Moonves Speaks
January 9, 2007 9:08 PM
“Since the dawn of civilization, man has demonstrated a fundamental desire to gather,” a voice boomed from the stage at CES.
During CBS CEO Les Moonves’ keynote at CES, he turned the stage over to a prepared CBS video that claims that audience interactivity in today’s digital age stemmed all the way back to Roman days of old when audiences voted on whether the gladiators in the Roman Coliseum got to live or die. The video then fast forwarded in time to the Salem witch trials, apparently another great moment in the timeline of audience interactivity.
How do these epochal events portend our digital desires of 2007? Mr. Moonves said, “These days if we join together to watch the effect of Mentos on diet coke, the bridge between content and community is strong and developing faster than at anytime in history.”
I guess we’re all just doing our part to turn modernity into history when we post clips on YouTube. Or something like that.
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Comments (3)
Is he talking about the effect of mixing Mentos and Diet Coke in the stomach? I bet "The Running Man" is Les' favorite movie. How morbid a prediction for interactive mass-media. ;-)
Posted by Bryan | January 10, 2007 12:58 PM
I think he's referring to how new media are affecting old markets. The Mentos/Diet Coke rocket thing spiked sales for both.
He's a believer. In 2005, the CBS/NCAA March Madness online viewing used the subscription model. Revenues? $250,000. In 2006, it was ad supported and CBS got $4,000,000 in revenue. Get the picture?
Now, how is Goole going to help them make money? Micro-target ad placement. Check this blog post and see what I mean: http://blog.reallyrocketscience.com/node/279
Posted by Andy | January 11, 2007 11:39 AM
That's interesting and potentially scary stuff, Andy. It would only seem to work, though, if you're actively using a connected laptop and watching TV at the same time. I'm sure there's a limited demo that does that, but enough to make it attractive to advertisers? It maybe better to eavesdrop on iTunes or an mp3 player and go from there.
Posted by Bryan | January 11, 2007 2:47 PM