How many eyeballs could Revision 3 seriously offer though? His show is geared towards an average viewership in the millions... nightly. If they couldn't offer that scale on a nightly basis, it might not be worth it.
Part of the appeal of a late night show is that it can be on as you're going to bed... something light and comedic to help get you to sleep. How many people have a device that is able to view Rev3 content hooked up to a TV in the bedroom? I'd guess that a majority of people view that content on their PCs, and rarely nightly. I'd love to see some viewship stats on that.
But, let's say that you could provide the eyes for an advertiser supported nightly show. If you really want it to work, you'd need to make deals with at least Apple for AppleTV/iTunes and/or a company like Roku to sell dedicated devices. It might even be possible to sell these at a discount if you could guarantee some sort of advertiser kick-back.
Another potential problem: with their ownership structure, I'm not sure you could count on Hulu serving it either.
I think you're taking this too seriously. Conan could likely buy Revision 3 with about half his NBC payout (if it's around what has been reported). Compete puts Revision3's uniques around 110,000 while Conan regularly averaged 2.8 million. Conan would be better off on radio at this point(Dennis Miller has a radio talk show which averages a little under a million listeners a week).
Internet TV may be the future (I wouldn't even venture a guess) but it's a future that's still a while off. This is just attention grabbing.
I'm looking at it from the point of view that this is an entirely ridiculous proposition.
But, given that, could it work? What would be needed? When do you start to move into the realm where this is possible?
It's the MythBusters philosophy at work: show that a myth is utterly busted... then figure out how to really do it. Preferably with a large amount of explosives... :)
If Conan were to actually move from NBC to Revision3, I think the event would pretty much qualify as the beginning in earnest of the long-brewing IPTV vs. broadcast TV war. What could possibly happen next?
And I have a giant monitor. But you and me are unique in that we realize this can be done, and have a 'spare' computer 9that we're not using for personal use) to do it.
This actually isn't too far from the truth. He did take a job with HDNet, which I don't think at the time had a news division. HDNet is the TV version of a startup, so how is starting a new IPTV nightly show at Revision3 that much different?
My point is that Revision3 is kidding themselves if they think someone with 5 million daily viewers would consider moving to a network with 5 million views per month.
Internet TV will surely replace broadcast TV, but it won't be today and it won't be Conan O'Brian.
Of course Revision 3 knows this. It's just a clever PR stunt.
I agree that it's all just a PR stunt. I don't think that any IPTV company could seriously claim the ability to provide enough daily viewers to support a show like Conan's.
I suspect that even Fox will have issues getting a show like Conan's up and running. There are too many affiliate issues to start something like that up quickly. Perhaps by the fall, but then again, maybe not. Fox hasn't had the best record with late night programming. If Fox doesn't pan out, he may end up looking at a basic or premium (showtime) cable offering anyway. If that's the case, the required number of viewers goes down significantly.
But, the more I think about it, I think it just might be crazy enough to work. But it would require a big push from IPTV hardware companies to get going. Instead, I think a more likely scenario would be a traditional show with a bigger online presence. Something similar to the way the Daily Show will put up interviews that run long on their website.
Perhaps a small-ish 30-60 minute show that broadcasts normally, with extra content online. Maybe even an entire web-only show once a week.
But anything like this would require a big commitment by the host, and I don't know if Conan is enough of a geek to commit to something this risky just for the sake of pushing IPTV.
Pretty hard to move to "the future" when "the present" is paying you $20 million or so a year, and its only the delivery method that "the future" changes, not really the job itself (and even a move to Fox or Comedy Central would probably pay him at least $10 million, if not a lot closer to what he's current making). Good PR move to throw it out there through since it will get them a bit of attention.
Part of the appeal of a late night show is that it can be on as you're going to bed... something light and comedic to help get you to sleep. How many people have a device that is able to view Rev3 content hooked up to a TV in the bedroom? I'd guess that a majority of people view that content on their PCs, and rarely nightly. I'd love to see some viewship stats on that.
But, let's say that you could provide the eyes for an advertiser supported nightly show. If you really want it to work, you'd need to make deals with at least Apple for AppleTV/iTunes and/or a company like Roku to sell dedicated devices. It might even be possible to sell these at a discount if you could guarantee some sort of advertiser kick-back.
Another potential problem: with their ownership structure, I'm not sure you could count on Hulu serving it either.