One Door Closes...

and a window opens up.

Industry-ites are discussing the fact that a strike by writers this fall would probably fuel the growth of more online initiatives and content.

You can read the back-and-forth here.

In the discussion, one thing that struck me was the idea that the producers were "devaluing" the content by putting it online:

Discovery Communications prexy/CEO David Zaslav noted that the bigger challenge for him was adjusting to how people consume content.
For starters, Zaslav questioned "the economics of putting content on new media platforms.
"If we get a check, it's tiny," he said. "Do we devalue the content entirely?"

Now this tells me that executives don't YET understand the nuances of the new business model the web is providing. Yes the checks are small, but:

• There's more of them...you can place media in a variety of channels
• The net's a platform for advertising, so the economic spillover to other media is calculable
• It's a lot cheaper

The web is new. It's not television. It's not movies. Different rules apply.
And the good thing is that those rules haven't been set in stone yet. There's tons of wiggle room.

Edit to Add:

And Scott Kirsner over at Cinematech (see sidebar) comes in with a one-two punch on how companies are using that "wiggle room" to include phones.