Ads To Drive Internet

Television Digest with Consumer Electronics,  March 13, 2000  

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Tenth annual media conference "The Big picture: The Business of Entertainment" April 4 has outgrown its former hotel in N.Y.C. and it will feature 3 keynote speakers -- Steve Case of America Online, Michael Eisner of Disney, FCC Chmn. Kennard. CBS's Mel Karmazin and Viacom's Sumner Redstone, who are awaiting govt. approval of Viacom takeover of CBS, will be interviewed by David Frost. Participating on TV, cable and new media panel: News Corp. Pres. Peter Chernin, ABC TV Network Pres. Patricia Fili- Krushel, DirecTV Pres. Eddy Hartenstein, CBS TV Pres. Leslie Moonves, NBC Pres. Robert Wright, Comcast Pres. Brian Roberts. "Movie Business" panel includes International Creative Chmn. Jeffrey Berg, Arnon Milchan, founder of New Regency Productions, New Line Cinema Chmn. Robert Shaye, Miramax Films Co-Chmn. Harvey Weinstein and Alex Yemenidjian, chmn. of MGM Studios. Internet panel, to be moderated by NBC's Tom Brokaw, will include Excite @Home Pres. George Bell, Amazon.com CEO Jeffrey Bezos, NBCi CEO Chris Kitz, DoubleClick CEO Kevin O'Connor and Jay Walker, vice chmn.-founder of Priceline.com. One-day conference, co-sponsored by Schroeder & Co. and Variety magazine, will shift from Pierre Hotel to Grand Hyatt.

Disney's Go.com is preparing for enhanced TV with its online offerings that seek to complement TV programs on ABC and other networks, executives said. Exec. Vp Dick Glover pointed to Super Bowl telecast, during which 650,000 people logged on to Go.com site for at least half hour, along with Drew Carey Webcast. TV programs with such integrated Web elements see their ratings go up, not down, he said. When platform convergence arrives and Internet elements are available on same TV as broadcast, accessing both simultaneously "will be natural for our users," Glover said. Meanwhile, Go.com sought to reposition itself as portal that focuses on entertainment, sports and leisure. "The Internet is growing too fast for a portal to be all things for all people," executive said, and different portals "will become known for different things." He said new focus will "provide a more compelling, differentiated experience." Senior Vp-Ad Sales Scot Schiller said Disney for first time this year will offer Internet ad sales as it sells upfront for ABC TV Network. ABC sells $3.5 billion worth of ads during that time, he said, and it would be "significant" if Go.com could capture just 1% of that. TV ad industry "has been resistant to change," he said, but this isn't "new model we're selling -- it's simply a new medium."

Extending its global reach, Discovery Communications intends to unveil regional versions of its health and travel networks in Europe, Latin America, India and Asia this year. Plans call for launching Discovery Health as 24-hour channel in U.K. and Latin America this summer, placing it in at least 8 million digital broadcast and cable homes by year-end. At same time, health network will supply weekly, 2-hour programming blocks for Discovery Channel viewers in India and Asia, reaching another 58 million households. Similarly, Discovery Travel & Adventure, already available in U.K., Scandinavia and parts of Eastern Europe, will roll out as 24-hour channel in rest of Europe and Latin America, as well as weekly 2-hour programming block in India, during 3rd quarter. In conference call with reporters, Discovery executives said $100-million effort is part of cable programmer's drive to develop its "15 entertainment brands" worldwide. Discovery Kids and People & Arts joint venture with BBC seem likely to follow as full-time international networks. "There really is no end point," said Dawn McCall, pres., Discovery Networks International. "We're always looking at which ones make sense to roll out globally."