Covering The TV Industry…Away From The TV
Toei Animation is set to launch two of its anime series, “Digimon Adventure 02″ and “Pretty Cure,” online this month. Both series will be available for download on IGN’s Direct2Drive web site. Toei’s first titles bowed on the service last month, with other titles slated to roll out later this year.
On August 11th, Sesame Workshop is launching a new site for kids. Developed over two years at a cost of $14 million, the site is making its debut the same day as Season 39 of “Sesame Street,” seen weekdays on PBS.
While there are no plans to discontinue the television show, Sesame Workshop officials have high hopes for the broadband site. “We view this as really the future of the workshop, as becoming the primary channel of distribution down the line,†Gary E. Knell, president and chief executive of Sesame Workshop, said in a telephone interview.
Mr. Knell has set ambitious goals for the new site, asking the staff to double the use of the current site — about 1.5 million unique users each month — in just a year or two, he said. The television show, by comparison, draws six million to seven million weekly viewers, on average, he said.
NBC.com is expected to generate “tens of millions” of dollars in revenue next year, according to NBC Universal exec John Eck, speaking at a PricewaterhouseCoopers media conference in New York. The Web site is “a business that didn’t exist a few years ago.”
I’m generally pretty critical of network web site blogs, and for a couple of good reasons. First, it’s not that difficult to do a blog well. Especially given the resources of a network and access to the talent. It’s not tough to blog frequently and provide tidbits to readers that they couldn’t find on a “fan” blog.
My second problem with network blogs gets back to the posting frequently comment. If you’re posting once a week, then you’re not a blog, you’re a column.
Which brings me to NBC.com’s Nashville Star blog, written by country music insider/comedian Wix Wichmann.
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