TV goes overboard with Internet
FROM VARIETY:Despite high ratings, Web ads not paying off
By Ben Fritz of Variety -- Video Business, 3/18/2009
MARCH 18 | FROM VARIETY: It's become a Sunday ritual for NBC to blanket blogs, Websites and its own Hulu with clips of skits from the previous eve's Saturday Night Live. Later in the day, the same holds true for CBS, where segments of 60 Minutes pop up on its Website. And before long ABC.com has episodes of Desperate Housewives and Hulu boasts Fox's Family Guy.No one can accuse the networks of ignoring the Internet revolution. But now there are worries that perhaps they have done too much.
Viewers, particularly tech-savvy younger viewers, are flocking to the 24/7 access offered by Web streaming, but, like newspapers and magazines struggling to survive, the broadcast networks have yet to make much money from this change in habits. In fact, networks may actually be undercutting themselves in their quest to avoid the fate of the music business.
Read the full story on Variety.com.
