April 29, 2008...1:30 pm

Gossip Girl Epic Fail

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Hey CW.  I know you’re still invested in the old skool model of TV, but viewers are viewers.  Pulling the online streams of Gossip Girl is not going to drive DVD sales or any other ancillary revenue.  You have an online hit on your hands, you shouldn’t take it away from that audience.  Sell ads across all of your platforms.  If your precious network schedule is too valuable for that timeslot, move it to a cable channel or on demand.

4 Comments

Filed under New Media, money, old media

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4 Comments

  • Eric Susch
    April 30, 2008 at 7:57 am

    artificial scarcity = premature death

    As you say, “viewers are viewers.” And shows are shows, no matter where they are. The “online episodes” aren’t taking anything away from the “TV episodes” and neither is superior nor inferior because of the delivery technology. They are all in fact the exact same episodes.

  • Eric Andrade
    April 30, 2008 at 12:02 pm

    Word. So true. Even if it is only ever online, there’s obviously an audience that is willing to follow it and watch it. As long as you cover production & distribution costs, and make a few bucks: a profit is also a profit.

    I think the trouble is the peeps running these networks haven’t seen the light on the “new economy” of entertainment. I’m not trying to coin a phrase, either. It’s simple, though:

    The market has opened up. People who can produce stuff on the cheap (but professionally) will. Why? Because they can now also DISTRIBUTE their stuff cheaply. And the audience is global. And if it’s good, it will get viewers, which will attract advertisers over time.

    So…if you have a studio at your disposal, and a very long relationship with a lot of advertisers who will throw money at whatever dreck you put out (I’m looking at the networks)…why wouldn’t you embrace this trend to increase your revenue? Even if it is incremental? Over time, those “amateurs” are going to erode your market position. Then where are you? (Again, looking at the networks.)

    As you said in your Tweet, Ken: F*CK B!G M3D!A. For reals yo.

    Word.

  • Leona
    May 3, 2008 at 8:46 pm

    I take it this is your public confession that you loooooove Gossip Girl, and that you’ve been watching it online? I suspected as much.

  • Daisy Whitney
    May 9, 2008 at 7:45 am

    And while ratings rose slightly for first two weeks back, they were down a bit for the third week…which suggests CW viewers aren’t necessarily flocking to the TV set…but they might be flocking to file sharing sites for pirated copies

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