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by Grant Robertson
The Globe and Mail
Sep 29, 2006
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Corus targets youth market, clicks into
on-line games. Multiplayer choices to be based on popular programs
Corus Entertainment Inc. is joining the rush of traditional media companies
following their younger audiences on-line with an expansion into interactive
Internet games, the latest trend engulfing the Web.
The radio and television broadcaster is planning to launch as many as
eight, multiplayer on-line games, based on virtual worlds where people
adopt fictional lives and interact with each other over the Internet.
Corus, which owns youth-oriented television channels such as YTV and
Treehouse, will base the games on its popular programs, such as Jacob
Two-Two.
The Toronto-based company is following the example of large U.S. media
companies such as MTV that are flocking to multi-player on-line games
-- known simply as MOGs to their fans.
Such Web properties, which allow thousands of players to share a fictional
world, are springing up all over the Internet as media companies look
to duplicate the success of sites such as Second Life and Sims Online.
Those properties draw millions of visitors a year.
The games are part of the larger proliferation of massive on-line communities
that have seen social networking sites such as MySpace and Facebook
go from inexpensive startup operations to multibillion-dollar properties
because of the number of visitors they draw.
The virtual world model is fast becoming the next frontier for broadcasters
who are seeing children and teenagers spend more time on interactive
and social networking websites than in front of the TV set, as previous
generations would have done.
"We're willing to invest somewhat in this, because we really think
that we just might get lucky and something just might get huge. It would
be fun to have four or five of these on the go and see what works,"
said Paul Robertson, president of TV operations at Corus.
Corus is investing slightly more than a million dollars in the plan,
which the company has code-named Constellation. It is partnering with
Quebec-based Frima Studio Inc. to develop the on-line games.
The business model is the same as traditional radio or television. The
bigger the audience, the more advertising companies can sell, whether
the strategy involves embedding products in the virtual world or showing
ads on the screen.
"You need to be experimenting and innovating because you never
know where the next big hit is going to come from. We're pretty good
at that creating television shows, but this is kind of new for us,"
he said.
This month, MTV launched its first such Web property based on a virtual
world, with the creation of Virtual Laguna Beach, an on-line game where
viewers live inside a computer version of one of the network's most
popular shows. MTV is also planning a virtual music video world, where
participants move around a fictional city, listening to music in clubs
and playing in their own bands.
"They're basically following their audience to where they are going.
And the audience -- the youth audience -- is going on-line. They are
going into interactive environments," said Kaan Yigit, an analyst
at Solutions Research Group in Toronto, which tracks new media properties.
"For [broadcasters] to stay relevant, they need to be a part of
that. The days of youth media brands passively serving up content, those
days are gone."
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