While it’s tempting to see the Huffington Post’s Pulitzer as a “big win for new media,” or something like that, the real story is that these organizations — the Huffington Post, the New York Times, the Washington Post — are becoming more like each other. Old media and new media are increasingly antiquated terms.

– Journalism professor Jay Rosen to HuffPo media writer Michael Calderone (via GigaOM)

Our response to date as an industry has been as equally inefficient and in many cases emotional. “You’re gonna miss us when we’re gone” is not much of a business model.

– From MediaNews Group and Journal Register Company CEO John Paton’s speaking notes for an address to the Canadian Journalism Foundation

That’s an unprecedented move in the ongoing fight between cable providers, broadcasters and networks over programming fees. And the news was a big deal for the digerati and people contemplating the future of video.

But it doesn’t seem to have registered in the broader world, and you have to work hard to find any mention of the story in old-media news outlets. And even Cablevision, which uses any ammo it can in the PR fight against Fox and News Corp. (which also owns this site), hasn’t said much about it.

Here, for instance, is Cablevision’s newest message to its customers. If you fast forward to the 1:35 mark, you’ll find a two-sentence description of the Web blackout. But hard to believe many Cablevision customers will be sticking around to hear this one:

At the very least, blacking out part of the Web sounds scary. So why is Cablevision so (relatively) quiet on this?

Two theories, which are not mutually exclusive:

• It’s not worth complaining about because this stuff doesn’t really resonate with consumers–at least, not in the way that losing access to NFL games and play-off baseball does. No one spent Saturday evening or Sunday afternoon in a bar because they couldn’t watch “Glee” on Hulu.
• It’s not worth complaining about because Cablevision and News Corp. are actually on the same ideological page when it comes to this stuff. Neither side is really that happy about free TV shows on the Web. The only real difference the two sides have is about money: News Corp. wants to get more of it for its programming, while Cablevision wants to pay less.

On a related note: I still don’t understand why News Corp./Fox backed off so quickly on Saturday, once news of the blackout got out.

There’s no official reason, but there were mutterings about the technical difficulty of cutting off access to Cablevision TV subscribers while leaving Cablevision’s Internet-only subs alone. But hard to believe that News Corp. didn’t think that one through in advance. Same goes for any “optics”-related reason–the whole point of a move like this was to generate publicity, right?

Alas, it’s not profitable. Spiegelman says he spends considerably less than $1,000 for each one-minute episode, and the 50 episodes he’s made so far have generated some four million views since February. But advertising for the series, sold via Web video distributor blip.tv, doesn’t cover his costs.

Spiegelman is pretty sanguine about this, but I find it a bit frustrating. We’re several years into the Web video era–almost three years after Google (GOOG) bought YouTube–and this is the kind of stuff that should work by now. It’s original, ad-friendly, and made on a shoestring budget. If that can’t work, what will?

In any case, Spiegelman can afford to wait a bit for things to right themselves. His company, Jetpack Media, is a unit of indie movie studio Greenstreet Films, so he has a bit of a cushion while he figures out how to crack the code.

And in the meantime, he’s hedging his bets by using his Web series as a way to get back into old media, where you can actually get paid for stuff you make, in advance.

Spiegelman has repackaged the first season of his clips into DVD form, which will be sold by First Run Features (you can pre-order the first disc for $19.95).

Next up: A book deal with Bertelsmann’s Random House, via its Villard imprint, with photos from Gawker contributor Nikola Tamindzic (anyone who follows the blog-to-book minimarket will not be surprised to learn that ICM agent Kate Lee brokered the deal).

And Spiegelman can imagine other ancillary products down the line. Perhaps an audio show based on jokes that people submit via a hotline. Use your imagination. Which I guess is what you have to do if you want to make a living making Web video in 2009.

Oh, the videos themselves? They’re a lot of fun. You may have heard of a few of the joke-tellers–former New York City Mayor Ed Koch is a contributor/performer, as is real estate mogul Harry Macklowe–but the rest are fairly anonymous types who have a way with a story and a punch line. Below, a quick interview I taped with Spiegelman last week, and below that, a few of the joke-tellers themselves (Warning! These feature a couple of judiciously chosen curses).

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20090917/how-to-make-money-with-web-video-books-and-dvds/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20090528/d7-video-huffpos-arianna-huffington-and-washington-post-exec-katharine-weymouth/ http://allthingsd.com/20090528/d7-video-huffpos-arianna-huffington-and-washington-post-exec-katharine-weymouth/#comments Thu, 28 May 2009 17:45:35 +0000 Beth Callaghan http://d7.allthingsd.com/?p=1737 Arianna Huffington and Katharine Weymouth–two of the most powerful women in contemporary media–meet onstage with D‘s Kara Swisher to discuss the future of media: old, new–and everything in between.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20090528/d7-video-huffpos-arianna-huffington-and-washington-post-exec-katharine-weymouth/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20080516/ddv20080516/ http://allthingsd.com/20080516/ddv20080516/#comments Fri, 16 May 2008 18:00:42 +0000 John Paczkowski http://digitaldaily.allthingsd.com/20080516/ddv20080516/

[ See post to watch video ]

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20080516/ddv20080516/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20080516/advertising/ http://allthingsd.com/20080516/advertising/#comments Fri, 16 May 2008 16:46:52 +0000 John Paczkowski http://digitaldaily.allthingsd.com/20080516/advertising/ If the old media advertising economy is in the toilet, then its new media counterpart is sitting atop it.

According to figures compiled by the Interactive Advertising Bureau, spending on Internet advertising in 2007 rose to $21.2 billion, up 26% from the prior year. That’s a record high and one that exceeds the $20.9 billion spent on print, radio, outdoor and cable TV.

Unsurprisingly, keyword search, Google’s (GOOG) cash-cow ranch, generated the most revenue and claimed the largest market share–41%. Display advertising followed with 34%, classifieds at 16%.

(Image Credit: Tyler Jordan, eVisibility Insider)

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