Diller Calls Free Web Content a ‘Myth, Joins Refrain
Barry Diller, chairman and chief executive officer of IAC/InterActiveCorp, said Web users will have to pay for what they watch and use, joining the refrain of media moguls who say an era of free Internet content is ending.
The media and technology executive, whose company runs the Ask.com search engine and the Match.com dating service, said it’s “mythology” to view the Internet as a system of free communications.
“It is not free, and is not going to be,” Diller said today at the Fortune Brainstorm conference in Pasadena, California. In addition to IAC, he is chairman of Expedia Inc., the online travel service, and Ticketmaster Entertainment Inc.
Diller, 67, joined a group of media chiefs, from Liberty Media Corp.’s John Malone to Walt Disney Co. CEO Robert Iger, who are challenging the accepted model that consumers pay for Internet access and then content is free. Diller predicted there will be three revenue streams: advertising, subscriptions and transactions.
Disney, the world’s biggest media company, is developing a subscription-based product for the Internet, Iger said on July 22 at the conference.
The Burbank, California-based company has opportunities to increase sales from the Web, Iger said. Online advertising can be improved, and marketers can target consumers by tracking their activities and interests. Subscription products are particularly promising to the company.
‘Willing to Pay’
“We have ample evidence both in traditional and new media that people are willing to pay for quality, to pay for choice and to pay for convenience,” Iger said. “And they are willing to pay for what they perceive as value.”
Companies from Disney to New York Times Co. are seeking ways to get more revenue from the Internet and counter the loss of traditional media subscribers and advertisers.
New York Times said in a survey of print subscribers this month that it’s considering a $5 monthly fee for access to its namesake newspaper’s Web site. The company also asked whether existing print subscribers would be willing to pay a discounted fee of $2.50 a month for access to the site. Nytimes.com, the most visited among newspapers’ sites, is currently free.
Yesterday, the newspaper publisher reported second-quarter profit almost doubled as the company cut jobs and wages to cope with a deepening advertising slump. Revenue declined 21 percent.
News Corp.
News Corp., publisher of the Wall Street Journal and owner of the Fox TV and film studios, plans to increase revenue at its Internet businesses by charging customers for news and entertainment, Jonathan Miller, the company’s chief digital officer, said yesterday at the conference.
Going forward, some companies will have material people are willing to pay for, and others won’t, said Miller, chief executive officer of News Corp.’s Digital Media Group.
Journalism will increasingly become a “paid model” online, said Miller. The Wall Street Journal already charges for online subscriptions.
In the quarter ended March 31, News Corp.’s interactive revenue declined 11 percent to $187 million, led by a 16 percent decline in advertising at sites including MySpace.
IAC, based in New York, fell 12 cents to $17.91 at 4 p.m. New York time in Nasdaq Stock Market trading. It has gained 14 percent this year. News Corp. Class A rose 2 cents to $9.89.
New York Times rose 16 cents to $6.66, while Disney fell 22 cents to $26.58, both on the New York Stock Exchange.
Bob Iger: Hulu Could Charge For Content, People Will Pay Online
Walt Disney Co. Chief Executive Bob Iger said Wednesday the Hulu online video streaming site that it now co-owns could one day charge for its content instead of just offering free streams and selling advertising.
"There's plenty of room for people to spend money on things they're doing online," Iger told a technology conference put on by Fortune magazine.
He cited statistics that showed how much people are willing to pay for media content: $5 an hour to watch movies, 75 cents an hour reading books, magazines, and newspapers and 25 cents for every hour of Internet use.
"We have ample evidence both in traditional media and in new media that people are willing to pay for quality, they're willing to pay for choice, they're willing to pay for convenience," Iger said.
"It's possible that Hulu will look at monetizing as well. It may be not just selling ads," he said.
Disney took just over a 25 percent equity stake in the Hulu joint venture in April, joining its founders, NBC Universal and News Corp., and agreed to provide TV shows and movies to the site.
Iger added that Disney was working on a Disney-branded site that would make available movies, TV shows and games to consumers who pay for a subscription, but wouldn't reveal details.
The company reports its third-quarter earnings on July 30.
Quick Note: British comedian Ricky Gervais had the most popular podcast on the internet. It started free. He did a poll, and the majority of listeners said they would pay $2 a podcast. Once he started charging, his audience shrunk by over 95%.
There is a large discrepancy between between what people say they will pay for, and what people actually will pay for. And it's been show time and time again by the dozen or so popular companies which tanked after they started charging.
Barry Diller, chairman and chief executive officer of IAC/InterActiveCorp, said Web users will have to pay for what they watch and use, joining the refrain of media moguls who say an era of free Internet content is ending.
The media and technology executive, whose company runs the Ask.com search engine and the Match.com dating service, said it’s “mythology” to view the Internet as a system of free communications.
“It is not free, and is not going to be,” Diller said today at the Fortune Brainstorm conference in Pasadena, California. In addition to IAC, he is chairman of Expedia Inc., the online travel service, and Ticketmaster Entertainment Inc.
Diller, 67, joined a group of media chiefs, from Liberty Media Corp.’s John Malone to Walt Disney Co. CEO Robert Iger, who are challenging the accepted model that consumers pay for Internet access and then content is free. Diller predicted there will be three revenue streams: advertising, subscriptions and transactions.
Disney, the world’s biggest media company, is developing a subscription-based product for the Internet, Iger said on July 22 at the conference.
The Burbank, California-based company has opportunities to increase sales from the Web, Iger said. Online advertising can be improved, and marketers can target consumers by tracking their activities and interests. Subscription products are particularly promising to the company.
‘Willing to Pay’
“We have ample evidence both in traditional and new media that people are willing to pay for quality, to pay for choice and to pay for convenience,” Iger said. “And they are willing to pay for what they perceive as value.”
Companies from Disney to New York Times Co. are seeking ways to get more revenue from the Internet and counter the loss of traditional media subscribers and advertisers.
New York Times said in a survey of print subscribers this month that it’s considering a $5 monthly fee for access to its namesake newspaper’s Web site. The company also asked whether existing print subscribers would be willing to pay a discounted fee of $2.50 a month for access to the site. Nytimes.com, the most visited among newspapers’ sites, is currently free.
Yesterday, the newspaper publisher reported second-quarter profit almost doubled as the company cut jobs and wages to cope with a deepening advertising slump. Revenue declined 21 percent.
News Corp.
News Corp., publisher of the Wall Street Journal and owner of the Fox TV and film studios, plans to increase revenue at its Internet businesses by charging customers for news and entertainment, Jonathan Miller, the company’s chief digital officer, said yesterday at the conference.
Going forward, some companies will have material people are willing to pay for, and others won’t, said Miller, chief executive officer of News Corp.’s Digital Media Group.
Journalism will increasingly become a “paid model” online, said Miller. The Wall Street Journal already charges for online subscriptions.
In the quarter ended March 31, News Corp.’s interactive revenue declined 11 percent to $187 million, led by a 16 percent decline in advertising at sites including MySpace.
IAC, based in New York, fell 12 cents to $17.91 at 4 p.m. New York time in Nasdaq Stock Market trading. It has gained 14 percent this year. News Corp. Class A rose 2 cents to $9.89.
New York Times rose 16 cents to $6.66, while Disney fell 22 cents to $26.58, both on the New York Stock Exchange.
Bob Iger: Hulu Could Charge For Content, People Will Pay Online
Walt Disney Co. Chief Executive Bob Iger said Wednesday the Hulu online video streaming site that it now co-owns could one day charge for its content instead of just offering free streams and selling advertising.
"There's plenty of room for people to spend money on things they're doing online," Iger told a technology conference put on by Fortune magazine.
He cited statistics that showed how much people are willing to pay for media content: $5 an hour to watch movies, 75 cents an hour reading books, magazines, and newspapers and 25 cents for every hour of Internet use.
"We have ample evidence both in traditional media and in new media that people are willing to pay for quality, they're willing to pay for choice, they're willing to pay for convenience," Iger said.
"It's possible that Hulu will look at monetizing as well. It may be not just selling ads," he said.
Disney took just over a 25 percent equity stake in the Hulu joint venture in April, joining its founders, NBC Universal and News Corp., and agreed to provide TV shows and movies to the site.
Iger added that Disney was working on a Disney-branded site that would make available movies, TV shows and games to consumers who pay for a subscription, but wouldn't reveal details.
The company reports its third-quarter earnings on July 30.
Quick Note: British comedian Ricky Gervais had the most popular podcast on the internet. It started free. He did a poll, and the majority of listeners said they would pay $2 a podcast. Once he started charging, his audience shrunk by over 95%.
There is a large discrepancy between between what people say they will pay for, and what people actually will pay for. And it's been show time and time again by the dozen or so popular companies which tanked after they started charging.
And I hope they die.
So many of the people in power now are like little kids, who simply won't accept that the stove is hot until they burn their hands on it.
If people have to pay to cite sources, they'll simply stop citing those sources.
Of course, this assumes that people would actually have to pay in the first place, since pure text is the easiest thing in the world to "steal," and even video is running a close second now.
So, yes, go ahead and tell the Internet that it has to pay for something that it considers itself entitled to have for free, because that's gone over SO well so far.
While you're at it, you should tell the denizens of /b/ that they're no longer allowed to call each other "nigger" or "faggot," because you can expect a similar rate of non-success on that score.
THE INTERNET WILL RAPE YOU, OLD!MEDIA.
just offering free streams and selling advertising
That's how it's NOT FREE. People sit through those shit commercials while those two/three companies rack in the money.
if this happens i'll be like, "brb rioting in streets"
lol No.
They're thinking to stick their finger in the dyke, but in fact they're attempting to throw a couple of rocks in a river and call it a dam.
Disney, the world’s biggest media company, is developing a subscription-based product for the Internet, Iger said on July 22 at the conference.
Disney nooooooooooooooooooooooo. Why are you constantly making it so hard for me to justify loving you?
sure people are willing to pay what AVERAGES out to be about 25 cents an hour( monthly fee/days in the month/hours used per day) ...but consumers want it to be SIMPLE..let me pay you $50 bucks a month and dont make me worry about how much internet i have used...
and I for one definatly am not paying the same price to watch a movie on my computer as I would to see it on the big screen
$5 an hour to watch movies? Bitch, might as well your ass to the theater. Crack. That's the only explanation for this. A quarter for an hour of internet use? That's $6.00 a day. Per computer? Hell nah.
In addition to IAC, he is chairman of Expedia Inc., the online travel service, and Ticketmaster Entertainment Inc.
Oh, Ticketmaster, eh? It's all starting to make sense now.
And five dollars an hour for a movie is pretty much what I pay now if I want to go to the theater. Seventy-five cents an hour to read a book is fucking obscene. Especially since I seem to remember that in the gloried days of my youth, now lost to the sands of time, there was some repository for books where I could read as many as I wanted, all for free... if only I could remember what it was called...
When I read the part about the books it made me realize that books are the only media that I still prefer to be old school. I mean, reading it on the screen just doesn't compare to a hard copy.
What I mean is this; the internet as it stands is a terribly broken concept based on ideas that relied on situations where the concept wouldn't be broken.
To paraphrase that, when the military originally developed it, the military developed it as a technology for the military, and the military really had no need for technology that was designed to be unhackable, or without easy exploits. Of course they had good reason for it; anyone using the internet at that time would be sitting in the middle of a military compound. The original internet's Norton Antivirus was a bunch of well trained men and women with guns.
But when it was released, no one bothered to try and address the fact that the whole system had very weak security protocols and a poor architecture. And no one has ever bothered to address this issue. because most people don't realize, for example, that ISPs end up storing loads of information about you on servers. Legally they're not allowed to look at it, of course, but a piece of paper saying you can't do something hasn't ever stopped people from doing it.
The only thing I'm willing to pay for on the internet is if the internet was to be stripped down, and rebuilt so it wasn't so broken fundimentally.
of corse, this was still eleat and closed, so in effect it was the same sitution, but...yea. some of its tech was devloped in response to servibality in nuclear wars but the system was essentuly new and non miltery.
skyinternet away from me!Why is it the people that need to learn certain lessons the most are the ones that never get them? Idiots, the whole lot of them.
Right now people use Hulu and other streaming tv services because it's free (except netflix) and while the commercials are a bit annoying it's not as bad on tv. They start charging, which causes us having to fork over our money and id and credit cards and not only do they open themselves up as nice targets for the hackers but also to lawsuits for getting hacked and losing the information. In the long run it will be more viable to have a donate button and commercials than to charge for things.
Not to mention people will leave the service in droves.
The internet is the public library. Except we have to pay to access it which is the equivalent of paying for a bus ticket to the library or paying the gas for it. But the concept is the same because the information on there is free. Information should be free, same for education, because this causes people to not be ignorant asses who don't know that the Secretary of State is the head of the State Department!
im sorry but titanic is not worth $15 dollars
im rambling
They'll pry the Internet from my cold, dead fingers.
[EDIT]
Only online thing other than my actual ISP service, that is. But that's kind of a given, anyway. lol
Edited at 2009-07-26 04:10 am (UTC)