Blog: Making money with online content
- Published: 13 November 2007 09:31
- Last Updated: 14 November 2007 09:11
- Reader Responses
Jon Anthony on why television producers should look at what is actually working on the web rather than try to replicate their traditional business online.
The broadcast industry is an industry run by suits, of which only a select few actually have any real understanding of the new technologies that arrive now on a monthly basis.
The most common question around the boardroom table these days is "how can we make money out of the internet".
Indeed, your best bet if you want to make a quick buck (I have done this myself) is to call round a few companies, ask for the marketing manager and convince him or her you can give them the latest greatest web site with a guaranteed internet led increase in sales.
Therein lies the problem, the marketing manager is the very last person in the world who should spearhead a company's push into the brave new world.
Apart from a rare few, they simply do not have the grounded knowledge. You will build the site; it will look pretty and in eighteen months someone else will call and the cycle begins again.
The boards of many traditional companies right now have a group of directors over forty, demanding to see the company's web strategy and be told how the company will move forward as back bedroom run internet sites encroach on their territory.
It is no coincidence that Alan Sugar chose the spotty break dancing graduate over the sure-fire mother who could sell anything. He can sell and he has good sales people, but he does not have a clue where the next internet billion will come from.
And please don't look to the emailing Amstrad phone monstrosity as an example of how he actually does have his finger on the pulse.
So, the traditional pattern emerges in which a company tries to represent its business online, buys a shiny new website and completely fails to understand why it does not make any money.
Newspapers and broadcasters put their content online, sporadically try and charge for it with varying degrees of success, and some even brave pay per click advertising.
All of which is a great source of pocket money for the teenager with a home site but does not help our ageing and ailing board members, with their bottom line.
So how should it be done if I know so much?
Quite simply, this is not an area for suits and people who do not understand the technology. Not the marketing types or the aged board members at the helm (although they do come in handy later).
The internet is a Darwinian primordial soup. It is easy to see the successful models: social networking (FaceBook), information sharing (YouTube).
Which are the models that compliment your business? For us it was a homage to YouTube. We did have a streaming video site that was losing us a six figure sum each year in bandwidth charges.
We looked to the internet for the most successful model, which is YouTube, and had our own built in India with a few added features such as mobile phone uploads and postcode radius searches.
It has been online for two months now and will make a six figure profit by March on current figures alone.
The suits had no idea what we were talking about, they simply did not "get it", but there you go. That is the problem and solution in one.
Don't try and replicate your traditional business online, look to what is actually working out there.
And do not let the suits anywhere near it.
Portland TV director of technology Jon Anthony has over ten years' experience in broadcast engineering and IT project management. Prior to that he worked in sales and ran his own company. He has a degree in Physics specialising in particle physics and electronics. He has been with Portland TV since 2004.
