Internet TV had been the talk of the town but no networks, or anyone, had made an attempt at doing one. The controversial Beck is making the ballsy move and all network eyes are watching.
Wall Street Journal reported that Beck already has more subscribers then Oprah Winfrey has viewers for her “OWN” network. They also predict along with Forbes, that he will make more money with the network then he ever had before:
Because Mr. Beck owns the show and the network, he could make substantially more than the $2.5 million salary he got each year at Fox. GBTV is on track to take in more than $20 million in revenue in its debut year, according to a person close to the company.
The television industry will be watching closely to see whether the TV host can preserve his popularity while migrating to the Web, where efforts to get consumers to pay to watch online-only channels are just beginning.
When Mr. Beck announced GBTV in June, the network had 80,000 subscribers. In the months since, GBTV subscribers have swelled to more than 230,000, according to people close to the network, even though Mr. Beck‘s show hasn’t yet begun.
The audience is far less than the more than 2.2 million daily viewers his program on Fox drew, on average, over its 27-month run, which ended in June after clashes with the network’s management.
But it is more than the average 156,000 people who were watching the Oprah Winfrey Network in June.
With this great experiment we could see the beginning of the end of television and cable networks. Beck’s launch begins at 4pm ET.
[...] The Suit Original Source [...]