Digital Dish

When you’re a blogger for a few sites, you might seem like all you do is talk. It’s not entirely true, of course, though if you met me—well, let’s just say I’ve spent my entire life hearing the term “chatterbox.”

But I do really spend a lot of time listening.

Over the course of the past few months, it’s meant keeping an ear to the rail in the Web TV business. As I’ve mentioned before, I’m a creator-producer of both broadcast and Web TV projects, and as an Internet entrepreneur, I’m constantly watching for places to make money (aka, gray areas) in the business.

Luckily, working in the industry where I do, I get a lot of opportunity to hear people’s thoughts and what’s being said.

When it comes to Web television, it’s been a lot of promise—and caution. Discovery’s CEO said recently that they’ve done the math and don’t see the upside of Web TV just yet, while tons of Hollywood execs tell me that going from earning upwards of $25,000 per episode for TV to $2,500 for Web TV makes them wonder if being hired to write, produce or direct for the Web is worth their time.

This week’s debacle with the Motrin viral video campaign is proof that advertising and social media teams need to be a mix of seasoned Internet executives with those from traditional markets.

No less, unlike other industries who’ve met disruption from the Web, entertainment/TV has fared pretty well, really. In less than two years since the proliferation of Web video (and subsequently, Web TV), it’s already become primarily a Hollywood game. Not bad!

After far longer time, print media and music are still struggling to figure it out.

Following a conversation with the brilliant David Wolf of Accenture on Friday, as part of the equally cool NewTeeVee Live event in San Francisco, I’m convinced that the entertainment industry is doing well in part because it’s willing to explore the market and allow itself to be in good hands.

The crux of our 40-minute conversation was that everybody—from the big guns to the smallest producers—need to see the market at a high level, and who is making the key moves from there.

As a longtime Internet telecom exec with an equally long background in Web business, I’m always skeptical going onto calls like this.

But we share the same mindset: What we do right now sets the pace of the future. That’s the most important factor all should have in Web TV at the moment.
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