Category: Media Wonk

While it’s encouraging to see that AP is at least thinking about the application layer of the online news equation, rather than simply the content layer, I don’t know that trying to recreate Google News, only with a more rigid and deterministic algorithm is really going to work. Read More …

Making pay-TV content available for free online, according to Sapan, will ultimately undermine the dual-revenue stream model–advertising plus subscription fees–that he said is critical to creating high-quality programming. Read More …

Distribution leverage, in fact, is at least as valuable an asset to a media company as many of the networks they program, and in some ways more fundamental, since the value of a second or third-tier cable network rests entirely on the leverage to get it distributed. But for that, no network. Read More …

Like Willie Sutton explaining why he robbed banks (“because that’s where the money is”) if I were a content owner I’d be looking to go where the value is: at the application level. Read More …

Eventually, though, if not sooner, all the media companies are going to have to start figuring out how to maximize revenue per user rather than profit per unit, or profit per title. Read More …