The Future of Print Is ... Video

According to DMNews (the DM stands for direct marketing), Meredith is working with Comcast to launch Parents TV late this year. They want to hit all media and find new revenue resources, and understandably. Also understandable, though perhaps less desirable from the point of writers, is that the publisher wants to make use of the material is has:

“What we’re doing is either creating content based on our [magazine] editorial or creating content relevant to editorial,” he continued. “We’re not trying to do something outside the realm of the content we create on the editorial side – we just want to bring it to life. The programming won’t be about saying ‘Family Circle’ or ‘Parents,’ but it will be integrated into the content so people know the credibility is there.”

In copyright terms, this would be derivative content, as one is based on the other. It's a right that comes as part of copyright, and one that, sadly, may writers give away. There is a problematic mindset that many writers have: "If I don't already do something with it, or if I don't know what it means, then it must be OK to let someone else have it, because I wouldn't be selling it anyway."

Pull your head out of the sand and look around. Content has value, not just in its first form, but in the way people reuse it. Why? Because it saves them time from having to do all the work you might have undertaken to write it in the first place, and you have already come up with a unique expression of the ideas in your work. That has value, because otherwise a company has to pay to get all that done again. If you're giving away the right to create derivative works, consider that you're effectively handing people checks for sums to be deducted from your potential earnings. Also, this isn't stopping with Parents TV:

The launch of Parents TV is part of a larger Meredith strategy to extend branded content into new platforms. The company launched Better.tv in March. Comcast was chosen as a distribution partner for Parents TV because, McCabe says, it is the 2-to-1 leader in Video on Demand distribution.

Parents TV has already gathered a slew of advertisers, including Discover Card and Kimberly-Clark, makers of Huggies diapers. All programming will be ad-supported.

Meredith is offering custom-created content and product integration for Parents TV advertisers. However, McCabe insists that no infomercials will be made. Only if a product can be organically integrated, he says, without a negative reaction from consumers, will content be produced around it.

In other words, start adding zeros to those checks.