250k for a niche content show in technology is HUGE. G4 TV/Tech TV would have 10-50k folks watching on a regular basis.

diggnation prob. has 1/3rd that number watch each show... so, 75k folks watching is just amazing.

75k x $50CPM x 50 shoes a year = great money.

Media is kind to new ventures that don't compete. "Diggnation" is not a success until they run the first "threat to children" story about it.

Considering they make 50-100 grand a week on almost zero investment, then yes, it's a HUGE success.  

DL.TV, TWiT and Revision3 are all pulling bigger numbers than TechTV every had.  The shows are accessable worldwide by anyone with an Internet connection, and they bypass the big media chokehold -- Awwww.

I've decided. And it depends on which direction the barometer is going. If it's 250k viewers and falling, it would be failing. If it's 250k viewers and rising...get on the bandwagon.

For an emerging technology (pod/netcasting) and a niche show? A quarter of a million pairs of eyeballs is amazing. Soon, they'll be matching and exceeding the primetime ratings of MSNBC. Is anyone cancelling MSNBC? Is Keith Olbermann on the way out? No, of course not. His ratings, though lower than Bill O'Reilly, are increasing, especially in the money demo.

I'm sure they've already get more viewers each week than Rose's previous employer G4. So the real question is this...if you're a tech company, why would you buy on G4 and not on any Rev3 shows? Early adopters are watching Rev3, not G4. Cool is being decided there.

"Jason, you are totally right -- but is Diggnation going to stay a niche tech show?"

Diggnation is, yeah sure, that's the whole point of the Revision3 umbrella.  It allows them to expand into other shows without having to break that niche for their current shows.

Sure that doesn't imply the same sort of "success" that Diggnation has.  I think that's the good thing about IPTV, it's a lot more easier to take risks.

250k downloads does not equal 250k viewers. These are only the downloads you can count. There are sites (namely diggdown.net) that redistribute Diggnation. There's also people who download diggnation, burn it to a CD and bring it over to a friends house to watch on a TV. The point is, you can't really make any assumptions about the success of the show based on the number of downloads. I'll give you that there's not really much else to go on in this space, but I don't think you can say Diggnation is a success or a failure based on those numbers either.

Traditional cable channels require a tremendous amount of overhead, from satellite transponders to highly paid cable sales execs that wine and dine Comcast and Cox.  And don't get me started on the talent....

These new internet-based shows are attracting a loyal, passionate audience that's learning something and being entertained in a different way.  It doesn't have to be "Survivor" type audience numbers to be successful.  What it does need, however, is an easier way for advertisers to buy across all the shows in a predictable and reportable way, so that they don't have to track and verify a thousand different tiny ad insertions.  And it needs some sort of way to guarantee how many eyeballs actually watched.

I wasn't aware there was an internet TV station.  I thought the only "TV" that existed were regular TV, cable TV and satellite TV

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