Kent TV, it's just a blog ya'know
Written by Matt B · first published 11/12/2008
Kent TV, it's KCCs extraordinarily expensive Vlog (Video blog) with a custom flash player, but is it actually any good. Tony clearly has an opinion but what about the rest of us?
In short is it the Huffington Post of Kent Communications or the Pownce of video?
Culture Note for newer blog fans: The world of blogging can be divided into pre Huffington and post Huffington because it completely redefined what was possible whereas pownce is has been shut down by new owners Six Apart for being massively unpopular and a massive cost drain.
Kent TV has going for it £1.4 million in backing and has had "one million visitors" that's a cost per person of £1.40. While this is not unreasonable that's not exactly value for money when you consider Google sells traffic in the form of the AdWords program for as little as 1p a click (after you convert from dollars). Assuming that they are not counting hits but something crude but more indicative (say video stream requests given videos auto play the moment I allow flash to be enabled) at an unspecified audience quality I could supply that same level of traffic for around 0.75 million
It has provided 1,400 giving an average cost of £714.29 per video. A straw poll of videos shows the length to fall between 4.5 and 12 minutes with the average being about 7. That means that each video cost £100 a minute to make meaning if they were feature length they would cost around £90,000 each. Yet what value are each of these videos?
And here is another question - they make massive assumptions about the technical ability of the browsers, computers and users of the site. They assume that I am too stupid to pick the optimum quality level for my bandwidth, that my browser and every one else's uses JavaScript and that I have flash installed and up to date.
If that one was a bit on the geeky side what about this. Kent TV is there is create discussion but a debate in a media to which we the people are not invited. We are expected to listen only but not contribute. The blogging revolution, the Web 2.0 culture, the rise of social media has been about breaking old one way communication methods and making them two way. But by locking out opposing discussion they are saying "you are too dumb to contribute" we the old media are in control.
Frankly I don't much care for that. If the world would go back to that way of playing then China Gate, the Sericol leak and a number of other vital stories would never have seen the light of day. Instead we can ask the hard questions and expect to get answers. Kent TV is, in my opinion, an attempt to jump on a band wagon that is not so well understood with unclear aims beyond taking control of an unoccupied niche.
YouTube make no such assumptions and offer me the fastest version they have and know that I'll pick Hi Def if I care to use it. YouTube trust me to paste a flash embed segment of code into my own blog but KentTV expect me to allow them to run JavaScript from their site on mine. Just so you know if Kent TV is ever significantly compromised the crackers will be able to run cross site scripting attacks on every single site with KentTV code. What's more my site is not good enough to get the highest quality version - I have to make do with the external only edition which they don't use internally.
In short Kent TV appears to reinvent the wheel and has not done the best job possible. Where it a start up it would be laughed at by the big boys. Consider that only recently has Kent TV with it's million pound budget over taken Thanet Star's alexa rank (an indicator of the rate of visitation) and only then by a negligible 50,000 places in the world ranking of sites with 19.2% of it's traffic coming from outside the UK (compared to our 14%).
That has both of us beating TDC's website by the way.
Do you recall that niche I spoke of just moments ago. That Local TV niche. It would be a simple mater for a group with substantially less money to do better than Kent TV with little more than a digital video camera and some passion for their home area. Thanet springs to mind as having that passion and that group identity.
It falls once more to us to take the lead in social and online media and show the world that we the people control the news and do not stand for hijacked or personal agendas. We will communicate and we will have answers.
In short is it the Huffington Post of Kent Communications or the Pownce of video?
Culture Note for newer blog fans: The world of blogging can be divided into pre Huffington and post Huffington because it completely redefined what was possible whereas pownce is has been shut down by new owners Six Apart for being massively unpopular and a massive cost drain.
Kent TV has going for it £1.4 million in backing and has had "one million visitors" that's a cost per person of £1.40. While this is not unreasonable that's not exactly value for money when you consider Google sells traffic in the form of the AdWords program for as little as 1p a click (after you convert from dollars). Assuming that they are not counting hits but something crude but more indicative (say video stream requests given videos auto play the moment I allow flash to be enabled) at an unspecified audience quality I could supply that same level of traffic for around 0.75 million
It has provided 1,400 giving an average cost of £714.29 per video. A straw poll of videos shows the length to fall between 4.5 and 12 minutes with the average being about 7. That means that each video cost £100 a minute to make meaning if they were feature length they would cost around £90,000 each. Yet what value are each of these videos?
And here is another question - they make massive assumptions about the technical ability of the browsers, computers and users of the site. They assume that I am too stupid to pick the optimum quality level for my bandwidth, that my browser and every one else's uses JavaScript and that I have flash installed and up to date.
If that one was a bit on the geeky side what about this. Kent TV is there is create discussion but a debate in a media to which we the people are not invited. We are expected to listen only but not contribute. The blogging revolution, the Web 2.0 culture, the rise of social media has been about breaking old one way communication methods and making them two way. But by locking out opposing discussion they are saying "you are too dumb to contribute" we the old media are in control.
Frankly I don't much care for that. If the world would go back to that way of playing then China Gate, the Sericol leak and a number of other vital stories would never have seen the light of day. Instead we can ask the hard questions and expect to get answers. Kent TV is, in my opinion, an attempt to jump on a band wagon that is not so well understood with unclear aims beyond taking control of an unoccupied niche.
YouTube make no such assumptions and offer me the fastest version they have and know that I'll pick Hi Def if I care to use it. YouTube trust me to paste a flash embed segment of code into my own blog but KentTV expect me to allow them to run JavaScript from their site on mine. Just so you know if Kent TV is ever significantly compromised the crackers will be able to run cross site scripting attacks on every single site with KentTV code. What's more my site is not good enough to get the highest quality version - I have to make do with the external only edition which they don't use internally.
In short Kent TV appears to reinvent the wheel and has not done the best job possible. Where it a start up it would be laughed at by the big boys. Consider that only recently has Kent TV with it's million pound budget over taken Thanet Star's alexa rank (an indicator of the rate of visitation) and only then by a negligible 50,000 places in the world ranking of sites with 19.2% of it's traffic coming from outside the UK (compared to our 14%).
That has both of us beating TDC's website by the way.
Do you recall that niche I spoke of just moments ago. That Local TV niche. It would be a simple mater for a group with substantially less money to do better than Kent TV with little more than a digital video camera and some passion for their home area. Thanet springs to mind as having that passion and that group identity.
It falls once more to us to take the lead in social and online media and show the world that we the people control the news and do not stand for hijacked or personal agendas. We will communicate and we will have answers.
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ThanetStar.com - 3 of the best from Thanet 
Dave wrote:
The actual value of the contract awarded to the contractor was £1.2 million over 2 years so the cost per film is lower than your figure.
(plus KCC's own start up costs and all the time spent on it by councillors.)
The contractors spokesperson has recently said this on KentTV:
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Bob Geldof on . . . Criticism of Kent TV
In this case it's old media versus new media – it’s the old establishment versus new kids on the block – then it's normal. And it's obviously commercially driven. They fear, I think, the local papers fear that they are going to lose revenues. But empirically, that's just not so.
This spurious beating up of Kent TV, on the notion that it's political is rubbish. It's a commercial attack. So, do it honourably and compete with us. We'll win because we’re better, and regardless of who initiated this in Kent, they showed foresight. so competing on the commercial level, I love it, I love the challenge and if we lose, we lose ‘cos we’re not good enough, but competing, playing footsie with your political pals, ah that’s naff and it’s not what business should do.
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Its seems to me that the Kent based media companies are both old and new media and the proof of who is best will come when they are on a level playing field with existing internet and media companies.
So far the predicted revenues have not materialised so local media has not lost out here. Its reported by the old media that KCC are considering funding KentTV for another year after the pilot - only another £400,000!