Fox Television Cuts Affiliates In On Any Internet Revenue

from the smart-of-legacy-issues? dept

Thu, Apr 13th 2006 1:24am — Mike Masnick

With all the attention being paid to Disney these days for its efforts online, one aspect that is worth watching is how Disney/ABC affiliates and partners deal with the changes. As we noted in the past, the ABC affiliates were not happy when ABC first started selling TV shows on iTunes. This week, with the decision to offer shows for free online, again Disney boss Robert Iger made it clear that their affiliates came second to getting Disney in shape for the online world. It appears that Fox Television is trying a slightly different route -- working out a deal that promises to share a portion of any online revenue with those affiliates. While it's likely that Disney (and others) may eventually follow similar paths, it would be interesting to see what would happen if they took the hard line instead. It's not clear why the affiliates deserve a piece of the online action, but without it, it could cause trouble down the road for the relationships between the networks and the affiliates. If Iger is confident that Disney doesn't need the affiliates in this brave new world he's entering, then this is one way to signal to them where things are headed -- but that's betting that any shift happens extremely fast. On the other side of the coin, though, Fox Television ends up having to pay lots of affiliates, which could seriously dent profits from any online ventures. Either way, the different strategies at least highlight some of the legacy issues that have made it more difficult for the television networks to completely embrace the online world so far.

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6 Comments

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ramdom person, 13 Apr 2006 @ 5:41am

great!
now my day will be bogged down by republicans waving ipods!!
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Michael Silbergleid, 13 Apr 2006 @ 6:36am

You're somewhat wrong
This from Disney/ABC's press release regarding the free online streaming: "ABC is also exploring ways to work with its local broadcast affiliates on these online offerings as they continue to evolve. "
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giafly, 13 Apr 2006 @ 9:07am

Steaming Media
This can't affect many people. If you're a cool dude with an iPod, you're surely not going to watch Fox except at home with the curtains drawn?

In other news, heap of shit pays flies to land on it.
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Bob, 13 Apr 2006 @ 9:20am

Re: Steaming Media
...flies, in turn, complain about the smell and file class action suit.
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anonymous coward, 13 Apr 2006 @ 11:25am

the networks should set-up "affiliates" as just that, affiliates. Any revenue should be based on the traffic that the affiliate sends to the network site. Also, cut the TV bloggers in on the action too. I should get a commission if my "Lost" blog is sending you made traffic.
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Alex Castro, 14 Apr 2006 @ 8:24am

FOX Internet TV
News Corp.’s Fox network has reached an agreement with its nationwide affiliate stations that will allow it to show reruns of its television programs on the Internet. This news follows the recent announcement by ABC that they will be make available TV shows for free (supported by advertising) on the Internet.

What this means is that iTunes is not going to dominant the entire digital media world in the same way they dominant digital music downloads. Here are the reasons why the Apple model (and for that matter the Google Video model) won't work for TV shows:

http://alexcastro.typepad.com/castros_blog/2006/04/fox_internet_tv.html
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