welcome to mojo show 27 i’m your host
Afghan Constitution and I’m Rebecca
Brayton and today we’re going to talk
about news online news in particular and
online video news to be specific so well
AOL is looking to get back on the radar
they’re hiring an ad agency to refresh
their image and to kind of get the word
out on why people should care about AOL
again so should people care about it all
yes and no I mean when you look at the
first wave of Internet media companies
companies like tripod geo cities
broadcast com they’ve all sort of gone
away there’s yahoo and there’s AOL and i
think there’s a lot of you know they
become easy targets because people say
well these guys have been around how are
they relevant and the truth is that i
mean yahoo remains the premier digital
media company in the world and AOL is
still a pretty strong company with very
strong brands like engadget as well as
TechCrunch and Huffington Post which
they bought recently I think the
challenge with AOL really is more the
business press and the sort of business
media that says well you know they’re
most of the revenue still comes from the
traditional dial-up business and people
laugh saying you know people don’t even
know they’re still paying for this dial
up business and that is going to 0 very
quickly so it’s a question of when they
brought on Tim Armstrong as chairman and
AOL from google they said how quickly
can tim armstrong take AOL from a
dial-up business to an ad-supported
media company you know but at the other
day I think AOL is going to be an easy
target and it doesn’t help that they go
out and buy things like TechCrunch which
means they become pretty much the owner
of one of the leading you know techie
blogs out there and you know by paying
300 million dollars for arianna
huffington’s Huffington Post a lot of
people are going to raise eyebrows and
say you know what the hell what’s going
on with a oh well I do think though that
you always have to separate what you
know the bloggers and the analysts and
the media says with what the users say
and again with the advertisers say AOL
has an uphill challenge with all three
but maybe they should worry less about
the crazy bloggers and the media and
worry more about the users and the
advertisers I think if they worry about
on the over the like ladder too they’ll
be fine but they do have a lot of
challenges I mean their dial-up business
is going to 0
so it’s an interesting story to follow
we’ll see what happens and disclosure we
provide content to a lot of videos to
AOL and five min and I write articles
for TechCrunch once a week so as
discussed AOL bought Huffington Post
last year and now it’s using huffpo to
launch an online news network is this
gonna work its ambitious and it’s not
that big of a surprise so what’s really
interesting is they really want to
launch an online video network to
compete with like CNN and MSNBC and Fox
News but on the internet um it’s it’s
it’s impressive that they’re going to
attempt this they’re going to put 30
million behind it I think the challenge
is that news is a very fickle kind of
programming I’ve always said news how
to’s porn humor and I think there’s one
more which escapes me right now and yeah
and user gen content those are content
that is very different from everything
else auto content lifestyle fashion new
sometimes is not brand safe right but
people want to watch it so you could
have a billion people watching the video
of Gaddafi gettin killed but you can’t
monetize it right and then the flip side
is a lot of news people don’t care about
I think traditional model of linear
programming at six o’clock news and
eleven o’clock news the editor decides
to put something in front of the
audience and they’ll sort of follow I
think online it’s changed it hasn’t just
changed in terms of users caring more
about cats falling in toilets and dogs
on skateboards or crazy images of
Gaddafi getting killed I think the
bigger challenge with with news is that
video is actually very challenging one
when news breaks you tend to hear about
it nowadays on Twitter oboro-sama bin
Laden getting assassinated I found out
about that on Twitter Steve Jobs
resigning Steve Jobs passing away
Twitter and one reason for that is that
as CNN actually has to go figure but a
check the check the facts but I think
when it comes to video and we know this
I mean you’re a producer tell me what is
the turnaround time to get astute a
video produced well I mean we could
probably depending on what the subject
was within a couple of days but yeah I
mean okay if you wanted to be a high
quality video like we tend to like to
produce it’s a couple of days by time
you get the b-roll fact-check proofread
voiceover put it all together hopefully
we
would have something you know like in
the case of an Elizabeth Taylor passing
away or something like that you know we
might have expected it coming so we
might have something a little prepared
yeah we’ve learned actually that you
know most media companies have an
obituary list I mean many times new york
times i believe it was them they
accidentally publish an obituary on
steve jobs before it was actually you
know the proper time but but aside from
that I mean you could basically go out
when when Amy Winehouse died it was on a
weekend we could have within an hour I
had a video just using one of her songs
as a background saying Amy Winehouse
died she was born this day she died here
she’s had these issues will follow the
story as it happens the problem is what
that still takes a few hours or make
minutes to produce by then people are on
Twitter there’s a bunch of articles and
I think that’s the disconnect which is
what they want to accomplish works with
TV because there’s so much more ad
dollars and they could force-feed it to
audiences I’m not so sure it’ll work
online but I understand why a 0 l having
bought Huffington Post which has become
a power in news having bought five min
which is a power in video and they have
all that distribution and having
aspirations to become The Associated
Press of the online video space I can
imagine why they need to throw another
Hail Mary when you consider that the
dialogue business is going to 0 I don’t
think it’ll be as successful as as their
expectations are because there was on ad
week there was a good number they said
let’s be optimistic and assume that five
percent of half pose audience is going
to watch it the videos that’s basically
one to two million people and those
people are going to basically watch it
for 10 15 30 seconds so it’s going to be
very in and out fleeting that’s not
going to be big enough numbers to make a
dent for advertisers and before long
like with patch though either have to
switch gears and maybe put a little bit
less investment or change the
programming I still have a believer that
don’t break something that don’t fix
something if it ain’t broken I think
news actually works to some extent with
TV and radio just because it’s a
different market online it’s really
about the quick articles the tweet the
Twitter feeds you know the first initial
reaction and then you could let TV you
know bring it all together when the more
higher polish things and our model has
been pretty straightforward which is you
know we try to be ready for these news
breaking items and then we will have
something a bit more polish and a
biography but I if they want to go
for a good luck but it’s it’s an uphill
battle to put it mildly yeah and I mean
obviously we haven’t even talked about
the like evergreen nature videos that
they’re going to be online forever and
then how useful ya gonna be I mean
that’s a thing right like if you think
about it let’s say Steve Jobs passing
unfortunately you could have foreseen it
a bit because he quit and he basically
said I in quitting unless I have to so
that you could see it coming but when
Amy Winehouse dies even though she had
issues with with substance problems you
know you could basically pick to create
a quick dirty quick and dirty two-minute
video about her life put a music video
and say that’s it that’s all or you
could say I’m not going to scramble for
that initial noise which is going to be
dominated by Twitter and the CNN
refreshes and the dredge reports or
whatever but I’m going to take a day or
two to put a really nice polished
biography together which will be good
forever we’ve taken that model I think
it’s a smarter model but again if your
AOL you want the Hail Mary you want to
radically redefine news its ambitious it
sounds good it’ll get some headlines
whether or not the results are going to
be there I think we’ll wait and see but
it’s an uphill battle yeah meanwhile you
hear that Univision and ABC are
considering launching a news channel is
this the same thing or is it different
well it’s the same that it’s news it’s
very different in that I believe not i
believe i mean factually Univision and
ABC which is owned by disney are looking
at partnering to launch a TV you know
traditional television cable sort of
competitor to CN be sorry MSNBC Fox News
CNN now the reason why is very
straightforward Telemundo sorry
Telemundo is controlled by Comcast
competitor to Univision so Univision
their main market is the Hispanic market
but believe it or not even though the
Hispanics and in the US are a rapidly
growing dominant demo most of them
actually watch a lot of English
programming the the reports suggest that
they watch a lot more English
programming than Spanish programming so
if you’re Univision you have to say wait
a second we can try to double down on
Spanish programming but we’re basically
losing we’re fighting a losing battle so
for them it’s key to get in front of
their audience put in front of their
audience a english equivalent now what’s
the challenge news is very excite
ensive in 1980s sorry in 1996 Disney
actually looked at doing a competitive
product to Fox News and MSNBC and CNN
and because Rupert Murdoch came out and
basically bought distribution by paying
ten dollars per subscriber then Disney
threw in the towel and said we’re not
going to compete that’s crazy now little
parenthesis that at the time the content
companies in that case Fox was buying
distribution which is why online is
great because you can build distribution
for free but that’s a separate point but
my point is about 15 years 16 years ago
it was a lot health your TV was a
healthier market and ABC ran the numbers
and said forget it we’re not going to do
this what has changed I don’t know I
think this is more Univision saying we
need to put a product in front of our
audience and to one major thing that’s
changed now on Disney side is Disney
obviously owns along with Hearst as a
such small partner they on ESPN so I
think for them they say if we are to
leverage ESPN in sports and tap into
leverage our sales force then we can
probably have a you know competitive
news offering I don’t buy it I think
it’s a long shot I think as they get
closer they will probably scale back
their ambition or ironically they might
launch a I’m guessing here or i would
recommend almost i would almost urge
them to build a smaller online product i
think that would be probably more
interesting because they’re already
producing all this don’t forget
huffington post is largely an article
and aggregation site and their power and
video comes from five min which again
aggregates so I think if one of these
two companies as we’re sort of talking
out loud and brainstorming if one of
these companies were to go into the news
online news model it would actually be
the partnership between Univision and
ABC just saying all right next question
ok so we’ve basically been discussing us
the whole time but give us kind of the
coals Notes version of why it’s hard to
produce news online five words expensive
timely not brand safe and a consumer
demand not is not really there I think
you take a look at what people watch and
it’s not at all what I think advertisers
and distributors want them to watch so
that really was in five words but that
gives you the coals Notes version enough
so we’ll online
watch news online sorry the fit Ford
would have been not evergreen that’s
I’ll summarize that makes it so we’ll
online viewers watch news online and
will advertise her to support it I think
you’re always going to get a percentage
of the audience that will go after and
want to find news i think what online is
done and youtube is both you know
prospering and suffering as a result is
with TV you could sort of not censor but
you can control what your audience is
going to watch with the internet we’ve
seen that is not the case so users will
never watch what advertisers and
distribution companies want users to
watch they’ll always watch more porn
more graphic violence you know
unmonitored bull ugc but the challenge
is there is always going to be some kind
of demand for news and I think the
companies that could leverage video with
articles and I guess images as well and
then maximize real-time data what are
people talking about on twitter what are
people talking about on tumblr etc etc
with video with the timely versus
evergreen nature I think there there’s
an opportunity AOL has a lot of the
assets as does Univision and and
Disney’s ABC but you would almost want
them to swap strategies right now I
think if Univision and ABC did the
online video network that might be more
interesting I don’t necessarily think
that half bow or aol’s 30 million dollar
investment as I see what they’re going
to go do and what they have and what
they don’t I think they face an uphill
battle so yes people will watch news but
I don’t think it’ll be enough to justify
how expensive it is and there are people
that try to tackle that problem but
don’t expect a Hail Mary solution
overnight no this has been hit mojo show
27 tune in next time
Afghan Constitution and I’m Rebecca
Brayton and today we’re going to talk
about news online news in particular and
online video news to be specific so well
AOL is looking to get back on the radar
they’re hiring an ad agency to refresh
their image and to kind of get the word
out on why people should care about AOL
again so should people care about it all
yes and no I mean when you look at the
first wave of Internet media companies
companies like tripod geo cities
broadcast com they’ve all sort of gone
away there’s yahoo and there’s AOL and i
think there’s a lot of you know they
become easy targets because people say
well these guys have been around how are
they relevant and the truth is that i
mean yahoo remains the premier digital
media company in the world and AOL is
still a pretty strong company with very
strong brands like engadget as well as
TechCrunch and Huffington Post which
they bought recently I think the
challenge with AOL really is more the
business press and the sort of business
media that says well you know they’re
most of the revenue still comes from the
traditional dial-up business and people
laugh saying you know people don’t even
know they’re still paying for this dial
up business and that is going to 0 very
quickly so it’s a question of when they
brought on Tim Armstrong as chairman and
AOL from google they said how quickly
can tim armstrong take AOL from a
dial-up business to an ad-supported
media company you know but at the other
day I think AOL is going to be an easy
target and it doesn’t help that they go
out and buy things like TechCrunch which
means they become pretty much the owner
of one of the leading you know techie
blogs out there and you know by paying
300 million dollars for arianna
huffington’s Huffington Post a lot of
people are going to raise eyebrows and
say you know what the hell what’s going
on with a oh well I do think though that
you always have to separate what you
know the bloggers and the analysts and
the media says with what the users say
and again with the advertisers say AOL
has an uphill challenge with all three
but maybe they should worry less about
the crazy bloggers and the media and
worry more about the users and the
advertisers I think if they worry about
on the over the like ladder too they’ll
be fine but they do have a lot of
challenges I mean their dial-up business
is going to 0
so it’s an interesting story to follow
we’ll see what happens and disclosure we
provide content to a lot of videos to
AOL and five min and I write articles
for TechCrunch once a week so as
discussed AOL bought Huffington Post
last year and now it’s using huffpo to
launch an online news network is this
gonna work its ambitious and it’s not
that big of a surprise so what’s really
interesting is they really want to
launch an online video network to
compete with like CNN and MSNBC and Fox
News but on the internet um it’s it’s
it’s impressive that they’re going to
attempt this they’re going to put 30
million behind it I think the challenge
is that news is a very fickle kind of
programming I’ve always said news how
to’s porn humor and I think there’s one
more which escapes me right now and yeah
and user gen content those are content
that is very different from everything
else auto content lifestyle fashion new
sometimes is not brand safe right but
people want to watch it so you could
have a billion people watching the video
of Gaddafi gettin killed but you can’t
monetize it right and then the flip side
is a lot of news people don’t care about
I think traditional model of linear
programming at six o’clock news and
eleven o’clock news the editor decides
to put something in front of the
audience and they’ll sort of follow I
think online it’s changed it hasn’t just
changed in terms of users caring more
about cats falling in toilets and dogs
on skateboards or crazy images of
Gaddafi getting killed I think the
bigger challenge with with news is that
video is actually very challenging one
when news breaks you tend to hear about
it nowadays on Twitter oboro-sama bin
Laden getting assassinated I found out
about that on Twitter Steve Jobs
resigning Steve Jobs passing away
Twitter and one reason for that is that
as CNN actually has to go figure but a
check the check the facts but I think
when it comes to video and we know this
I mean you’re a producer tell me what is
the turnaround time to get astute a
video produced well I mean we could
probably depending on what the subject
was within a couple of days but yeah I
mean okay if you wanted to be a high
quality video like we tend to like to
produce it’s a couple of days by time
you get the b-roll fact-check proofread
voiceover put it all together hopefully
we
would have something you know like in
the case of an Elizabeth Taylor passing
away or something like that you know we
might have expected it coming so we
might have something a little prepared
yeah we’ve learned actually that you
know most media companies have an
obituary list I mean many times new york
times i believe it was them they
accidentally publish an obituary on
steve jobs before it was actually you
know the proper time but but aside from
that I mean you could basically go out
when when Amy Winehouse died it was on a
weekend we could have within an hour I
had a video just using one of her songs
as a background saying Amy Winehouse
died she was born this day she died here
she’s had these issues will follow the
story as it happens the problem is what
that still takes a few hours or make
minutes to produce by then people are on
Twitter there’s a bunch of articles and
I think that’s the disconnect which is
what they want to accomplish works with
TV because there’s so much more ad
dollars and they could force-feed it to
audiences I’m not so sure it’ll work
online but I understand why a 0 l having
bought Huffington Post which has become
a power in news having bought five min
which is a power in video and they have
all that distribution and having
aspirations to become The Associated
Press of the online video space I can
imagine why they need to throw another
Hail Mary when you consider that the
dialogue business is going to 0 I don’t
think it’ll be as successful as as their
expectations are because there was on ad
week there was a good number they said
let’s be optimistic and assume that five
percent of half pose audience is going
to watch it the videos that’s basically
one to two million people and those
people are going to basically watch it
for 10 15 30 seconds so it’s going to be
very in and out fleeting that’s not
going to be big enough numbers to make a
dent for advertisers and before long
like with patch though either have to
switch gears and maybe put a little bit
less investment or change the
programming I still have a believer that
don’t break something that don’t fix
something if it ain’t broken I think
news actually works to some extent with
TV and radio just because it’s a
different market online it’s really
about the quick articles the tweet the
Twitter feeds you know the first initial
reaction and then you could let TV you
know bring it all together when the more
higher polish things and our model has
been pretty straightforward which is you
know we try to be ready for these news
breaking items and then we will have
something a bit more polish and a
biography but I if they want to go
for a good luck but it’s it’s an uphill
battle to put it mildly yeah and I mean
obviously we haven’t even talked about
the like evergreen nature videos that
they’re going to be online forever and
then how useful ya gonna be I mean
that’s a thing right like if you think
about it let’s say Steve Jobs passing
unfortunately you could have foreseen it
a bit because he quit and he basically
said I in quitting unless I have to so
that you could see it coming but when
Amy Winehouse dies even though she had
issues with with substance problems you
know you could basically pick to create
a quick dirty quick and dirty two-minute
video about her life put a music video
and say that’s it that’s all or you
could say I’m not going to scramble for
that initial noise which is going to be
dominated by Twitter and the CNN
refreshes and the dredge reports or
whatever but I’m going to take a day or
two to put a really nice polished
biography together which will be good
forever we’ve taken that model I think
it’s a smarter model but again if your
AOL you want the Hail Mary you want to
radically redefine news its ambitious it
sounds good it’ll get some headlines
whether or not the results are going to
be there I think we’ll wait and see but
it’s an uphill battle yeah meanwhile you
hear that Univision and ABC are
considering launching a news channel is
this the same thing or is it different
well it’s the same that it’s news it’s
very different in that I believe not i
believe i mean factually Univision and
ABC which is owned by disney are looking
at partnering to launch a TV you know
traditional television cable sort of
competitor to CN be sorry MSNBC Fox News
CNN now the reason why is very
straightforward Telemundo sorry
Telemundo is controlled by Comcast
competitor to Univision so Univision
their main market is the Hispanic market
but believe it or not even though the
Hispanics and in the US are a rapidly
growing dominant demo most of them
actually watch a lot of English
programming the the reports suggest that
they watch a lot more English
programming than Spanish programming so
if you’re Univision you have to say wait
a second we can try to double down on
Spanish programming but we’re basically
losing we’re fighting a losing battle so
for them it’s key to get in front of
their audience put in front of their
audience a english equivalent now what’s
the challenge news is very excite
ensive in 1980s sorry in 1996 Disney
actually looked at doing a competitive
product to Fox News and MSNBC and CNN
and because Rupert Murdoch came out and
basically bought distribution by paying
ten dollars per subscriber then Disney
threw in the towel and said we’re not
going to compete that’s crazy now little
parenthesis that at the time the content
companies in that case Fox was buying
distribution which is why online is
great because you can build distribution
for free but that’s a separate point but
my point is about 15 years 16 years ago
it was a lot health your TV was a
healthier market and ABC ran the numbers
and said forget it we’re not going to do
this what has changed I don’t know I
think this is more Univision saying we
need to put a product in front of our
audience and to one major thing that’s
changed now on Disney side is Disney
obviously owns along with Hearst as a
such small partner they on ESPN so I
think for them they say if we are to
leverage ESPN in sports and tap into
leverage our sales force then we can
probably have a you know competitive
news offering I don’t buy it I think
it’s a long shot I think as they get
closer they will probably scale back
their ambition or ironically they might
launch a I’m guessing here or i would
recommend almost i would almost urge
them to build a smaller online product i
think that would be probably more
interesting because they’re already
producing all this don’t forget
huffington post is largely an article
and aggregation site and their power and
video comes from five min which again
aggregates so I think if one of these
two companies as we’re sort of talking
out loud and brainstorming if one of
these companies were to go into the news
online news model it would actually be
the partnership between Univision and
ABC just saying all right next question
ok so we’ve basically been discussing us
the whole time but give us kind of the
coals Notes version of why it’s hard to
produce news online five words expensive
timely not brand safe and a consumer
demand not is not really there I think
you take a look at what people watch and
it’s not at all what I think advertisers
and distributors want them to watch so
that really was in five words but that
gives you the coals Notes version enough
so we’ll online
watch news online sorry the fit Ford
would have been not evergreen that’s
I’ll summarize that makes it so we’ll
online viewers watch news online and
will advertise her to support it I think
you’re always going to get a percentage
of the audience that will go after and
want to find news i think what online is
done and youtube is both you know
prospering and suffering as a result is
with TV you could sort of not censor but
you can control what your audience is
going to watch with the internet we’ve
seen that is not the case so users will
never watch what advertisers and
distribution companies want users to
watch they’ll always watch more porn
more graphic violence you know
unmonitored bull ugc but the challenge
is there is always going to be some kind
of demand for news and I think the
companies that could leverage video with
articles and I guess images as well and
then maximize real-time data what are
people talking about on twitter what are
people talking about on tumblr etc etc
with video with the timely versus
evergreen nature I think there there’s
an opportunity AOL has a lot of the
assets as does Univision and and
Disney’s ABC but you would almost want
them to swap strategies right now I
think if Univision and ABC did the
online video network that might be more
interesting I don’t necessarily think
that half bow or aol’s 30 million dollar
investment as I see what they’re going
to go do and what they have and what
they don’t I think they face an uphill
battle so yes people will watch news but
I don’t think it’ll be enough to justify
how expensive it is and there are people
that try to tackle that problem but
don’t expect a Hail Mary solution
overnight no this has been hit mojo show
27 tune in next time
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