About The Big Bing Rumor

How is this not restraint of trade?

Briefly–I’ve seen lots of posts suggesting Microsoft’s Bing might pay News Corp (Rupert Murdoch) to let them index News Corp sites with the proviso they don’t allow Google to do the same.

How is this not restraint of trade?

Rupert Murdoch From Both Sides Of His Mouth

Murdoch blames the search engines, but the truth is the entire business model for advertiser supported information is broken.

My friend Farrell forwarded an article from Rupert Murdoch’s Sky News:

Rupert Murdoch has warned internet search engines the time has come for them to pay for news content.

The News Corp chief executive said sites such as Google and Yahoo, which take content from a range of sources, would soon be charged for the service.

This is totally within Murdoch’s right and if he wants to put his content behind a paywall he should. The New York Times used to do this with much of their exclusive content, like columnists, but later relented.

If taken at his word, Murdoch could implement a change to cut off search engines now.

To stop search engines from indexing your site you simply add a tiny text file to the root directory. It’s beyond simple and can be totally accomplished with one line of code. The Journal, or any news site, could do that in a few minutes.

Not only is that not what Murdoch’s doing–he is doing the opposite!

If you go to the Wall Street Journal site you’ll find many (not all) stories run for a few paragraphs and then stop with “…” Here’s an example I found in a link from the Journal’s home page:

As of July, nearly 90% of U.S. households paid for television either from cable, satellite or phone companies rather …

It’s obvious the story continues, but it only continues for subscribers.

However, if you enter that same sentence fragment into Google you get a link to the full Journal story!

As of July, nearly 90% of U.S. households paid for television either from cable, satellite or phone companies rather than getting it free from broadcast stations, according to Nielsen.

The Google link and the direct link from WSJ’s home page produce the same URL link. I believe WSJ’s website is configured to deliver the full content when the referrer is Google or Yahoo!, etc.&#185

The URL for the Sky News story I quoted at the beginning of this post is optimized to make it more visible to search engines. Many of the story’s key words are embedded in it: http://news.sky.com/skynews/Home/Business/News-Corp-Chief-Executive-Rupert-Murdoch-Tells-World-Media-Summit-Search-Engines-Must-Pay-For-News/Article/200910215402865?lpos=Business_First_Buisness_Article_Teaser_Region_0&lid=ARTICLE_15402865_News_Corp_Chief_Executive_Rupert_Murdoch_Tells_World_Media_Summit_Search_Engines_Must_Pay_For_News_.

The Journal and Sky probably do this because search engines drive traffic to their sites. Without the search engines wsj.com and sky.com would see a lot fewer hits. They are making money from those hits–though certainly not as much as they want nor probably not enough to survive in their current business model.

Murdoch blames the search engines, but the truth is the entire business model for advertiser supported information is broken. The type of journalism the Wall Street Journal, New York Times and other ‘classic’ news sources provide is dependent on selling high cost advertising.

Unfortunately, the same eyeball on the net is worth a lot less than in the paper or on TV. It’s a matter of supply and demand. The Internet has opened up the supply so there’s nearly an infinite number of places to run your ad.

Murdoch will grouse and yell and flail like the bully he’s always been–but he’s screwed and he knows it. He’s not in that boat alone. Mass media as we know it is terribly ill.

&#185 – My research on this is less than voluminous. How they do it isn’t as important as the fact they do it.

A New Network

Recently the UPN and WB TV networks decided to merge and form CW. News Corp (aka Rupert Murdoch), which owns the Fox Network and also a few UPN stations was left out in the cold. Today, their revenge: “My Network TV.”

I’ve attached the NewsCorp press release after the jump, but basically this little network will premiere with two telenovellas.

Though seldom seen in the English speaking United States, novellas are a mainstay of Spanish television here and lots of networks worldwide.

Maybe the word novella is a bit pretentious. These are soap operas, in prime time, Unlike most nighttime network dramas we see now, these will be shot on videotape (or whatever the next generation of video storage turns out to be), not film.

I would expect these to be sexy, steamy soap operas – as far as the envelope can be pushed.

If, and this is a big if, one character or one story line gets ‘hot’, this will be the best investment in modern television. “My Network TV,” more than any other network, will be driven by the power of word-of-mouth. One of these telenovellas could get hot in an instant.

Here in Connecticut, it’s certainly possible My Network TV will be offered to WCTX, our UPN affiliate. I have no knowledge of any inside dealings and would expect to be kept out of the loop, as you would expect with any employee who had no need to know.

It is seldom you see old line media making creative moves like this which might build over-the-air viewing. This is definitely out of the box thinking, probably by Roger Ailes (also responsible for Fox News Channel).

I am worried I won’t approve of the final product which is presented. Still, I have to say I am pleased that there’s still creative thinking going on at the network television level.

Continue reading “A New Network”