The three recent Saturday Night Live (SNL) send-up parodies of Vice-Presidential nominee Sarah Palin by Tina Fey demonstrate a significant Web turning point.The audiences watching the show as it was broadcast were significant. However, those viewing on-line or through digital video recorders were twice as large according to numbers released by Integrated Media Measurement Inc (IMMI).
According to IMMI, this is one of the first times "delayed viewing numbers topped the original viewing audience" by such a wide margin.
SNL skits are also enjoying strong ratings on NBC's www.hulu.com site.
These so-called secondary audiences are important for mainstream media as a source of new revenue.
SNL is aware that many of its prime target audiences are not sitting at home watching the tube. On Saturday night they are hitting the night spots at theatres, clubs and bars. So these short SNL skits make for great viewing the next day for web savvy younger audiences.
Saturday Night Live has plans in the works to launch a dedicated Website with short skits to create a revenue source for the parent network through the sale of advertisements, subscriptions or paid downloads.
Another example of the web unleashed is the emergence of specialized professional websites such as www.law.com where viewers can find a wide range of blogs on topics such as law, lobbying, politics, crime, courts, business and culture in the nation's capital and beyond.
Similar specialized sites exist for every profession from health to finance to emergency planning.
With the tough economic times we are now facing, smart organizations need to recognize this potential revenue stream so they can unleash the power of the Web to their advantage.
And for governments, this is just one more indicator that Web 2.0 is changing how segments of the population access information.
Photo: Thomas Roache - Creative Commons License Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic
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