The important question for content producers in 2009 is how to make money with online video. Is it through advertising and sponsorship? Pre-roll, post-roll and banner ads wrapped around video? Or will there be a new way to connect advertisers with audiences and drive engagement?

At a recent PaidContent event we filmed in Los Angeles, a network icon and a new media upstart traded strategies on leveraging online content.

ABC has been a first mover among traditional media in the online space. It was the first of the networks to show full length TV shows online and — through their relationship with Move Networks — to provide full screen video.

Part of the reason for ABC’s quick embrace of High Definition 16×9 streaming was because of piracy — they realized that if people find better video quality through p2p networks they will still go there to access your content unless you can match it with your own offerings.

Still, despite being a first mover among the networks, ABC does not syndicate their content through YouTube, Hulu or other UGC networks. Instead, they view sites such as YouTube as great promotional resources for short form content, but not as a distribution outlet for their full offerings.

In fact, YouTube does not come up when consumers are asked where they go to watch long form video or full TV episodes. Instead, consumers reference ABC.com, NBC.com, FOX.com, CBS.com, that is, the majors’ Web sites.

ABC’s rationale for not syndicating through Hulu is that the company believes it important that people understand that the content comes from the ABC brand, and wants to have complete control of that experience.

This doesn’t mean that ABC believes people should only view their content on an ABC controlled domain. Its ABC Open platform allows software developers to create applications that pull ABC content into them via RSS feeds and APIs. This helps ABC push content out, yet still retain quality control and brand messaging.

EQAL, on the other hand, is a new media start-up and has neither the legacy challenges — such as having to block international access to its online content so they don’t breach existing distribution contracts — nor the benefits of an ABC.

Instead, EQAL focuses on two things: technology that allows them to launch community based web sites around content, and their internal production company that produces shows such as lonelygirl15.

Monetizing content, and quantifying that monetization remains illusive though. While ABC knows what they make for every viewer in broadcast, what they get per online viewer remains opaque. They do claim to want to make more per online viewer though than offline.

For EQAL, the understanding is that people are consuming content more than ever, and want to socialize around that content. Because of that, EQAL considers itself an audience company that build social media communities and partners with content producers, whether new media producers or TV and Movie studios. They believe that is a more scalable business than trying to create hit after hit themselves.

This intuitively makes sense. Just as one hit does not make a movie studio. One hit does not make an online studio either.

Moderated by Rafat Ali, Founder, Publisher and Editor of ContentNext Media, Panelists include:

  • Miles Beckett, Co-Founder and CEO, EQAL; Co-Creator and Executive Producer, lonelygirl15 and KateModern
  • Albert Cheng, EVP, Digital Media, Disney—ABC Television Group
  • Lewis Henderson, SVP — Head of Digital, William Morris Agency

Enjoy