Cross-Platform Distribution
In my previous post, I said, "How prevalent streaming becomes in relation to other methods (DVD, VOD, broadcast, downloads) will ultimately depend on the collective movement of five interdependent forces: content creators (including writers), technological change, cable companies, advertisers and audiences." While I looked at the first of those forces--content creators--in that post earlier today, I wanted to elaborate on each of the other four aspects I mentioned as well.
Technological change
Let's face it, most people still watch television on their TV, and moving content from your computer to the television screen isn't exactly simple at the moment. There are definitely options, but they aren't obvious, simple, or convenient for most people (myself included). They also require high-speed internet connections, relatively new televisions, relatively new computers, and the know-how to set them up.
Continue reading "Pulling Out the Crystal Ball: Is Streaming the Way of the Future? (2 of 2)" »
There are a lot of lingering questions following the writer's strike. Will TV audiences return? How will networks recoup the lost revenue of the last three months? Will TV meet the same fate as newspapers and see advertisers move to greener new media pastures? Could NBC's reaction be the beginning of the end for the fall premiere season and the up fronts?
These are all interesting questions, but one sentence in this Washington Post article caught my attention Sunday afternoon, referring to the contentious and complicated issue of writers' payment for streaming content online: "[t]he guild, in turn, held fast, arguing that writers had to share in the profits of what may become the preeminent way to view filmed entertainment."
I think this leads to the most interesting question of all. Will streaming episodes online become the primary way that people view television content? And, perhaps equally as important, will that be a viable way for networks and producers to monetize content? I would argue that the shift is is not, as some suggest, a foregone conclusion.
Continue reading "Pulling Out the Crystal Ball: Is Streaming the Way of the Future? (1 of 2)" »
Last week, I brought up the phenomenon surrounding Soulja Boy and the "Crank Dat" dance craze that propelled him to success and touched upon a few of the things that drew my attention to this particular case. This week I thought I'd dig in a little further, and try to tease out some of the things that Soulja Boy really embodies for me (as a concept more than as a musician or performer) through a closer examination of his official music video, which touches upon a lot of these themes of production, participation, and distribution in the age of convergence.
Continue reading ""Meet me at my crib . . .": Reading the official "Crank That" video" »
Last week, the mainstream music industry was (yet again) turned upside-down. British rock band Radiohead announced that it had finished its latest album IN RAINBOWS. Their website says:
RADIOHEAD HAVE MADE A RECORD
SO FAR, IT'S ONLY AVAILABLE FROM THIS WEBSITE
YOU CAN PRE-ORDER IN THESE FORMATS:
DISCBOX OR DOWNLOAD
So why is this such big news? Well, the first clue is in the band's low-key notice: "so far, it's only available from this website." In Rainbows is Radiohead's first album since they concluded their contract with EMI, and, so far, they've decided to release it on their own.
Continue reading "The Radiohead Revolution?" »
Recently, I was reading a piece from MediaPost by Lydia Loizides, a friend of the Consortium's. Lydia was talking about video-on-demand and some of the problems inherent with the current deployment of VOD, particularly the myriad ways in which VOD advertising has been capitalized on so little.
She points out all the ways in which VOD needs to be revolutionized as a business and calls on the advertisers to be the one to make this happen, since they will drive the VOD business model as it matures. Lydia, who is VP of the new media division at Paradigm, writes, "I have been following VoD technology for close to ten years now, and I can honestly say that while the advances we have made in deployment should be applauded, the lack of technological enhancements that have been developed and adopted in order to grow this into a true revenue-generating business should be admonished."
Continue reading "VOD's Business Model: Need for Advertiser Leadership?" »
Digital distribution and network television branding may seem like strange bedfellows, but a recent announcement by NBC suggests to me that they might be a better match than expected.
Betting on Business Models - Will It Work?
Is the new NBC strategy a viable model? Parts of it definitely are, but there are some hurdles to jump first.
One that stands out to me is the pay to download model. More and more, media companies are shying away from paid online content, The New York Times recently joining their ranks. Granted, a TV show is more expensive to produce than a newspaper article, but that should not be the rationale for charging consumers a fee, much less setting the price. When the marginal cost of letting one more person see the show is basically zero and it's very easily available elsewhere (albeit often illegally) for free, next to a lot of other content audiences want to see that doesn't belong to NBC, and not tied to a cool device like the iPod, pricing content is a slippery slope.
Continue reading "The Odd Couple: Digital Distribution and Network Television Branding, Together at Last? (2 of 2)" »
Digital distribution and network television branding may seem like strange bedfellows, but a recent announcement by NBC suggests to me that they might be a better match than expected.
Eliminating the Middleman and Branding by Association
On Wednesday, the network announced a new service called NBC Direct, which would enable users to download free,copies of prime time content to their PCs. The files would "expire" in a week.
The service would be ad-supported, with an "unskippable" commercial running before each "chapter" of the program, although no sponsors or advertising partnerships have yet been named, according to MediaPost.
Continue reading "The Odd Couple: Digital Distribution and Network Television Branding, Together at Last? (1 of 2)" »
If the stories about Apple's recent talks with Hollywood studios around providing streaming video "rentals" are accurate, the industry seems to be taking another step toward models of temporary access over ownership of digital film. Does this signal an end (or abatement) of the digital distribution-related fears of the film industry? Will digital video-on-demand become a widespread reality, given the recent series of deals and acquisitions?
Beyond the much ballyhooed need to "do something" in digital distribution channels, particularly in streaming movies over the internet lately, it's already proven to be a profitable way to make money on films post-theatrical release. According to the Wall Street Journal, the DVD sale market is worth about $16B, but it is in decline. Meanwhile, margins on cable VOD are 60-70%, compared to 15-20% on video store rentals. If one assumes that going through iTunes carries a similar per unit cost, likewise without the unease about unauthorized copying, it seems like a very worthwhile route.
Continue reading "Streaming Cinema: Contemplating Hollywood and the New VOD" »
A few weeks ago, I got an e-mail from Pontus Bergdahi, the CEO of Swedish television measurement company MMS. Pontus, a regular reader of the C3 blog, wrote to say that his company had produced a study that might be of interest to our focus here at the Consortium. Unfortunately, the 100-pp. study is not available in English, but I got a chance to look through a summary of the findings, which revealed a few interesting trends.
For instance, the study emphasized above all else that viewers today are watching more television than ever, but it is complicated by the fact that there are a variety of new channels in which they are viewing. In a media environment which values views equally, without bias to which platform they are viewed on, the television industry is stronger than ever, then. As examples like the CBS/Jericho situation reveal, however, the system is not equipped to deal with views on video-on-demand, DVRs, online streaming, downloading or other sources equally, meaning that a viewer really does "count more" when watching on television at the regular time, than they do otherwise...Well, let me amend that: as long as they have a Nielsen box, that is.
Continue reading "Recent Study Focuses on Swedish Viewing Behaviors" »
Sure it's cool, but will the general population do it? That's the question that a recent survey asked about consumption of online video. And this particular study found that a wide variety of those who said they had downloaded online video didn't really plan to do it again in the future.
According to the Parks Associates study, only one out of every five Americans who have downloaded video plan to do it again, according to their sample. Their analysis points to the fact that there are a lot of technological barriers in place that impede viewers from getting an enjoyable experience from online video. The lag in download time, lower-quality video, smaller screen sizes for those who don't have the technology to easily transport the video to their television sets, selection of what's commercially available, and a variety of other issues are among the problems people have with online video.
There are a variety of issues to keep in mind. Internet connection is a major one. I don't have details on Parks Associates' study, but one would think that a study of places in which higher-speed Internet connectivity is less prevalent probably makes those who have tried downloading video particularly frustrated.
Continue reading "Survey Says Downloading Video an Unsatisfactory Experience" »
Why partner with FOX, a competing network with weaker web traffic, but consistently strong TV ratings, particularly for reality programs? It may be partly circumstantial; Viacom was originally in talks to join "new site", but pulled out and brought the $1 billion suit against YouTube.
As the Times article mentioned in the first part of this series cited , it may make the project more palatable for the giant conglomerates behind the media companies to be partnered with another conglomerate and an equity firm. But it also signals a willingness of traditional rivals to work together in digital distribution, perhaps a sign of consensus on how concerned the industry is for its long-term health.
To aggregate or not to aggregate? Producers know that content has a way of appearing on the web, whether or not they intend it to be there, as demonstrated by the recent discovery of new pilots circulating on the torrents, and that people want to access content online quickly and conveniently.
Continue reading "New Site: To Aggregate or Not to Aggregate? (4 of 4)" »
So, what could all of this mean in terms of strategy for NBC? I think the removal of Heroes from the site is a somewhat misguided attempt to get people to buy the DVDs or go to iTunes, when putting them online free of charge weeks before the fall lineup premiers might actually encourage people to join the series in season two and help the programs ratings and following in the longer term.
And people who really want to watch Heroes may now turn to the torrents. A recent study found that most Americans don't like downloading video, so the actions with Heroes may also be a bid to get people who would have watched online in the habit of paying for content directly.
Continue reading "New Site: To Aggregate or Not to Aggregate? (3 of 4)" »
"New site" may not be a YouTube killer. However, there are two problems facing the networks, in my opinion, that are bigger than YouTube, two-fold, and relate back to an essay I wrote earlier this year about network television branding.
The first problem is that the way that consumer habits and technology have evolved have pushed content advertising to a variety of sources, on-and-off-line.
NBC, which I will focus on because it has a strong network-branded online presence, cross-promotes and airs programs on its cable networks (USA, Bravo, Sci Fi), and has agreements with iTunes, YouTube, MSN and AOL and sells programs on DVD, which are also circulated through Netflix. (See this story from Jon Lafayette in TelevisionWeek last September.)
Continue reading "New Site: To Aggregate or Not to Aggregate? (2 of 4)" »
"New Site" is not new. The joint, billion-dollar, working-titled venture between NBC Universal and News Corp. was announced almost six months ago. Late last week, however, The New York Times reported that Providence Equity Partners, a "media investment firm," bought a 10% stake in "new site" for $100 million.
In the next four posts, I will first do a quick analysis of NBC's current distribution strategy, then look at each of the two problems facing the networks, and finally examine why NBC has partnered with FOX to ultimately address the question: "To Aggregate or not to aggregate?"
So, why is NBC, which already has a popular network website partnering with FOX, which doesn't, to spend $1 billion (now effectively $900m) on "new site," and why is Providence contributing $100 million dollars to the effort?
Continue reading "New Site: To Aggregate or Not to Aggregate? (1 of 4)" »
Tomorrow, Eleanor Baird will be providing an in-depth look at NBC's current repositioning of its online content, through its launch of the New Site venture in particular. I wanted to preface that earlier today by pointing toward what we've written about previously regarding New Site, as well as pointing out another new venture launched by NBC that has been getting some press lately.
That new venture is an online channel made up entirely of advertising, where the ads are not just something to support the content, but content themselves. Our partners over at Turner Broadcasting were trendsetters in this regard, with their channel focuses particularly on humorous commercials called Very Funny Ads.
Continue reading "NBC's Didja To Launch Alongside the New Site" »
Yesterday Veronis Suhler Stevenson and PQ Media released a report that predicts that internet or "alternative" ad spending will become the "leading ad medium", surpassing newspapers by 2011. There were a number of interesting findings and projections in this report, such as huge expected growth in blog, podcast and RSS advertising; growth in advertising on so-called "pure-play" sites; record communications spending in 2006 and beyond; and a slight decline in time spent with media and the consumption patterns of audiences.
However, because I am primarily interested in television networks, one finding in particular peaked my interest. The report was that audiences are "migrating away" from ad-supported media, spent less 6.8% less time with this type of product (ie. networks, newspapers) in 2006 than they did in 2001, and more 19.8% more time with products they support directly (video games, and (I presume) subscription based Internet service), while overall media usage declined in the period by about half a percent in that period.
Continue reading "The Battle of the Business Models - Subscription versus Ad-Supported" »
Seems like CBS has been sending a lot of mixed messages lately. Or else just demonstrating the confused nature across the television landscape. CBS is just a particularly good example, given all the fervor surrounding the cancellation, then renewal of Jericho. (See Nancy Baym's following of the Jericho phenomenon; I link to her here and here.
I've been e-mailing with Lynn Liccardo lately, who pointed out an interesting distinction in the CBS timeline. It was back on June 07 when CBS Entertainment President Nina Tassler told The New York Times, "We want them to watch on Wednesday at 8 o'clock, and we need them to recruit viewers who are going to watch the broadcast."
Continue reading "CBS' Schizophrenic Response to the Jericho Situation" »
VIdeo sharing site Metacafe has made the news in the past week by striking a deal with Skype to provide its videos to Skype users, integrated in the newest Skype launch. Among the features are options to allow users to include a video in a chat or as part of their profile. There is also a deal in place for Dailymotion.
What does this mean? It's the latest in a continuing number of cross-platform distribution deals, as more and more it is online channels finding an increasing number of avenues to promote their content. Metacafe, in its effort to be more than just a one-stop destination for Web videos, is trying to extend the Metacafe reach outward, and that includes syndicating into programs like Skype that are becoming more and more mainstream for broadband Internet users.
Continue reading "Skype/Metacafe Deal Expands Video Sharing Site's Reach" »
According to a recent study from Nielsen, the number of folks watching online video continues to rise, while a third of those respondents said that watching Web video actually increases the amount of traditional television they watch. Only 13 percent of those surveyed said that watching video online has decreased their watching television.
The study found that 81 million broadband customers reported watching online video, up 16 percent from September 2006 to March 2007. The 16 percent hike has been getting some attention.
See more here.
What might cause a rise in those viewing online video to not necessarily trim viewership away from traditional television? One question is what they're watching online. People engage in user-generated, short-form content, or even clipped and quoted content from professionally produced material, in different ways and for much different reasons than they watch TV.
Continue reading "Nielsen Finds Web Video Viewing Up, Not Interfering with TV Viewing" »
Back in March, I wrote about the launch of plans for NBC Universal's mobile plan on Verizon and MobiTV. The deal included television shows from not just NBC but also from USA, Sci Fi, Bravo, Telemundo, and mun2, in addition to CNBC.
Now the network has signed yet another mobile deal to extent the reach of its content into new realms, this time with mobile service provider Alltel. NBC will provide 11 VOD channels, in addition to Web sites, ringtones, wallpapers, and more, featuring content from NBC, Sci Fi, Bravo and the USA Network.
What I like most about NBCU's approach here is that, even as the company has to strike deals individually with various service providers, the plan seems to be to stretch their content offerings across a variety of services, rather than rely on some exclusive partnership with just Verizon or Alltel.
Excerpts from the press release and a link to the full release are available on the Inside Cable News blog.
Continue reading "NBCU Strikes Deal with Alltel, as the Company Tries to Expand Mobile Reach" »
I wanted to mention a few news stories that passed my eye over the past few days that I thought would be of particular interest to C3 researchers and readers, especially taking into account links between online initiatives and traditional television and print properties.
The news includes a new deal between TV Guide and Maven Networks for powering broadband video content for TV Guide's Web site, a cosmetic change for the brand of Court TV to the new truTV, Joost's deal with VH1 to show a sneak peek of the premiere of I Hate My 30s online first, and Bravo's deal struck to do its advertising deals minute-by-minute with Starcom USA.
TV Guide and Maven Networks. TV Guide's choice to hire the technology provider to power its broadband video on its Web site indicates an increased effort to make TV Guide a brand based on more than the print product it is most closely identified with, especially as paper guides have become all but obsolete. Find more at The Boston Business Journal.
Continue reading "New Industry Deals Demonstrate Shifting Media Landscape" »
Earlier this week, I saw that the process for launching the Fox/NBC-Universal online video site continues to move forward, as NBC starts to wind down its own exclusive video service that it offered to syndicate sites (National Broadband Co., or NBBC), in preparation for folding those operations into the project, which is apparently being called simply "New Site" for now.
Back last September, I first wrote about NBC's plans to stream entire episodes of shows for free on its own site, bolstered by advertising. I wrote, "The plan is for new fall prime-time shows to be made available through the NBC Universal Video Player, a revamped product that will make its relaunch on Oct. 1."
The decision to scale back the NBCU-specific video offering and start switching over to the new venture is the latest move toward the collaborative video platform effort. I last wrote about this in May, when NBCU and News Corp. were working toward a summer launch by securing advertisers and discussing names. For now, the "new site" moniker stands.
Continue reading "NBCU Folding Its Online Syndication Network into New Site with News Corp." »
Are Internet and indy creators just TV wannabes? This is a question that I've seen posed in many ways time and time again, from indy rock groups who claimed to want to buck the system who were then offered big money from record labels and faced the big dilemma of staying true to their anti-authoritarian nature or joining the network and reaching a much bigger audience.
Then there was the story of Extreme Championship Wrestling, the renegade wrestling group who became really popular among Internet fans and Internet tape traders through word-of-mouth and a syndicated television deal for their local Philadelphia-produced show, only to then face the question of how to go big without changing the nature of their gritty product.
Of course, that's not to say that there aren't many ways in which autonomous auteurs can't reach wider distribution without having to relinquish creative control over their product, as there are myriad examples of independent content that have parlayed to a wider audience while retaining their hardcore basis, but I can't think of any situation in which the conflict isn't there.
Continue reading "Autonomy and Authorship Versus Mainstream Distribution: Homestar Runner" »
Last week, we featured an interview from Bruce Leichtman, looking at the past, present, and future of video in the realm of digital video recorders and Internet video, among other trends that Leichtman tracks. (Look here, here, here, and here.)
I was interested in the latest news coming from Veoh this past week, as it has launched the equivalent of an Internet DVR (as Daisy Whitney with TelevisionWeek called it) or "a sort of distributed Joost" (as TechCrunch's Michael Arrington referred to it as).
Continue reading "VeohTV Creating a Centralized Program to Watch Internet Video Through" »
Apple created a content partnership that surprised a significant number of people this week, in relation to its Apple TV product. The company will be linking with Google to start providing YouTube content through the computer-to-television linkage device starting later this month, according to an announcement from earlier this week.
Previously, the device would only allow content from Apple's own iTunes to be transferred from a computer to a television set. Apple will be providing a software upgrade that will make such a switchover possible later in June.
The partnership, of course, could be a significant boon to the Apple device, as opening the product up to the massive YouTube user base could be an attractive proposition. This is really about allowing viewers to control the cross-platform distribution proposition rather than service and content providers, by giving viewers a new way to experience on-demand content on their television screens, rather than going through the official offerings of cable and satellite providers.
Continue reading "Apple and Google Working Together with YouTube, Apple TV" »
For the final post in wrapping up a look at the body of work the C3 team has aided me with in putting up here on the site, I wanted to point the way toward a few concepts that have been articulated publicly here on the Convergence Culture Consortium site through the blog in the past year to direct people to the posts explaining them in further detail, as well as terms or concepts from Henry Jenkins' work, and those of us at the Program in Comparative Media Studies at MIT, that have made their way into our posts from time-to-time.
1.) Immersive Story Worlds. This is a concept that I developed in conjunction with my thesis work on looking at the current state and the future of the soap opera industry. The idea was to outline a category that explains narratives which are serial by nature, which have multiple creators, a sense of long-term continuity, a character backlog, contemporary ties to a deep history, and a sense of permanence. I included portions of my thesis outlining this concept--and how it relates to the Marvel and DC Comic Universes, the world of pro wrestling, and daytime serial dramas--here and here.
2.) Transmedia Storytelling. Transmedia storytelling is meant to indicate texts in which the story develops through multiple media platforms and in which new content in another platform is not simply a redistribution of the same content that has already appeared elsewhere. We have a whole category of posts about the topic here.
3.) Cross-Platform Distribution. As opposed to transmedia storytelling, cross-platform distribution is simply the reappearance of content from one platform in another, such as making broadcast television shows available in VOD, cable shows available on YouTube, etc. We also have a whole category of posts on this topic available here.
Continue reading "Concepts from the C3 Weblog" »
Earlier today, I wrote about VOD and online video platforms and their struggle with each other to establish themselves as places for alternatives to linear channels for television content. Joost has involved itself in a variety of interesting projects, including Lime's shift from a linear television channel to one distributed through VOD and Joost (through Yahoo! Health).
In an increasingly crowded marketplace of potential competitors, Joost has taken an interesting approach: getting an agent.
Continue reading "Joost Inks a Deal with the CAA" »
The approaches to non-linear television content has been a major point of discussion over the past year, both in my own writing and in following the coverage in the industry press, particularly in TelevisionWeek. In particular, there has been an interesting juxtaposition between using more traditional platforms, particularly cable television and satellite, versus using digital methods of distribution, such as working with new video distributors or a network's own Web site.
These questions were raised again this week with Daisy Whitney's story about Concert.TV, the VOD channel which is launching a broadband component to its online services, featuring similar programming to their VOD channel.
One thing is clear: there are a variety of methods that are cheaper and more sustainable for upstart businesses than launching a traditional linear cable channel. The question remains, though, how to make that presence felt. This bifurcated model, of course, solves a lot of those questions, but most companies do not have the resources to launch both simultaneously. Concert.TV launched as a VOD channel and then made plans to expand into broadband.
Continue reading "VOD vs. Online Video: Alternative Methods for Television Content" »
YouTube has launched two interesting recent initiatives, one encouraging its continuing process to be seen by media producers as a platform for the cross-distribution of extant media footage, and the other encouraging viewers to submit user-generated content for a contest. The two fronts demonstrate the continuing ways in which the Google-owned video platform is trying to deal with its positioning as both a forum for sharing video and a legitimate business model worthy of the hefty investment the company has made in it.
With National Geographic, YouTube has formed a partnership for short videos that the company has created for its Web site and now will allow for sharing among YouTube users as well. The content is available here.
Continue reading "YouTube Expands Role in Providing Branded Channels, Encouraging User-Generated Episodic Content" »
Several of the researchers in C3 have just finished or are in the process of finishing their Master's thesis projects, which means many of us now have the prospect of graduation staring us in the face. Here at C3, we have had the great opportunity to not only work academically as researchers while graduate students but also to interact with the media industry and work with folks at our corporate partners on a variety of initiatives, meaning that a majority of the people coming out of C3 are interested in maintaining a relationship to both academia and the media industry moving forward.
But, as job hunts loom on the horizons and as colleagues start to land jobs elsewhere, we all have to consider what it means, in both the industry and academia, to come away with expertise in issues such as understanding fan communities, transmedia storytelling, new advertising models, and the variety of other focuses that C3 research has taken.
Continue reading "Media Industry Jobs in a Convergence Culture" »
Another interesting post I recently encountered that I thought might be of interest to the C3 readership came through C3 Affiliated Faculty Jason Mittell's blog, focusing on storytelling technologies and the relationship to television in particular.
His post is based on a post from Bordwell and Kristin Thompson's blog. Mittell focuses particularly on a comment Bordwell makes--"We can't easily draw conclusions about how films are constructed on the basis of how they're presented and consumed. Changes in viewing practices don't automatically entail changes in storytelling."
But Mittell points out that, while these presentation and consumption patterns may not lead automatically to different storytelling practices in film (although Bordwell points out that the ability to rewatch film does make it easier to draw on prior films and a deeper knowledge now that the texts can be so easily archived by fans), television is another story.
Continue reading "Reframing the Text: Television and New Ways of Viewing" »
A couple of interesting business deals were signed with MySpace this week, furthering the development of official deals with content providers and brands and the social networking site.
On Wednesday, news was released that MySpace had signed deals with a wide variety of news outlets and lifestyle brands for content channels through the News Corporation site in the coming months.
These include MySpace Video channels for the likes of The New York Times, National Geographic, IGN Entertainment, and a variety of others. The full list is available in this article from Daisy Whitney at TelevisionWeek.
Continue reading "MySpace Strikes Various New Deals for Branded Content" »
Earlier this week, news was released about a partnership between Sprint and Disney-ABC for an extensive spread of mobile content for that service provider. In short, Sprint will offer what is being described as three "linear" channels through their mobile service which will feature content from the Disney Channel, ABC, and ABC News. This content will also be available through VOD as well.
The ABC channel will be called ABC Mobile, a newly created mobile brand which will feature content from both ABC News and entertainment, including both short clips from the news and full episodes of some of the top ABC shows.
The Disney channel will feature full-length episodes from some of the top Disney content as well.
The VOD option will allow consumers to see shows the day after they appear on television and all the way back to the four most recent episodes in a particular series. According to Beth Duggan of TelevisionWeek, "The Disney-ABC Television Group content can be accessed throug hteh Sprint Power Vision TV Pack, and Disney Channel content will be available as part of the Power Vision Access Pack. Customers will pay an addition fee per month for both services."
Continue reading "ABC/Sprint Deal Pushing for Mobile Content in Linear Channel/VOD" »
Last week, I wrote about the political lobbying group MoveOn and their VideoVets project protesting the Iraq war. I recently came across another war-related transmedia initiative as well that I hadn't mentioned, through the History Channel.
The initiative is called Band of Bloggers, through the History Channel. The network will feature a variety of user-generated content from soldiers in Iraq, and the content will be distributed through The History Channel's Web site. The plan is to feature both text and video content from these soldiers and package it on the Web, with a television special expected to launch later in the year to help drive interest in the launch of the online project.
Jon Lafayette with TelevisionWeek comments that the channel "is using new media to tell the story of a new war," as opposed to the black and white documentaries the channel would run for historical military conflicts.
Continue reading "History Channel's Band of Bloggers" »
|
