eric rochow : social media handyman

From the NY Times, an article on Scripps Network, and how well they’ve done with the HGTV and the Food Network.

“I think the Scripps Networks will continue to do well because they target such specific markets and their programs lend themselves to video-on-demand,” said Thomas A. Russo, a partner in the investment firm of Gardner Russo & Gardner, whose clients own shares of Scripps. NY Times, Aug 14, 2006

Video on demand is, to me, one of the ways we will view more and more content going forward. Scripps has done well with creating programming for a segment of the population who love cooking and home-improvement shows. Its easy enough to make this content available for on-demand.

Full disclosure here: I’ve pitched Scripps several show ideas, but ultimately decided to take the shows pitched online myself, the first being gardenfork.tv

Verizon is installing a fiber optic network in NYC to compete with Time Warner Cable, Comcast, and Vonage. It has been losing about 1,000 phone customers a day. I’ve never been a big fan of Verizon, but for them to stay viable, they have to do this.

Building a whole new state-of-the-art network is a laborious and expensive process that Verizon says it must undertake to fend off rivals like Comcast and Vonage, which are moving fast into the phone business. As Verizon replaces more of its old copper network with more durable fiber lines, the company also expects to save billions of dollars in maintenance costs.

Verizon will spend about $20 billion by the end of the decade to reach 16 million homes from Florida to California. But it is in New York City where Verizon has the most at stake, because New Yorkers are some of the nation’s biggest buyers of video, Internet and phone services. The company plans to spend about $3 billion to reach the city’s 3.1 million homes and apartments. NY Times, Aug 14, 2006