Cable TV is on the decline. Look at you, you have some free time, you’re not watching Cosby show reruns, you’re on the net.
On the Decline. All networks evening news viewership.
Cable companies need a bigger presence on the web. What should they do?
One of them, lets say NBC, should build a youtube competitor. Lets call it “NewTube”.
You can’t just launch a competitor and expect it to be successful you need a differentiator. So whats so different about NewTube?
NBC should create a daily/weekly program that shows videos from “NewTube”. Now users have an incentive to post. No other video sharing application can get your clip on TV.
There’s a lot of video out there, people want to show it, they want an audience. That’s one of the reasons they post to Youtube in the first place. They know youtube has a massive audience compared to the second best video sharing site (whatever that is).
Give people a chance to have their content on TV and that changes the game.
REVERSAL: why this wont work
- There’s not enough incentive. Being on TV is no big deal. Maybe people wont care to have their clips on TV
- Not that many people will watch a show of video clips on TV
- Youtube is so far ahead that it cant be caught.
What do you think?
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January 21st, 2008 at 9:49 pm
One of the problems is that the networks are “old school”. They have to many layers of bureaucracy. They would spend more time thinking about doing something like this than actually building a youtube competitor.
But sure just like any company they should use their assets, in this case an already established large audience, to help them build popular sites/services on the web.
May 8th, 2009 at 8:22 pm
youtube is a portal, not a provider. As iphone use increases, so do does the outlet for ‘newskool’ TV. OK, so far its been crappy UGC, but things are going to get serious in this area, as will the money making oppotunites from writing low cost custom apps for iphone.
May 8th, 2009 at 8:23 pm
why are’nt your news stories dated? That’s a major faux pais…
May 9th, 2009 at 12:57 am
Im not seeing it. What are the details. I dont see the path the profitability.
Whenever you have as many eyeballs as youtube has there will always be potential to convert those page views to dollars. However as of today I dont see Youtube’s path to profitability.