generate a remarkable $57 billion globally over the next three years. This growth reflects the increasing enterprise adoption of AI-powered communication solutions across various sectors. What's particularly interesting is the regional distribution of this market. The Far Ea...