Yet another comment on something Chris Brogan talked about a few days ago. His post “Your show is NOT the money maker” speaks to why / how podcaster / new media shows can make money. So I thought I’d do my take on this.
First off, I don’t consider gardenfork.tv a podcast. I call it an internet video show. gardenfork.tv was originally set up as a wordpress blog, but I found my audience, who are not the tech oriented blogger types, didn’t understand that one could scroll down to see more shows/posts.
I wanted to find something more video-centric, and found Brightcove. They have a nice player console that drops onto your site and plays Flash movies. While you take a quality hit, the ubiquity of the flash player meant I stopped getting emails from people saying ” I can’t get this to play ”
Another plus of the Flash player is I can control who can use the programming.
Brightcove plans to sell advertising and share it with content producers, so do a lot of others. I think, like Chris, that it has to be targeted to work.
I see advertising on gardenfork.tv to be similar to the PBS format. A brief pre-roll ad followed by a longer post roll ad. Some integrated marketing can also happen. I’ve heard of sites that want to put ads smack in the middle of a show, and I don’t think -right now- that will work.
Viewers, IMO, will put up with some advertising, but not as much as there is with regular TV at the moment.
What attracts viewers to gardenfork.tv is its uniqueness and its lack of polish. No Emeril “bang” style flair. I make mistakes, and keep them in the edit.
Jim Long makes a comment on Chris Brogan’s post that the TV networks are trembling. I’ve seen some of that as well. ( Viacom is a client of my multimedia company, choplogic.net )
Funny, people who a couple of years ago wouldn’t give me the time of day, now want to do dinner
The same is true for me. For years I’ve pitched the cable networks lifestyle programming, and when I finally created my own show and put it on the internet, they start calling.
2 responses so far ↓
1 Chris Brogan... // Feb 23, 2007 at 2:51 am
I love the underwriting concept. Were I to have an Internet TV show worth a damn, and someone wanted to advertise with me, I’d do three things: preroll snippet, postroll longer, and in-shot product placement or message, if appropriate. Why? Because if I were making a show worth a damn, versus my beloved Small Boxes, I’d be doing it commercially.
But would you say Gardenfork has a value outside of moneymaking for you? Do people see it and think about how you can help them better develop THEIR stuff? Do you get consulting opportunities through it?
2 eric // Feb 23, 2007 at 4:25 pm
My goal is to create more niche programming like gardenfork.tv, and it has a value to me beyond monetary as its a blast to make each week. I do get queries from people about how they can create internet video, and I help them as much as I can.
In the corporate world, being the creator of an online program like gardenfork.tv has helped greatly. My production company, choplogic, is now working on a number of online media projects.
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