The New York Times took at thorough look at the "slivercasting" phenomenon in a longish Sunday, March 12 story by business reporter
Saul Hansell. See "
As Internet TV Aims at Niche Audiences, the Slivercast Is Born."
Hansell points out that while big media firms are hogging the spotlight on online video programing, "[p]erhaps more interesting — and, arguably, more important — are the thousands of producers whose programming would never make it into prime time but who have very dedicated small audiences."
The reporter cites, as an example, a new sailing channel, SailTV, started by an afficianado fed up with the limited sailing news he was seeing on TV in his home country of Britain. I'm a sailing fan, so I checked out what the channel provided. Take a look. I was pleasantly surprised by the high production values -- which always seem to be an issue with such bottom-up narrowcasting (remember public access cable, anyone?).
Another concern Hansell's piece mentions only in passing is whether slivercasters might find business models to allow them to survive. Hansell quotes Discovery Communications CEO John Hendricks, who cites the jammed-packed magazine racks at the local bookstore as an illustration of the unleashing of Americans' special interests. But correct me if I'm wrong -- isn't the failure rate for new magazines extremely high?
Samir Husni, journalism department chair at the University of Mississippi (also known as "Mr. Magazine"), had research a couple of years back which found that 60 percent of magazines fail in their first year, 80 percent by their fourth year and 90 percent by their 10th year.
Is there a more successful business model for slivercasting?
