Perspective: The new name of the media game

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As online subscription services spread their video around and sell downloadable prime time shows, the old media giants have tried to find new revenue to keep up. Now that the rules of the game have changed, old plays don't work as well.

And who wins in this Darwinian struggle (apologies to Kansas) depends on who plays this new media game best.

"Game" is an important analogy. Why will daily printed news shrink to a small puddle in the media swamp? On the Pacific coast, Tuesday's national edition of The New York Times' doesn't have Monday night football results. The paper is put to bed on East Coast time. Duh.

But those scores are posted in real time on myriad Web sites and are even available on your cell phone. End of game, daily paper boys. Maybe print just a Sunday edition from now on? Major newspaper Web sites have reported increasing traffic, but will the revenue growth be enough to save the team?

To understand who?s up and who?s down in American media, follow sports contracts.

In TV, the Fox Network transformed itself from being a target for sniggering rivals to a source of competitive pain when it bought NFL games. And after cable channels began carrying live football, baseball and basketball, the "Big 3" networks no longer dominated national television.

The men who own, run and populate the boards of American corporations are often sports fans. Sports metaphors can dominate business meetings. And the most valuable demographic to advertisers, the upscale male, is hard to get in front of a TV set unless his favorite sporting event is live.

Power and money congregate around major American professional sports. The rest of the world can only marvel at the cost of a thirty-second spot that runs during the Super Bowl (a sport the rest of the world doesn't even try to understand).

Everything the American TV networks and newspapers are doing online is experimental, small scale, and a hedge against future trends. It's a whole new ballgame when Yahoo, Google, MSN or a "newspaper" Web site, or even JohnDoe.us buys exclusive rights to a major sporting event. Some sport institutions, such as the NFL, retain many of their online rights.

So watch the contract fights for the rights to broadcast Major League Baseball, the Orange Bowl, the NCAA basketball playoffs, and the major PGA tournaments. Those are events that media moguls watch and where the most valued viewers gather. Advertising dollars follow. New media or old: think sports rights. That's the name of that game.

Biography
Harry Fuller is an executive editor at CNET News.com.

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[BDEEKMAN]

Proof that CNET is capable of intelliegent reporting

Leave it to an executive editor to show the scoffers that credible,
intelligent content can be found at CNET.

As a frequent reader of the content on the CNET news website, I
wish to express my disappointment in what appears to be a
growing trend towards hyped-up "news" articles and
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While far from the majority of the content fits the category of
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