The Ultimate in Grasping Your Niche

You have to give it to Hasbro, they know how to market their goodies.

I grew up on GI Joe and Transformers as 30 minute commercials for toy products.

Last year, they cut a deal to basically buy a cable network. Nothing wrong with that. The fact that it WAS Discovery Kids has plenty of folks up in arms. But the channel had become a money loser, thus was born- the Hasbro TOY network.

I have NO issue with this. First, because I can share stuff I remember watching with my kids.

Second, with thousands of other channels with educational programming, if you have a problem- go to the next channel. Finally, the next channels are Nickelodeon and Disney, which are now nothing more than glorified ads for Disney and Nick products, yes?

This is the ultimate niche! Hasbro is turning a ton of their properties including board games into televised shows. See a cool list here. A good chunk of the Discovery programming survived, but the more interesting thing is how many old shows are in the mix. Batman from the 60s! Happy Days, Fraggle Rock, Doogie Howser, Wonder Years, and Family Ties all join new shows like the cool Family Game Night to really market to kids and families.

I suspect we might see more and more commercial entities getting to creating their own channels- why not? They have to compete with Youtube, traditional non-cable networks, and others. Why become beholden to all these other entities for airing your commercials when you can have a dedicated stream of the customers you want!

I can see it now- General Mills partners with FoodTV to create "Frankberry: The Series."

Are you working with others in your stream for such lucrative opportunities?

Slow Death or Rebirth for Myspace?

Are we really watching the slow inevitable death of Myspace? With the integration with Facebook complete and the push towards what appears to be a mobile only function , isn't it time to call this one? One report says that Myspace is making $200 million less this year. They are functionally giving up on Myspace Music , which was always their bread and butter. Without the music tie in, why would people BOTHER with Myspace? I'm talking about it because my wife's band has used every medium known to mankind to promote themselves online and Myspace has been nothing but dead weight from the very beginning. Only bands and their most ardent fans go there. The rest are on Facebook. There is talk of selling Myspace, but who in their right mind would consider it? This will have some interesting implications for bands down the road. Many use Myspace as their de facto website, just pushing their domain name onto the customizable site. Now apparently, Reverbnation , a North Carolin

Check out my appearance on the The Toddcast Podcast

Click and watch the podcast recording of my appearance on the Toddcast Podcast Such a fun time!

New Life

It's weird, sad and slightly freeing. I've been headed towards a completely different life for a lot longer than I even knew. It took me a while to catch up to realize it was happening. Thankfully, I was cognizant enough to see it finally and mostly ready for it. It's amazing when you have the rug completely pulled out from underneath you. The adjustments are jarring. I made mistakes, but like most I learned from them, adapted, and tried my best to do better. The reason you see that truck next to a storage place? That's the sum of my life right now. Never take for granted that you will work hard for something or someone, and it will end up meaning very little. You are guaranteed nothing, owed nothing, promised nothing. Anything and everything can be taken away in a heartbeat. I wrote this to my kids a while back: I tried to be the best father I could be based on what I knew when I knew it and how I could. One of the lessons for your life needs to be: you need to b

Todd Lyden

Search This Blog