Myspace TV Goes Global

Myspace is going to distribute its original internet content internationally in conjunction with ShineReveille. Apparently, it will be Myspace's way of testing out new content and then eventually, they're going to sell their entertainment.

It's going to be a way for the Internet giant to test out ideas and see if their content will sink or float. If you've seen their original content, like "Quarterlife," "Prom Queen," and "Roommates," you'll understand why I think this is the dumbest business idea I've heard in 2008...that I can remember.

Tom made one big mistake this time.

I gotta hand it to Myspace, they're still super huge, inspite of the fact that Facebook is slowly but surely gaining on them. If you have either a myspace or a facebook, you'll appreciate that myspace is definitely stealing a bunch of ideas from facebook. You can have your own status now, you can view the status of your friend's recently updated pages, you can see who's changed what on their pages--all ideas that Facebook had up first. But I digress...

I understand the idea behind shipping entertainment overseas to see whether it will sink or swim. The music industry has been doing that for decades -- they ship unsuccessful artists overseas, mainly Europe or Asia, gain exposure and experience and re-release them here in the States, often times with incredible success. So I'm guessing, that based on that idea, Myspace went for this low-cost way of testing their entertainment.

I'm no fan of the Myspace original series'. I watched half of one and felt like shooting myself. This may or may not work, and I'd say the scales are tipped more towards may not. It's worked with the music industry but music is much more universal. You don't need to understand the words to appreciate a song. Shipping movies internationally is also a bit different. To the best of my knowledge, the most successful movies shipped overseas are the big action flicks...again, not hard to understand. Things blow up. People get shot. Simple.

US TV shows have been enjoying a resurgence in Germany. Apparently, on one station, there's an all American TV night every Tuesday. But American TV shows in other places haven't been exceptionally popular since the 80's. And the shows that do get big across the pond are ones that are INSANELY popular here already, and again, they have a good amount of action and gore, like CSI, Lost, 24. Friends is the only comedy that I know of that's been popular abroad. In the end, the trend is that awesome TV shows here sometimes make it moderately big abroad. Also, buying rights to American shows is much cheaper than producing a show yourself abroad.

Still, this article says that American shows are having a resurgence abroad. True or not, the trend is that successful American shows come from the US and then go abroad. They haven't yet been made abroad, and then been launched at home. It sounds backwards to me. Plus, those Myspace shows are ABSOLUTE crap. I'm predicting this to be a huge flop on the part of myspace...

I'd be happily surprised if I'm proved wrong...