A recent Economist article about News Corp and the old media giant’s push into new media opportunities gave me the opening to post something I’ve been sitting on for a while now. “Old Mogul, New Media” talks about Rupert Murdoch’s purchase of Myspace.com last July and its use (along with more recently acquired IGN Entertainment) as an advertising platform for other News Corp offerings. Although it stresses that the business model of MySpace is yet untested, the article fails to note one noteworthy cross-sell experiment by the media giant that took place this fall.
To further fuel the growing excitement around FX Network’s prime time drama Nip/Tuck, the producers created a MySpace profile for the show’s then unknown villain, The Carver. Speculation about The Carver’s identity had taken over most of the show’s unofficial message boards across the web, but this venture provided a way for FX to interact with its viewers on a whole new level.
A short TV spot during a mid-season episode enticed viewers to learn more about their favorite villain by logging on to the profile. Clues to The Carver’s identity and psyche were revealed over subsequent weeks in the form of blog and video posts, much to the delight of other MySpace users. Within the first three days, over 50 thousand people users had connected their profiles to The Carver’s, and 10 thousand comments had been left by fans. Two months later, The Carver is connected to almost 120 thousand profiles and users have left over 70 thousand comments as well as over 10 thousand blog responses.
There has been mixed reaction in the blogosphere. In his blog, Robert Ricci understands News Corp’s move, but warns about the sustainability and value of blogs based on fictional characters. Over at Beyond Madison Avenue, Mack Collier seems to disagree, although I wonder what he’d think of the Wendy’s Square Burger profile. Peter Nofelt’s post raises some ethical questions about advertising on social networks such as MySpace and The Facebook and points out the drag that viral ads have on the user experience at such sites. (Further, it led me to a script written by Eric Skiff that should make extensive friend networks easy for even the smallest advertiser.)
Clearly, MySpace presents a new and innovative way for News Corp to push media at a very attractive demographic. The Nip/Tuck’s season finale drew 5.7 million viewers—3.9 million of whom were in the 18-49 demographic—which significantly higher than its weekly average of 3.9 million total viewers. It will be interesting to see if News Corp forms similar crossovers with hits on the Fox network, such as American Idol with its 35 million viewers.
I applaud the creative team's effort at News Corp and believe all avenues are worth exploring as we participate in the development not only of new interactive media but new consumer behaviors, too. The formula, at least, is tried-and-true: at its most basic, how is a set of ongoing blog entries about a fictional character any different than what Orson Welles did on October 30, 1938 with a radio broadcast for his War of the Worlds?
Posted by: Russ Pillar | February 03, 2006 at 09:23 AM