Fox Interactive announced this morning that the first and second episodes of Warner Bros. Television’s THE O.C. this season will be available on MySpace and Fox affiliate sites as much as a week before they show on TV. A week after TV broadcast the shows will be taken back offline. Just like the last batch of shows that Fox said would be available on MySpace earlier this month, a downloadable player will be required to view the files; users will not be able to skip ads.
The last batch of shows made available on MySpace included titles like “Bones,” “Prison Break,” and “Standoff.” Readers here were highly critical of the caliber of shows being made available in that offering and today’s announcement may be more of the same. The O.C. is a show widely seen as going down hill fast. In June TV Squad wrote that Fox declined to purchase a full season of episodes and put those it did buy up against killer shows CSI and Grey’s Anatomy.
Making shows available online first is a good move to build web viewership, but is Fox still not getting it or are they not taking it seriously? Perhaps they take what so many people say about MySpace being lowest common denominator consumers seriously. Why put weak shows in a media experiment? Aren’t such experiments destined to fail? Why take the shows offline a week after they play on TV? Some long tail ad revenues would make sense. I’m sure they intend to take the shows offline so they can be resyndicated later to other TV stations or so reruns on TV can still command a high ad price. In some ways then, this is just a little toe being put in the water and the TV strategy remains the same it’s always been. We’ll know the web is being taken seriously as a platform when shows in high demand are put online and kept online.
Some Clarification Here: You have to FOX some credit. At least they are “Trying” to embrace online delivery in community spaces. Big media companies seldom “Get it” from an online deliver perspective. I would say that it is a move in the right direction, albiet a baby step.
“Aren’t such experiments destined to fail?” No exactly. We do not know what the business criteria for measuring success is. Actually the point of experiments is to determine what works and what does not. So while the outcome may be a failure, the experiment might be a success in eliminating what does not work well. We can only hope that they continue moving forward and fully embracing online delivery from as many distribution points as possible.
Other than that I agree with all your other points. Cheers.
Rodney Rumford
I imagine this won’t make traditional TV advertisers happy. And that might answer your question about why their best shows aren’t being put online this way: they don’t want to cannabalize TV ad revenue.
I have to agree with Rodney and Josh, first because as Rodney wrote FOX is trying to embrace the online community and if you are going to do why not do it with the most popular and largest community online (Myspace), then on what Josh wrote you can only imagine what the traditional TV advertisers are thinking about that method.
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MySpace is baaaaad. The teeny-bops will be bored with it once they become 20 somethings.
I’ve kind of felt, based on what I’ve encountered with some of the MySpace execs over the course of the past few months, that a lot of them are kind of still staring lovingly in their mirror at their “success” and size versus really taking a look at what’s going on and understanding the fragile place everybody’s in when it comes to Internet business. It’s nothing to be a giant when you’re in this industry, and they’ve got real competitors breathing down their necks who maybe aren’t trying to establish communities but grab eyeballs by other means because at the end of the day, that’s what sizzles.
I hear everyday how people are bored with it, but I suspect for those who go, new join. I have always believed social networking was just a stop along the way and that bigger, more disruptive things were in the future. I’m not sure they see it.
I think the media companies have begun to see the light. NBC, ABC, CBS, FOX, all have placed a good number of shows online. AOL has offered In2TV with the classics. The web should be a decent alternative medium and has definetly increased my viewership dramatically. I also find the ads much more entertaining because of their length and topics. Companies would do well to move quickly into this arena.
^ agreed
So..people say that Fox sucks, and then they claim that they are only releasing bad shows? Prison Break is one of Fox’ top shows. I am not tlaking about my personal preferences, I am talking about ratings. The act that that is one of the shows COMPLETELY makes this silly blog inaccurate.
I’m sure since this is a “tech” blog, it means that it is full of nerds who will complain until the horrible Family Guy is included. WEll, Prison Break is a MUCH bigger hit than a show that should be part of VH-1’s “Look at us, we randomly talk about 80s culture with no plot!” like Family Guy.
If they put Family Guy on, THEN the article about it only putting bad shows online would be true.
It makes perfect sense to start the experiment with “tanking” shows. It means that there is little risk to the studios. If it fails horrible, it won’t really matter, and if the experiment brings a surprise ratings reversal, then it shows that the new model works.
wow JK are you on prison break or something??
(just kidding)
I think it’s a great show also but I’ve heard their way of broadcasting it (something along the lines of split season or something) killed a lot of viewer interest or something. I still watch it when i remember it’s on.
No less, it’s not a new move to put tv shows on your platform. I think MySpace is responding well enough to what everybody else has been doing for a while now.
Isn’t Prison Break one of their best-rated shows? Why would readers be critical of their choice to put that online?
I tried to watch prison break from MySpace, but I’m stuck in burger ads loop and can’t watch prison break episodes. some kind of bug..
i have been trying to see the new episode of the oc online with my space in this website http://creative...D/oc/index.html but it doesn’t wanna play do i need to download a special software or something to that it can play ??
Why does Fox suck? Because they can’t put together 1 FULL season of this program. They keep skipping weeks, again (this week Mar12, 07), no new episode. Maybe they are short writers. Doesn’t matter, I’ve missed a few episodes because of their incompetent ability to be able to make an episode a week. Unlike other shows who can produce one per week without confusing their fans! Fox sucks.
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Fox declined to purchase a full season of episodes and put those it did buy up against killer shows CSI and Grey’s Anatomy.