Disney is offering TV shows online the day after broadcast, with the stipulation that viewers can’t skip the commercials. This is very interesting, and Jeff Jarvis has an interesting post about it.
I have to disagree with Jarvis, though, when he says, “if other media — newspapers, magazines, and even online companies — don’t watch out, they may lose the broadband internet to TV companies.” Maybe he’s just getting hyperbolic over the excitement, but you can’t lose the Internet. It’s not space, it’s not a thing.
What changes on the Internet is that all camps can do whatever they want, so the distinct categorical lines between them blur. Neither newspapers nor TV on the Net are tied to physical objects, outside of whatever can receive and display whatever it is they want to serve, so what they are is whatever they can get away with.
What they are competing over, Jarvis says, is ad revenue.
If TV succeeds at holding advertisers’ attention and money, other players — online companies, magazines, newspapers — may not be able to break in. This an effort for both networks and ad agencies to keep ahead.
But I don’t see why if one segment of online does really well it should neccesarily pull away revenue from another. Wouldn’t the excitement, or even just the practicality, of everyone switching to online for TV and reading (and a hundred other things) mean the the pie would simply grow?
