Download $1 billion in online revenue

For my day-job, I had to understand the makeup of traditional vs. online revenue. For most traditional media properties, the revenue allocation is 95% from traditional sources (print, broadcast) to 5% for online. New York Times generates 90% of its revenue from advertising in print, and 10% from online.

As you can imagine, I was really surprised by Walt Disney Co announcement that they expect to collect one billion dollars in revenue from online content in 2008. Walt Disney CEO, Robert Iger said that the company has been “fairly aggressive” in its expansion to new media. Disney used tactics that need to be used more by traditional media- they advertised their online property over broadcast shows.

Still, online accounts for less than 3% of companies’ revenue, meaning Disney has ways to go.

No Golden Statue for the Oscar

Oscar drew record low ratings, down by 1 million viewers from the lowest year 2003 to 32M viewers. "American Idol," the most popular U.S. series, averages 30 million viewers a week on its average broadcast. The movies features could explain the record numbers, none were box office successes. Business week said, NO BIG MOVIE MEANS NO BIG AUDIENCE. ABC tried to put a positive spin on low numbers, reports MediaWeek: “ABC tried to put a good face on the declines, pointing out the larger number of viewers could have watched the telecast in DVR playback, and that the telecast pulled in more viewers than any of the other awards shows this season.”

I watched bits and pieces of the award ceremony, and was stunned how disconnected the award ceremony and the humor was from the public.