Meth Minute keeps on rockin’
By Tim.Since all I do anymore is blog our media mentions (I have some other things I’m planning to write about, I swear), I just wanted to congratulate the Channel Frederator team on catching the eye of two of the pillars of New York media this week.
This Monday, our original series The Meth Minute 39 was featured in New York Magazine, which I read every week and never knew that made me, in Dan’s words, a “chic Manhattan sophisticate.” I just thought it was a fun magazine to start reading when you move to NYC like I did last year. The feature was part of NYMag’s “NewTube” issue, highlighting the best of online video, in an article called “The Cartoon is Back.”
And today, the gray lady herself (that’s the New York Times for those of you outside hipsterville –Fred) (shoot, did fred just call me a hipster? this is a pretty old term –Tim) name-checked MM39, Viropop, and Next New Networks (and our friends at The Burg), in Stuart Elliott’s article, “Web Videos Stealing TV Viewers, and Marketers,” which opens with the question,
“Why are fewer viewers watching the new fall television series? Perhaps because they are too busy watching video online.”
We love getting the credit, but of course there are a lot of things making people watch less network television. The fall series aren’t that good, honestly — many of the best ones now come in midseason or the summer — and there are a lot of other options for people, like every past season of TV ever available on DVD at Netflix and Amazon, and games like Guitar Hero and Halo, which are the new blockbusters of our age. Maybe it’s idea of a big fall TV season that’s becoming a thing of the past (our views are way up, for the record) but people are more into consuming and interacting with TV than ever.
November 16th, 2007 at 4:27 pm
Do you think a new Fall TV line up will be a thing of the past in 10 years?
November 17th, 2007 at 12:30 am
Who knows, but it’s fun to guess and say probably not the way we know it. I think “TV” will be everywhere — as in, you get regular entertainment on whatever screen you want — but people will always want new entertainment in the fall (it’s why we launched Zaproot and MM39 then, after all) as long as summer keeps ending right around then and the weather cools off and people start school and new jobs and new marriages, so they stop spending all day and night at the beach and at parties and instead stay in and turn on the tube.
But it’ll also make sense for new stuff to come out in the summer, the winter, and whenever it’s ready. Which is already happening, for sure.
November 17th, 2007 at 4:27 pm
It’s looking like the WGA strike could possibly blow the 2008 fall line-up, which could be the final blow to this institution. Fox already avoids it and essentially starts their season with American idol during Januarys. If the strike continues through the “up-fronts” –already losing its power– that could be it.
It might be too early for internet TV like Next New Networks to reap the total benefits of the temporary defection of broadcast/cable viewers, but we’ll do our best to keep the world entertained anyway.