• The Hollywood Reporter, Tuesday, February 14, 2006 12 PM

Hollywood Reporter Contributing Editor Diane Mermigas opines on the sudden increase of new streams of revenue-generating content making a la carte pricing of cable channels look less threatening than originally expected. What does this mean? The big boys are making sure they're not left in the dust by making changes, launching new products to keep THEIR revenue stream flowing. Mermigas notes that Comcast has recently revealed plans to add "fresh" commercials to its video-on-demand product. "Already in its early dealings with new digital distributors and platforms, the broadcast networks are creating their own competitive options. Clearly, content providers prefer to keep 100 percent of the profits generated from the new-media distribution of their programming on their own Web sites instead of sharing in a 70-30 split with such platforms as Apple's iTunes and DirecTV (or the standard 50-50 split in pay-per-view, or the 60-40 split in video-on-demand)," said Mermigas. Given the infancy of such distribution deals, it's unknown whether they will help or hinder big media companies.

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