9 Dec 2009

Attention content publishers - why the bottleneck? - PART 2

Some weeks ago I asked the question why content publishers are afraid to charge for content and why aren’t they investing more time and money in exploring ways of making it easier for people to spend money online – particularly making it easy to buy content?

Enter this post by Sean Silverthorne, editor of Harvard Business School Working Knowledge, where Sean indicates that the Era of Free Content is Coming to a Close – let me share snippets of his analysis with you:

Comcast have now decided, after much experimenting with sites such as Hulu and content subscription models that you, my friends, will pay for most of the content they create. It won’t be fee or free. It will be fee, with some free.

The New York Times is considering tiered pricing for “gold” and “silver” packages, which would supplement basic news coverage with behind-the-scenes interviews, product discounts and even previews of upcoming news stories.  Expect other national and perhaps even regional papers to follow suit if the Times finds success.

Hulu CEO Jason Kilar hinted to the NYT recently that his site, which streams television programming with some ads for free to viewers, is likely to experiment with a subscription channel. “We never aspired to be Hulu.org,” Kilar told the New York Times, referring to the popular domain used by nonprofits. Note that as part of its deal for NBC, Comcast will also acquire a third of Hulu, partnering with Fox and ABC.

Comcast, Viacom and other operators are at work developing “authentication systems” that will allow their subscribers, after being verified, to access streams of their popular shows. This is essentially a move to pressure TV networks and Internet channels from putting cable-developed content over the air or on the Internet for free.

Sean refers to results from a recent survey:

According to a nine-country survey of 5,000 people by the Boston Consulting Group, U.S. consumers would pay $3 per month while Italians would pony up $7.

I ask you once more content publishers – why the bottleneck?

Love your work Sean!