Spike Lee / Nokia Productions
Spike Lee discusses the Nokia Productions project.
Professional Media on the Web: Where is It?
Despite the boom of numerous user-generated content portals, professionally produced content is still limited.
The most popular pieces on the web are often re-purposed media or low-quality viral content.
Why are professional content producers or content owners not creating original programming for the web? As a dynamic media expert, I have always suggested that content companies target the web as much as possible. With syndication services, such as Blip.tv, it’s easy to be everywhere at once: YouTube, Yahoo, AOL Video, Facebook, etc. So, why limit yourself to traditional formats?
Here are a few reasons to produce for the web or monetize on the web:
1. Lower production costs: If you’re exclusively creating for the web, you don’t need a camera that shoots in 4k.
2. Union by-pass: As someone who has worked extensively in television, I find that union contracts are often very limiting. However, as of yet, that’s not an issue on the web.
3. Broader audience: Syndication on the web allows you to reach a global audience at minimal cost. This can also be used to earn additional revenue for your services. For example: If you’re an event producer, why not provide an additional service to deliver content over the web. Even if you sell this to one client per year, it should pay a portion of your web-hosting fees!
Note: Change of Feed Address
Just a quick note: Recently, I moved the feed from the standard Wordpress generated feed to a Feedburner hosted feed.
Old feed address: http://asvideoproductions.com/blog/feed/
New feed address: http://feeds.feedburner.com/aanaravsareenblog
This should not affect anyone publicly. But, if it does, please drop me a line: aanaravs@asvideoproductions.com
NAB 2008: Bigger gets Better, Smaller gets Efficient
At this year’s NAB, the shift from television to other forms of content delivery was quite drastic. Just a few years ago, nearly everyone was developing content for television — event videographers, TV broadcasters, and news organizations. However, as various technologies have evolved, there is no longer a central medium. Examples include advanced compositing software and high-end cameras that target cinema and film content developers. On the other hand, many companies are now creating software applications and hardware tools surrounding dynamic media and delivery for small screens — portable, online, and mobile devices.
Although many of these tools are still being developed, it’ll be interesting to see how many of these tools formalize and become market leaders.
On a related note: RED announced 3 new products at NAB. Visit Zoom In Online for an exclusive interview.
TV: Alive & Healthy
Given the recent posts on this blog, this article may come as a surprise to many readers: TV is not dead. Not by a long shot. If you ask any aspiring actor, their dream is still to be successful on TV or on the big screen, rather than the average 2.5″ screen of portable devices.
So, why are so many people still looking to make it big on popular mediums? Global visibility. While the web is a large place and the potential viewership can easily surpass the mass media ratings, the chances of being globally recognized are slim.
In recent times, the web, despite it’s size has become a collection of niche markets. Take the media industry for example, which includes multiple departments — imaging, lighting, writing, editing, animation, sound, etc. On the web, these broad categories of a specific medium are sub-divided into further categories: imaging for TV, imaging for film, etc. Breaking that down further, there’s another level: imaging for indie films, imaging for multi-million dollar films, and Do-It-Yourself imaging.
If you browse the web, each and every site is dedicated to niche markets, which makes global visibility very difficult.
On the other hand, TV is evolving into a very dynamic medium. Slowly, but it’s happening. 5 years ago, you wouldn’t be able to hear stories directly from the cast and crew of popular shows. Currently, many shows have podcasts and provide the respective fan base with related images, limited access to on-screen talent, etc.
For a medium that has been defined for numerous decades, it’s exciting to see these large companies to break outside their core shell. This will hopefully continue to evolve into a dynamic medium.
TV advertising rates on the decline
According to a recently published Advertising Age article, advertising rates for prime-time spots are on the decline. Here are a few interesting statistics from that article:
- ABC: 9% to 12% decline
- CBS: 9% to 12% decline
- FOX: 9% to 12% decline
- NBC: 25% decline
Based on the article, a 12% decline comes out to $125,634.00 per spot. By simple calculation, the prior cost of an average prime-time spot was $140,710.08.
By using conservative assumptions, there are 24 prime-time spots per network per day (2 hours per day; 4 commercial breaks per hour; 3 spots per break.) For each of the above networks, the breakdown results in the following:
Note: Difference per year is based on a 22 week TV season.
With a difference of $212 million dollars per year, it’s certainly worth pursuing various advertisers for sponsorship opportunities, making the new media world much more exciting and fruitful.
Adobe announces Lightroom 2.0
Today, Adobe announced the public beta of Photoshop Lightroom 2.0. The application is available from http://labs.adobe.com. For this cycle, Adobe is using similar beta regulations, as they did with Photoshop CS3. If you’re a current customer — you can evaluate the application for a longer period of time than the otherwise imposed 30 day restriction.
For detailed information about product restrictions, visit Adobe Labs.
Hulu.com — Now with movies
Hulu finally launched their platform to the general public on March 12th, 2008. If anyone needs further proof that online media is the next big thing, check out these statistics from Hulu itself:
- Private beta since October 2007.
- Over 5 million viewers have watched videos in the past 30 days via Hulu.com or its extensive distribution network (February 12 - March 12).
- During this beta period, more than 50,000 Hulu video players have been embedded on nearly 6,000 sites across the Web.
- Hulu has more than quadrupled the number of show and movie titles in its library since private beta testing began.
We’ll continue to explore Hulu as it evolves over time.
Tech Friday Reviews at Zoom In Online™
Just a heads up: I started a new article series on Zoom In Online™ entitled “Tech Friday.” The goal of this series is to review products aimed towards creative and technology professionals. Check out the first 2 articles below:
Logitech Harmony One Advanced Universal Remote
Blogging at Zoom In Online
Apart from blogging here, I will also be blogging at Zoom In Online™. On Zoom In Online™, I’ll primarily be blogging about technology products as they relate to media professionals. Check out my first post here: http://www.zoom-in.com/blog/2008/03/heroes_happens_here
