No McKinsey Strategy
By Brooks Jordan | March 3, 2008
The fact that HBO is putting full episodes of In Treatment online, that Michael Eisner is producing original TV for the Web (Prom Queen/The All-for-Nots), and that quarterlife got yanked off of CBS after airing only one episode says something (a lot) about where TV is headed.
It’s tense in those network boardrooms right now. Audiences are smallish, fragmented, and uncommitted . . . until you give them some of the same content online in which case they’re passionate, swarming evangelists.
It smells like a business opportunity to those who aren’t in denial even though there’s no “McKinsey strategy” yet, as Eisner puts it.
What is it? It goes beyond offering episodes for free online, although some of that should/will happen. The opportunity is to curate the shows for people – what does an insider need to know? – and, even deeper, put the audience in touch with the actors, writers, producers of the show.
Lushies love soap and the whole conversation is fueled online, right? People who, for example, are in treatment could love a show like In Treatment in the same way. But it has to go to them rather than the other way around.