Eight Years Later and I Can’t Buy Entourage over the Internet

On the 8th anniversary of the broadcast.com IPO, I can’t help but wondering, what is HBO thinking about? You can’t even buy a four pack of Entourage episodes on iTunes for $8.00. I believe the $1.99 pricing would work out for HBO, it just needs to price stuff where if you subscribe to more than 2 things, it’d be a better deal just subscribing to HBO. I know, HBO like all the Time Warner schmoes on the music business side that came before it are worried about cannibalization. But there are a few ways around worrying about cannibalizing the HBO subscription service and the DVDs. Update: 7:35am, according to Cuban, it's the 9th anniversary of the IPO and the 8th anniversary of closing the broadcast.com deal, a special day for Mr. Cuban no matter how you look at it!

Does HBO think in 10 years the fate of the DVD is going to be any better than the CD? The DVDs purpose in life at that point will be very cheap media you can cram a lot of stuff on. Otherwise most people will be buying their content digitally already. And since that’s the way content will be sold anyway, why not get in ahead of the curve for a change? Otherwise you just encourage the countless sites up and available on the Internet aimed at providing immediate (and free) access to Entourage, the Sopranos, John in Cincinnati. I can understand not wanting to deal with Apple and although I think it’s dumb to fight that trend, I think Time Warner has a chance to sell its HBO content via its AOL arm. None of that synergy stuff seems to be playing out and it rankles me.

You don’t even have to do this in a way that cannibalizes the mothership or the DVDs. First, make it something that would be high quality on the iPod or iPhone but not so great on the TV. Or make the video high quality anyway – it’s not like iTunes includes any of the director’s or actor’s commentary tracks. There will still be a reason to buy the DVDs until all the content providers have thrown in the towel and realize digital distribution is going to win and they have to even include the good stuff digitally. For now though, that is a ways off.

I don’t know if there’s a penalty for HBO and others not being first movers here. It seems like the penalty is that people who might otherwise buy it wind up stealing it because it’s the fastest way to go. I have to be honest, I pay for HBO and various DVRs and record Entourage. I still find downloading the free torrent is faster than converting the huge file on my DVR into a format for my iPhone (mp4 or m4v) So, I’d already be willing to pay HBO or Comcast a small extra fee for access to “optimized for iPhone/iPod” files of shows I have already paid for in high definition.

The question for me is does HBO think about this at all and decide it’s not right for them or are they just not even thinking about it? A real decision not to do it I couldn’t find fault with, but if HBO isn’t even thinking about it, that’s another story.

I understand as well that the various producers of content may have different deals in terms of digital distribution and I think HBO not necessarily owning those rights right now isn’t a big deal if that’s the case. But I think such things will be a fairly huge deal in the 5-10 year time range.

Some have suggested via the comments under Cuban’s blog entry that perhaps Cubes has broadcast.com II up his sleeves. I hope so, but I think his focus is on owning sports franchises now and judging from the content I can download via hd.net, Cuban has become a content owner now and doesn’t want to cannibalize his content either. The only thing available for streaming/download from hd.net is 2 hours of Dan Rather content that is decidedly NOT in high definition. It’s good enough to look at and watch, but if my whole brand was based on high definition, I don’t know if I’d release much lower than HD quality content to the internet, even in consideration of bandwidth constraints. The file wasn’t so big that even doubling the file size and breaking it up into 2 pieces would’ve curtailed my desire to download it. My only point with this is that unless Cuban is deliberately trying to look “backwards compatible” with what’s available on HD.Net, he’s not looking to do “Broadcast II, and this time we mean it!”

The latest Dan Rather episode (from July 10th) is available for streaming via the Google Video player, and the production value isn’t nearly as good as some shorter stuff, like “Will it Blend: iPhone" via YouTube.

Another Update: 7:40a: In the credit where credit is due, much as this pains me, credit goes to Major League Baseball (MLB!). For $4.99 via iTunes I was able to buy all the coverage of the All Star Week festivities here in San Francisco (the rookie game, celebrity softball game, the Home Run Derby and the All Star Game itself). I thought it was a good value so I downloaded it. I was disappointed (come on, you knew I would be disappointed with something!)it was in 4:3 format instead of 16:9 widescreen, but it's optimized for the iPod, not my big screen. Still a good value for $4.99

Optimzation Addiction and the Google Democracy

It came along at a good time. The Sopranos is over, and let’s face it, the last 3 or 4 seasons kind of stunk it up anyway.

I have been playing around with Google ad words as part of something I’m part of that’s planned for the fall. I dedicated a $300 budget to it, and…by the time I’d spend $13, I’d probably learned enough, but man, it was so much fun I just couldn’t STOP PLAYING WITH IT.

I like optimizing. I am curious about improvements. Simple lazy mental masturbation stuff. Like, when I see The Hardest Working Man in the Marina, I want to tell him, “Dude, stand out in front of the Cingular store on June 29 when the iPhone is released and you’ll RAKE IT IN!" The combination of guilt and giddiness could be lucrative. If they needed an iPhone so badly they were in line for it on June 29, by the time they have it they are going to be giddy! *update 6/11/07 12:55pm PDT: just found out the iphone will not be available for purchase until ~6pm on 6/29.

Google allows continuous optimization in real time. You can see results, make changes, try different campaigns, get immediate results, optimize some more, etc. I did a variety of experiments ranging from the ad copy, to where the page landed to keyword vs. site specific. I could get lost in it – probably forever if I had enough money to just send continuous ads into the world.

But there’s something else. I don’t see how it can last really although a part of me hopes it always works exactly the same way. I wrote a blurb on how dumb Time Warner is for not having leveraged the Sopranos across its major brands very well and wrote ad copy that said: “Time Warner Needs a New CEO, if you love the Sopranos Richard Parsons must go!” and then I linked it to various Time Warner keywords including “Sopranos” and “Richard Parsons”. They ran my ad. Even on the Richard Parsons search! People clicked – though not a lot…but the night is young and I haven’t spent all my $300 yet.

The Sopranos finale didn’t make me feel any better about any of that…

Update 6/10/07 7:50PM PDT: The ad for parsons generated a lot of clicks (over 200) and then exceeded my $ allowance for that particular campaign -- I had not put all $300 against that campaign.

Why Time Warner Needs NEW Management RIGHT NOW

I find it shocking and outrageous that companies created to leverage synergy, don't. I'm not too surprised here because the guy who runs the joint has seemed out of sorts lately. Check out: Time Warner Chief Hallucinates at Cable Show, Speaks Truth.

I would have had a field day with that if I had been publishing on May 11... but alas, it's June 10 and I can still kvetch with authority. Here's the current cover of Time Magazine:



In about an hour, as I write this, most of the state of New Jersey will be shut down and transixed on the series finale of the Sopranos. Ok, so they didn't put the Sopranos on the cover and that was dumb. They didn't put it one of the little cut boxes either, and that was dumber, and even dumber still: no mention of the finale of the series -- which runs on Time Warner's HBO -- ANYWHERE IN THE MAGAZINE! You may remember Time Warner as also being the parent company of Time Magazine. .

The Sopranos is certainly culturaly relevant. Why didn't TW capitalize on the synergy. Mr. Parsons, how do you account for that? You can worry about Google all you want, but today, you should LOVE Google because Google is giving more exposure to the Sopranos than Time Warner.

Smart. Very smart. Excellent leveraging of synergy.