It's a Tough Time to Be a New Media Child

The story in Daily Finance reporting on Jonathan Miller's speculation that one day Hulu may charge for content has ricocheted around the news forums and digests. Boy, I'll tell you, every time media companies take a step or two towards the invisible fence line surrounding the free content playground online the dog collar starts spitting electrodes. Posters to the column on Daily Finance were quick to jump on Miller's comments:

The fact that executives are still trying to figure out a way to charge for content online is mind boggling to me. It doesn't work. Hulu was an ingenious idea. Since people were watching shows online for free anyways, why not create create an online platform and shift power back to the networks.

Another exec with no clue. I love Hulu in its current incarnation, and would certainly abandon it if it wasn't free. What an idiot.

Most of the 60+ posts were like that. The first poster (above) linked to a survey on a related topic at EngadgetHD that asked, "How much would you pay for HULU on your TV?" When I took the survey the score was, pay "Nothing", 4,590 (76.6%), to pay "Something" (there were a few options), 1,401 (23.3%). I was among the "nothing" crowd.

Michael Kinsley's article eight years ago in Slate, "It's not just the Internet", is still the best thing that's ever been written on the subject of content economics. It should be required reading for media professionals. The truth is, content for a consumer audience is free, offline and on. If it's not for free, it's for darn near nothing. It's underwater. It's in the red. It costs the producer, not the consumer of the information.

So, of course, advertising has foot the bill for content for 30 years, maybe more, and grew weary of it at the start. Despite their carrying costs advertisers got no input into the editorial products, little input into the position of their messages, and only some insight into how much of their investment reached its target - which was maybe half. Advertising has wanted a little money back, too.

The Internet, consequently, has grown-up in the midst of a stormy relationship and the impact on its personality has been profound. If ever there was a child that needed a little play time, it has been the Internet.

Listen to the shrill voices of it's guardians: Be accountable. Don't skulk. Answer me! Act responsively. You get nothing until the work is done. Why can't you behave like a grown-up? What's it worth to you? What's the matter with you? Why are you crying? Here, try this. Try this. Try this!

Michael Kinsley said in his 2001 article, "Information has been free all along. It's the Internet that wants to enslave it." Funny how that statement rings true as it pertains to the other partner in the relationship, the advertiser. Do you hear the echo? It resonates through the whole matter.

It's a tough time to be a media child. You really have to wonder about the parents.

Comments

[kendraro]

There is huge potential for revenue by merging internet with TV - no one is looking at it right. Everyone is stuck in the old paradigm when what is called for is a completely new vision.

[loncowber]

All you have to do is give people content that they deem worthy of the cost and they will endure advertising. If the record companies and or motion picture companies used their trusted names and offered free decent quality downloads people would flock to that rather than trusting strangers. Anyone trying to make money on the net would kill for the mass of popular content these groups own. Any site they set up would be the net equivalant of Super Bowl advertising 365 days a year. Get too greedy though, and the people will flock back to the free sources. So this must be the problem then, the refusal of the owners of the rights to the music and movies to admit the changes that have taken place and reassess the value of their property. Instead of making millions in advertising they chose to make nothing. They should not be scolded as children, they should be laughed at and openly mocked.

[Paul]

Information is free.. The transmission of it has changed - from handwritten scrolls to printed paper to the Internet. Broadcast media - starting with radio - is free. Only cable and satellite charges, and that will change too.

It is now possible for more people to put more information into more minds than at any time in history. The cost of transmission is now minimal - how is charging for information gonna work?