In this week’s episode, we look at Ustream, which provides a live, interactive broadcast platform to anyone who wants their 15 minutes of fame, and Le Gourmet Tv, a niche channel for food lovers. While they’re both different businesses, they’re both betting on the mid-tail of content. So, we wanted to look at new entertainment models disrupting the traditional news and entertainment industry, and discuss where the money is to be made in ”live” and niche programming. For instance, will off-off-off-off Broadway shows or amateur versions of
Saturday Night Live be more popular than a bunch of C-Span
shows covering church services or our children’s plays? Our round table of experts have different opinions.
This week, Chris Tolles, CEO of Topix, and Ezra Roizen, digital media investment banker and VB regular and John Shinal, Vator managing editor, helped me analyze and review these two companies, and their industries.
We started with Ustream, whose service definitely extends the blogging and v-logging trend, as well as the commenting trend whereby stories are dialogues and interactive. It is a combination of NowLive, for live streaming, and Seesmic, which is a video Twitter. Ustream is betting on the
proliferation of millions of new voices emerging and creating their own
talk shows. Think, millions of “Oprahs.”
(Note: Chris Yeh is an angel investor and CEO at the time the Ustream video pitch was uploaded. He is in the Ustream video. Chuck Wallace was appointed CEO late last year.)
Ezra pointed out that Ustream will probably end up being a C-Span of Little League baseball and church services. He saw UStream as a useful platform to power the long tail of live content. I saw Ustream powering a bunch of little talk shows, which will one day produce tomorrow’s Oprah, or enabling a bunch of episodics. We’re already seeing producers of live programming emerge, like Synchronis.tv, which produces episodics and airs them live at a particular time. I could see sites like CrushTV also using a live component in their shows.
But we all agreed that focusing on these tiny sites won’t drive this business.
John suggested that Ustream focus on selling its platform to big media companies, much like NowLive’s business model.
Chris, who’s not shy with his thoughts, was not convinced that Ustream had any compelling technology that big media companies would want, nor did Chris think that live programming was entertaining, useful or in demand.
We also looked at Le Gourmet TV, which Chris said was a far more interesting model because the startup costs could be low and the advertisers were obvious. After three to five years, a company like this could probably sell itself for $10 million to $20 million. I agree. Just take a look at paidContent.org, a mid-tail site focused on digital media. It just sold for $30 million. Ezra and I both agreed that the company could probably raise a couple hundred thousand and grow its audience and then be sold to the Food Channel. There are a number of niche content sites appearing on Vator, such as TasteTV, iFoods.tv, Vanuato TV, and Dadlabs, a channel for fathers.
We definitely covered a lot of ground with these companies and their respective industries. I’m not giving it all away, so you’ll just have to watch.
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