(Boston, MA) An interesting theme emerged today at The New Video Summit: web-based video isn't that easy or inexpensive to produce. Despite the widespread belief that user-generated content, made on the fly with video-capable cell phones, is synonymous with "web video," production and distribution of Internet video is hard work.
"If you want to make a real business out of it, then it gets expensive," Blip.tv CEO Mike Hudack said. In terms of high-quality shows, web video can start to be as expensive as traditional TV shows. "Once you get SAG actors involved and you’re talking about studios, you’re talking about television-like costs," Hudack said.
"When users are coming to our sites there is a lot of expectation for professional quality video," Peter Clem, VP, Broadband Programming and Production at Scripps Network Interactive said.
On top of the talent and personnel costs, web-based video requires technological expertise that traditional TV does entail. "There's just a tremendous amount of infrastructure that we invest in. There is a lot of content and infrastructure that goes on top of user-gen, which professional content doesn't face," ExpoTV CEO Daphne Kwon said.
Limelight Networks CEO Michael Gordon stressed that viewers don't really care that the Internet is different from traditional TV. "The Internet doesn't get a free pass for the expectations that consumers have," he said.
Spark Capital General Manager Dennis Miller said that he and his partners receive far too many pitches for new online video networks that feature cheap content dominated by "bikinis and extreme sports." These inexpensive, young male-oriented pitches fall flat.
What Miller wants to see is higher quality content produced by talented individuals. "As audiences fragment, if you can build enough of an audience with professionally produced content...you'll see the next wave of these micro-niche audiences developing," he said.
Keynote speaker Herb Scannell, CEO of Next New Networks, said that advertisers now want to see high quality audiences. "My expectation is that advertising will be based on a quality audience."
Cynthia Brumfield at 8:22 PM|Comments(0)
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