Hulu, Radiohead, The Farnsworth Invention, "The Office", Really Michael Vick and More

November 2 2007 4:50 AM PDT

By Jack Myers

What a week. Hulu launches. Radiohead sales soar. Google stock passes $700 as the foundations of the economy slowly crumble. The Philo Farnsworth (inventor of television) story is memorialized in a must-see Broadway play, The Farnsworth Invention, written by Aaron Sorkin. It's just the tip of the news iceberg for the media industry, but it's what stands out to me. Of course, there was also a classic episode of The Office, which is emerging as one of the great all-time sitcoms and a worthy successor to The Cosby Show and Seinfeld. And the finale of the brilliant three episode "Imaginationland" fantasy arc in South Park. It's been a good week.

Hulu, the joint venture of NBC Universal and News Corp, launched to generally positive critical reviews. Simultaneously, NBC pulled the popular Saturday Night Live features from YouTube, along with all other NBC Universal content. As of now, The Office, Lost, 30 Rock, SNL and other popular NBC programming are available only at Hulu (and the networks' sites), which for the next several weeks is available only to approved beta users. Hulu is clearly designed to offer a state-of-the-art user interface and to provide viewers with the optimum viewing experience. There are a couple of inherent problems. Technology advances faster than companies like Hulu, even with deep pockets resources, can keep up with it. Hulu wants to be a destination site – the only place where you can find Fox and NBC programs, plus a lot more. Because they know viewers will want to watch on their own favorite site, whether it's Veoh, blip, Joost or a site not yet created. So Hulu has focused heavily on creating a positive user experience, but to deliver on its promise it will need to constantly upgrade, a virtually impossible task.

The second issue is if Hulu is going to promise NBC and Fox content, and pull content off YouTube, iTunes and other video sources, it had better deliver on the goods. A week ago, a search for the SNL skit "Really Michael Vick" turned up instantly at YouTube. As of earlier this week, not only was the skit no longer available anywhere on the web, but it also was not available at Hulu. If this becomes a pattern, and NBC and Fox play possum with the audience, the backlash will be instant and crushing.

Speaking of making content available, how smart is Radiohead? It helps that the new album (can we still refer to it as an album?) is brilliant. But to make it available exclusively via download, at a Radiohead-controlled site (www.inrainbows.com) and to allow fans to pay whatever they want – including zero – for the download, is a formula that video marketers and distributors like Hulu should pay close attention to. Let the market define the value, individual by individual. Radiohead is not only selling millions of downloads, but the average price is not too far from the average retail cost under traditional models. And guys like me, who would probably not have considered downloading or buying a Radiohead album, paid and became a fan. It won't be long before the video version of the Radiohead marketing model is played out by a Hollywood studio.

As Google passes $700, and as traditional advertising-based economic models are disintermediated even as media become more and more dependent on advertising, everyone in the media, and especially the television business, MUST get tickets immediately and go see The Farnsworth Invention at the Music Box Theater. I have not had the time to see as many plays as I once did, and therefore have not been publishing reviews, as I once did. This play, written by Aaron Sorkin, starring Hank Azaria, and based on the unlikely story of the race to invent television, is brilliant, moving, fascinating and downright excellent. Sorkin cleverly weaves in a point-of-view about the impact and role of advertising in television that rings all too true today, and he reflects on the hopes that the medium's founders had for its future role in society, mostly but not completely unfulfilled. The Farnsworth Invention, even before it opens, has become an early favorite for a Tony and Azaria, who plays David Sarnoff, a sure-bet nominee as best actor, along with Jimmi Simpson. The media industry once attracted just a small cadre of people, many schooled in the history of media and television. Too few people in the industry today have any historical context for the work they do. See The Farnsworth Invention and understand.

Sorkin's play includes a chilling perspective on the stock market crash of 1929 and its impact on RCA stock, which crashed overnight from $118 per share to $42. As Google passes $700, it's worth reminding ourselves that we live in a world where the market can still crash, not in Dwight Schrute's Second Life or South Park's Imaginationland. And we should heed the lessons of the past.

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