When you read “Surprise Guest Speaker” on the agenda at an executive offsite meeting taking place in Las Vegas, guessing can be fun. Siegfried & Roy? Cher? Don Rickles? But at this 2008 gathering of NBC Universal’s senior leadership team, there would be no singing, white tigers, or insults. We would be in store for a good surprise though.
Over the previous decade, traditional broadcasting companies like NBC, once largely dismissive of cable TV, had learned to adapt. NBC had CNBC and USA, and ABC had ESPN and the Disney Channel, e.g. You didn’t need an MBA to grasp the concept of dual revenue streams. You mean we get subscriber fees AND advertising money? Yes please, and thank you.
But the late aughts were fraught with new tensions between established media companies and emerging tech businesses, and frenemies abounded. In 2007, NBC pulled its shows from Apple’s iTunes Store over a pricing dispute. NBC wanted to charge different prices for certain shows, but Apple wanted uniformity. So when Steve Jobs took the stage to address our offsite in Las Vegas, the atmosphere was pretty electric.
The most memorable exchange came when one of my colleagues challenged Jobs on the pricing policy. Jobs snarled at our group, “How much money did NBC invest to invent the DVD player? Nothing. How much money has NBC made from that invention? Billions.” Soon thereafter, NBC would be back on iTunes.
Local news might consider that lesson as it tries to find its footing after decades of decline. NewsBreak is an AI-powered local everything company that empowers local publishers, creators, journalists, and businesses. The same way that the iTunes Store represented a new home and fresh revenue stream for content, NewsBreak is creating a new ecosystem for all things local. And like iTunes, by design NewsBreak only succeeds when its partners succeed.
There are many wonderful, well-intentioned local news providers and local businesses that are struggling, not because they don’t have quality content, but mainly because the tech of it all has been so overwhelming. In Las Vegas, Steve Jobs empathized with NBC’s predicament at the time as a company that was being disrupted, commenting that “constantly trying to see around corners is really hard but it’s essential.” (As it turned out, NBC corporate parent GE got tired of looking around corners in the media business and would soon be in talks to sell NBC to Comcast.)
“The Office” only survived being canceled in 2005-6 because Apple’s innovations gave it new life. It would go on to become one of Netflix’s all-time most popular shows and in 2019 NBC paid half a billion dollars to secure future streaming rights. It was, and is, terrific content. And it almost didn’t make it. Today, as their business models have gone awry, far too many local news outlets aren’t making it. They need to know that NewsBreak is just around the corner, and aims to be part of the solution.
