Content Monetisation, Ways to Unlock the Value of Content.

What are the options for content monetisation? And what are the criteria for generating revenue?

There are several ways apart from traditional distribution for content owners to generate revenue by distributing original programmes or breathing life into existing libraries. Of course, a prerequisite is ownership of the IP and, for older material, getting your hands on it. An infamous true story relates to the Peter Cooke/Dudley Moore TV series, `Not only, But also`, an eager cost-conscious bean counter at the BBC taped over several of the shows to save buying more tapes! It seemed a good idea 60 years ago. Foresight is a great thing; the future value of an enormous amount of TV shows in the early days of TV was simply not appreciated.

Three channels available for content monetisation are FAST ( Free Ad Supplied Streaming TV), SVOD (Subscription Video on Demand), and YouTube. There are over 300 FAST channels with a huge audience that do not want to commit to paid subscriptions. To watch an SVOD channel, you need to pay a subscription, but the popularity of these channels is borne out when you consider that in the current year, it is estimated that £119 billion will be generated from worldwide revenue.

You Tube is a popular source of revenue for both old and new content. Revenue is generated for content owners from adverts and is paid out according to the channel’s popularity. In order to open an account, you need to show that your content has generated 4000 hours of viewing time in the last 365 days and that you have 1000 subscribers.

You will then be required to sign `Base Terms` and open up an Absense Account. This is a bank account, owned by Google into which your earnings will be paid monthly. You need to generate $ 100 before you get paid. Your earnings will vary on the set rate paid by advertisers. To generate, say, $2000 per month, you will need roughly 400,000 to 800,000 views per month. I am aware of some content owners generating north of $20k per month

There seems to have always been buried treasures that suddenly become valuable: gold, oil, and, latterly, lithium and rare earths for electronic batteries, well now content can be added to the list

A final thought is to consider the potential enhanced brand value of your product by reaching out to a wider audience.

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