You can bet every network in town will be carefully watching Gossip Girl’s ratings when the show resumes on Monday.
That’s because fifth-ranked CW is doing the unthinkable: pulling the web-spawned show’s free Internet stream for this season’s remaining shows in an attempt to boost the number of viewers.
Behind CW’s move is simple math. The U.S. networks reeled in $42.3 billion in TV ad revenue last year. By contrast, total Internet ad revenue – that means networks, newspapers, dedicated websites and everybody else – was about $21 billion in 2007. Up 25%, yes, but still apparently not enough to counter-balance the cannibalization of TV shows on the web.
Translation: if CW adds a million viewers for Gossip Girl on TV, it will make a lot more money than if it adds a million viewers on the Internet.
The move by CW, a joint venture of Warner Bros. and CBS Corp., comes as the other networks fall over each other to make their fare available for free online. Hulu.com – NBC Universal and Fox’s joint venture that opened to the public last month — brags of offering full-length episodes from more than 50 broadcast networks and more than 250 TV series, from The Simpsons to Miami Vice. Most major TV networks stream at least some prime-time content for free on the Internet.
Whether CW’s move is more than a finger in the dike — or even works at all — is anybody’s guess. But everyone in Hollywood undoubtedly is applauding CW’s noble experiment in reverse logic, and thanking their lucky stars they’re not the ones taking the bullet.
See Also
Posted under Uncategorized
