Jill Murray

TV Stardom on $20 a Day

It’s an article from the New York Times about video blogs. It’s very excited about the commercial prospects, as you can see from the headline.

That’s all well and good, but I’d just like to point out that it’s not really $20/episode. It’s $20 + research + writing + practice + filming + editing + web hosting + maintenance + marketing (most of which is going to be free, possibly fun and extremely time consuming.) Yes, still a healthy profit for that one video blog, and nice to see it being picked up by TiVo and all.

BUT

Running a profitable blog in any media– writing, audio or video– is like gardening.

“The seeds only cost me $1.50!”

Articles that jubilantly report that you can grow a season’s worth of vegetables in your spare time for only $1.50 and sell them for a profit aren’t really telling a complete story even if we are all left thinking, “wow, agriculture is really changing. Farmers must be behind the times. ”

I’ve got some news for the world: research + writing + practice + filming + editing + web hosting + maintenance + marketing != free time. That’s a job. It’s a self-started business, and perhaps an enjoyable one, but work nonetheless. Whether it’s politics or beer pong, creating a thing every day about only one thing, cleverly enough that other people want to read it every day requires a commitment that is anything but casual.