Dave Gardy "Uncut": TVW CEO's Full Presentation to Yahoo Audience, 2/20/99
blue_zman. I can't speak for the vision of Ampex or Reiter, but I should more clearly articulate the vision of TV onthe WEB and address your concerns. First of all we recognize that one day in the internet business equates to seven days in the chronology of conventional business sectors. (hmmm, sort of like dog years). We take nothing for granted and are moving as quickly as we can to solidify our market position.
What is our competitive barrier to entry? Clearly we have taken narrowcasting to a new level. With over 1000 hours of compressed video available for interactive viewing across our channels, we are one of the largest video sites, if not one of the largest sites on the web as it relates to storage requirements. With the acquisition of Gardy McGrath from the Ampex investment, we have a wholly-owned subsidiary that has produced hundreds of live-event webcasts, pioneered proprietary portable system configurations tailored specifically to on-location event broadcasting worldwide, and studied and established the technical precedents for web production, post-production, grahics, animation and compression. Gardy McGrath also possesses a 10,000 tape stock library and animation archive that allows us to put up and build content quickly. That resource and people know-how, expertise and content as it pertains to video production for the web is why the major video software companies have always come to us to beta-test their software.
In addition, we have our exclusive strategic alliance with PSINet, the largest independent ISP in the world. In return for our commitment to co-locate our servers on their powerful and fast backbone, PSINet reciprocates by referring all web video applications from their 50,000 business customers worldwide to TV onthe WEB. TV onthe WEB's relationship with Gardy McGrath and PSINet alone represent a barrier to entry from lead to market alone, governed by the sheer aggregation of professional expertise, resources and content ... but there's more...
Along with on-demand streaming and live webcasting, our primary business model is to build the first, interactive "narrowcast" community-based TV network on the web...geared towards niches such as business- to- business and special interest groups, each representing an audience of a few million worldwide that can really benefit from the lower video distribution costs, interactivity and archivability of the internet. We identify and establish a relationship with a key player in each of these niches, (such as an association or publication)and they fund the channel infrastrucure development and growth as "Underwriters". In return for this funding and the contribution of key assets from these Underwriters ranging from subscription bases and content to industry databases and e-commerce products, we generate revenue on the channels from several income streams including advertising, pay-per-view, live events, e-commerce and subscription...and all of this we share with that Underwriter. Thus, although we maintain ownership of each channel, each channel becomes a revenue generator for TV onthe WEB and the underwriter. (more to come in next posting)
(continued from last posting)
Traffic grows quickly because as each channel is added or live event is staged, traffic grows across all channels, thanks to the effects of "cross-viewing" of each channel. Key advertising parameters such as "length of stay" are high becasue of the time it takes to view the video. Our "stickiness", (the latest vernacular), is also high because of the compelling nature of the content directed at the narrowcast communities. (I have only to point out our ABLE TV disabled community Channel to demonstrate the loyalty of such a tightly-knit community with viewers who find the video demo's of the latest internet-accessibility technology so valuable to their quality of life.) In essence, as we deploy what we have learned about narrowcasting with each channel, we build loyalty within that niche community, placing a stake in the ground and creating a competitive barrier for the next company that wants to get on the narrowcast bandwagon for that group. That's why the addition of each channel is so important to our long-term growth.
Consequently, what we've been able to do while others question the quality of the "herky-jerky" video related to the internet's limited bandwidth, is to find revenue-generating, low-bandwidth applications where the video fulfills a market need for our underwriters and our viewers. While others have simply tried to bring the TV broadcast model to the web, we have and always will recognize the web as the ultimate video narrowcast, community-building mechanism. Perhaps you could call us "Micro-cable". CMGI is actually gearing up for more re-broadcast of radio and TV to compete in the arena of broadcast.com . Other sites that have tried video"channels" are reflecting broadcast TV categories such as "Sports", "Entertainment" and "Lifestyles" . Although these and other entities are coming around to see the power of "narrowcasting", our underlying mission has and always been to be the premier, community-based narrowcast content provider , working diligently and creatively to do whatever we have to do to grow our core model and maintain our lead to market in the process....
If you've read this dissertation this far, I appreciate your interest and the chance to respond. And Orapos is right...I do read (and value) your postings. Thank-you and stay tuned.
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