MySpace users to pull TV into their place

Stan Beer
Tuesday, 16 May 2006 18:52

Your IT - Home IT

TV as we know it may soon change forever, with the announcement that MySpace, Fox Interactive Media's social networking site, is to offer TV show downloads.

Starting with the hit suspense series "24", MySpace, which claims to have more than 75 million members, will offer users downloads of the current as well as previous series for $1.99 an episode. In so doing, Fox has set up its own site to be in direct competition to Apple's iTunes store, which also offers downloads of the series as well as others from Fox at the same price.

News Corp, which paid $580 million for MySpace last year, appears to have known exactly what it was doing. By acquiring and building on a huge social network of members, it has created a ready made captive audience of tens of millions of cult followers for its entertainment packages. It has also unbundled and repackaged TV shows into a pull model instead of the traditional push model, enabling users to purchase, download and watch shows at their leisure.

In a media release, Ross Levinsohn, president of Fox Interactive Media said, “Our members are avid fans of these shows and are consuming video at a rapid pace, making MySpace the perfect distribution channel for programmers looking to innovate new models.”

Reportedly, the first two episodes of the new series of "24" will be available for free download as a result of a sponsorship deal with Burger King. Obviously, Fox knows that TV series can be habit forming. How this will affect audiences of Fox's traditional push TV products remains to be seen. {moscommment}