Time Warner
VP, Business Development & Planning
Dept: Business Development
Highlights:
Uniqueness of dot-com business model:
- The product wasn't dependent on TV
- Separate editorial team
- Early emergence in the online journalism arena
- Video offering (Didn't work that well during the era of dial-up)
- With time, more convergence between TV and online to benefit both
Revenue:
Mostly, ad-based revenue generation streams.
Advertisers appreciate and seek out for online metrics like CNN.com's, i.e. 23 million uniques/month. Advertisers are reached with brand, credibility, which allows CNN Sales to extend premium pricing options and make more money. Diversification also plays a great role in creating more revenue: as compared to cable business model (BM), there are more partner relations with more partner content, as well as unique video products not available in the cable environment (e.g. Pipeline).
Pipeline launched in December 2005, ad-supported and free, subscription-based model was dropped (with Real Networks) as prices for distribution grew, Pipeline- is CNN.com standalone product, allows to collect proper user information. Pipeline's model is compliant with modern ad market: more broadband accessibility at home and at work, unique product proposition, all depts in the company worked hand-in-hand on the product (convergence).
Talking about innovation and unique value propositions: the competitive edge of Pipeline is the ability for users to watch several live video streams at the same time. On the other side, there's constant effort to maintain stickiness, which in this case is reflected in resources and expense spent on developing a unique to the product and user-friendly video player.
The continuous challenge is to sustain the trademark and the breadth of content, by being the first source for consumers not only in breaking news situations, but on a daily basis. The goal is to develop more stickiness, where users spend more time on the site and generate more page views. The ideal situation is when they land on the home page and browse further: to the Health section, for example, and further to other sections from there. In the effort to make content more robust, dot-com is developing several partner relations with other news organizations, such as Time, Christian Science Monitor, and others. More on partner-supplied content and relations is coming up later.
The breadth of content and good numbers in online metrics reflects on the business side of the company: more content, more page views, more advertising inventory, more revenue.
Unique value proposition
Starting from the network's early history, revolutionary innovation has always been the key. Being a TV network that operates 24/7 around the world was revolutionary and translated well into the online environment. From original and brand new textual content to video and audio podcasts, dot-com strives to be ahead in the game. As part of the uniqueness, constant updates of the site (which are indicated on the main page as in Updated 10:36 p.m.) were also mentioned, although, this is not a distinctive feature in the online media market. NY Times, as well as others, have the same feature in place.
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