The anonymous commenter said this about the idea of posting on YouTube:
The idea of this is soooo wrongheaded I don't know where to start.
So every one of you is comfortable with GIVING your PRECIOUS local content (that no one else can create or duplicate) to a MEGA company owned by your competition (Google) so that useless eyeballs (that don't bring you money in ANY way) can see it?
Keep drinking that KoolAid.
Guess why *local* TV websites DONT put their video on YouTube? (at least most or the smart ones don't)
That's right. They UNDERSTAND why not to. They have EXPERIENCE with syndication and an affiliation relationship.
They know that your site needs to be come the central part and destination for the video in your market. The web is like TV in that it is about developing audience and usage patterns. You don't do that by giving away your content to your competition with no way to make money on it.
It's a lose, lose, lose.
Now, I agree with the fact that it's better to get paid for your content than to give it away for free. But I don't think the online video market is as similar to TV as this commenter thinks. I think that if news orgs want to get a piece of the enormous online video market, it's absolutely essential for video content to be posted in as many places as possible.
What do you think?
1 comments:
I think the commenter is drinking the kool-aid from the 20th century. While such syndication rights were probably huge revenue streams a long time ago (although I can't imagine much money coming from the syndication of the :60 spot of the local apple festival), that was because there was a market of scarcity. In a market of greater availability, it's not the people who hold onto the content jealously who are going to be the beneficiaries. Ask Maureen Dowd whether she'd like to be behind the NYT subscription wall or on the WaPo's editorial web site.
The web is like TV in that it is about developing audience and usage patterns. You don't do that by giving away your content to your competition with no way to make money on it.
No, repeat after me: THE WEB IS NOT LIKE TV. Yes, there's an element of developing reader patterns, but there's a reason it's called the "world wide web." Your local readers will come to your site, but you want people from other areas. You don't get those people by holing your video up in a crappy WMV player that doesn't work half the time.
Putting your material into different channels drives viewers back to your outlet and puts your name out into the market - branding. That's a benefit that doesn't show up in a pure $$$ analysis of "syndication deals."
The best similar example I can see to this is the market for photojournalism, which is creaking under the weight of abundance from sites like Flickr, photobucket, sxc.hu (stock exchange) and others.
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