InsightIQ Blog

Asset Management: the rebranding of AOL & NBC

View more Blog Posts

Jan 4 2010

AOL spins off from Time Warner while Comcast picks up NBC.... as they both look to re-brand and boost ad income.

 

 

Recently, the NYT reported that Comcast will buy NBC and turn over the Golf Channel and Versus to Dick Ebersol to repackage an NBC-branded sports network that can compete with ESPN. What the article doesn't point out is that a large part of ESPN's ability to dominate the category is their multi-channel pervasiveness, particularly with stellar mobile apps, 360, and a fan-focused philosophy based on delivering content without platform bias. Remember when NBC did not allow live viewing of Olympic game coverage online because they thought they would lose ad revenue? They wanted to force prime time viewing to boost numbers, track eyeballs, and sell a massive audience regardless of viewer experience. They will need a more thoughtful, audience focused distribution strategy than that to compete, in my opinion. 

 

In managing their recently acquired assets, AOL has been promoting or re-branding existing properties in the aquired company's more popular name (AOL Sports is now Fanhouse and News is now Sphere, for example) while other properties with strong ad revenue, such as AOL Health, remain under the corporate umbrella.  The article points out that AOL still has a higher number of UUs than Facebook or Amazon, with the potential for using this as leverage as they shift the balance of revenue from an access or subscription-based model to more of an ad model competing directly with Yahoo in terms of scale. 

 

Both of these articles reinforce how the ongoing focus on quantity, not quality, of audience fuels media organizations, drives down CPMs, and displaces viewer consumption preference. I think ESPN's got it right.  When you put the viewer's needs and preferences first, you will be in a much better position to attract mass audience, dial up engagement, and sell both quantity and quality of audience. 

 

 

 

 

This article is filed under:

View more Blog Posts

Leave a Comment

  • Your email won't be published on our site.

All Fields Required