A New Media Model

An entire industry has sprung up to fill a gap between the the current content producers, their archaic distribution models, and the way consumers want to use content with modern technology.

What would happen if a major network decided that they were going to cut out the middle-men, and go straight to the consumer. I’m thinking WB, TBS, FOX, or maybe even Mark Cuban’s HDNet.

Here’s how it works.

1. Take every show you run on your network, including the commercials, and digitize them to a variety of bitrates and formats (WMA, MOV, Etc.).

2. Host an RSS feed for each show, allowing users to subscribe (using Doppler or similar programs) to different feeds for each show. Publish each show to the feed concurrent with it airing by traditional means.

3. Talk to your advertisers. Remind them that your goal here is to put their commercials in front of as many eyes as possible, at the lowest cost you can manage. Since this new model eliminates many layers, you should be able to distribute content this way at a lower cost. If bandwidth is a concern, utilize bittorent or other peer-to-peer technology.

4. Develop metrics that allow you to quantify “circulation” of your shows, instead of focusing on numbers of viewers. Maybe talk to Arbitron or Neilson about developing some sort of authoritative advertiser-friendly metrics for electronic media distribution.

5. Aggressively pursue anyone who tries to chop commercials and redistribute content. Use technological measures to discourage this, and lawyers to enforce it. Gradually move away from disruptive advertising, and focus more on product placements, and content relevent advertising.

6. Consider offering unique RSS feeds with different advertising for different demographics. In general, people would rather have ads that are relevent. Give them control and they would choose to view more relevant ads. Use this to sell the advertising.

Would this work?