VCs Look to Online Video During TV Writers’ Strike
January 6, 2008 by Mike Abundo
Filed under Computers
We’re already seeing striking TV writers turn to online video. Now venture capitalist Alan Leinwand wonders if deprived TV audiences will turn to online video.
Venture capitalists are always looking for inflection points in a market – events that turn a market up or down dramatically. In our firm we have been having an “active discussion” as to whether or not the writers’ strike in Hollywood is the inflection point that will drive mainstream America off their couches and onto their computers for new video content.
Just to be clear, I am not referring to YouTube clips or previously aired network television shows online, but something that Mom and Dad would want to sit on the couch and watch for an hour.
TV viewers are used to the stifling conventions of TV content — 30-minute chunks, big casts, no community — but there’s something else they’re used to as well: TV’s ease of use. Video browsers like VeohTV and Miro are being developed to deliver that ease of use. If we’re going to leverage the WGA strike to seduce bored TV viewers towards online video, then we need to provide an experience already familiar to them from both content and utility perspectives.
What everyone involved in online video and yes VCs should know is contained in a demo video at http://vator.tv/pitch/download_file/downloadzip. It is critical to know where things are going and the writers strike is nothing compared to this, it’s a real eye opener.