Clicker’s acquisition and the dawning age of the Curator

Two products that help users find & discover television content on the web were acquired last week, by two very different companies. Clicker was bought by CBS, a company that generates the bulk of it’s revenue selling ads against content it licenses or produces, while Sidereel was bought by Rovi, which primarily generates revenue through the licensing and sale of intellectual property and technology focused around the discovery of digital entertainment. The acquisition of Sidereel seems straightforward – Rovi recently launched AllRovi in an effort to establish a consumer-facing presence, and Sidereel will help Rovi innovate on the discovery of premium content on the web. Rovi is an entertainment discovery company, and it makes sense for them to bulk-up on technology and talent as they start to incorporate online content into their guide, and develop a consumer brand.

But for CBS, the story is less clear-cut. Unlike Rovi, which operates discovery products like TV Guide, CBS is not primarily in the business of content discovery, but rather generates the bulk of it’s revenue operating distribution channels for content it licenses or produces, and sells advertising against it.

One simple explanation for the CBS/Clicker deal is that CBS wanted to improve their cbs.com and tv.com offerings. CBS’s content isn’t available on Hulu and perhaps CBS wanted to make their web offering more compelling. Most cable networks don’t have good web interfaces to watch their content on the web. Even when they make full episodes available online, their interfaces are often slow, cluttered, and poor at driving discovery. Clicker has some nifty social features, and a 10-foot living room TV optimized interface at clicker.tv could prove helpful in renovating those properties.

But perhaps the boldest implication of the acquisition is that CBS is trying to be the starting place for video discovery on the web. Rather than own & license all the content it surfaces on it’s website, it’s trying to be the starting point for discovering all content on the web – giving CBS the role of a curator – helping users decide what’s good to watch online.

On the web, there aren’t a predetermined number of channels that come included in a basic cable package – of which CBS is one – but instead millions of unique websites. Owning the equivalent of a “broadcast TV channel” on the web requires owning a place where users start their discovery. If CBS can own the “guide” on the web, they’ll own the primary distribution channel.

And in order to operate a powerful discovery portal or “guide” to TV content on the web, CBS needs to be able to surface more than just the content it licenses or produces. CBS can play the critical role of the curator – CBS decides either with social curation, editorial curation, or algorithmic curation what the most relevant content is for the individual user. And in many ways, CBS is already playing the role of a curator today – they curate what entertainment to offer to their users on their broadcast television channels. But on the web, that competency in curation needs to expand to entertainment at large.

Today I tune into CBS’s channel because I want to watch one of their TV shows, or trust that they generally have interesting programming on their channel. But in the future, I may come to one of CBS’s properties on the web because I trust their ability to “program” interesting content for me to watch. Other networks and even cable operators are likely to get into this game as well, and a battle of which operator will be the “starting point” for discovery of web video will ensue – each offering a uniquely curated & programmed view of video on the web. The “cable network” of tomorrow will only secondarily gain it’s audience by producing the best content on the growing number of Internet-Connected TV. It will primarily win by focusing on offering the best-curated and personalized discovery experience for entertainment on the web, so that users start their discovery process with that network.