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Watch this Space, pt 2 RE-vision 2009: In the second part of C21's interview with MySpace UK and Ireland MD Anthony Lukom, he tells Adam Benzine about the site's recent project with Channel 4 and Island Records and how its approach to original video is evolving. When News Corp bought MySpace for US$580m in July 2005, offering new sibling Fox an obvious outlet to promote its programmes, it was only a short time before TV became a more established category alongside the site's main focus on music. MySpaceTV - a full suite of channels with partners including the BBC, Sony, National Geographic and others - formalised this in early 2007. Fox Interactive Media, the News Corp division within which MySpace sits, consistently ranks as one of the most popular online video destinations thanks to it. But the MySpaceTV brand has now been dispensed with, and in the UK, the firm assimilated Warner Music Entertainment's Comedybox.tv website rather than persisting with attempts to establish its own comedy channel. MySpace's original productions have met with varying degrees of success. Quarterlife entered the history books as the first web-to-TV crossover, but subsequently bombed on NBC. Beyond the Rave (below), a revival of the Hammer Horror brand in the UK, was widely regarded a hit, but another project, I Love Chieftown, has yet to see the light of day.  The company is still dabbling with commissions. The Lost Archives of Quincy Taylor, a production from RDF USA, debuted on MySpace in February and Get Married On MySpace, a reality series from Endemol, is due to launch next month in the US. In the UK, meanwhile, Live and Lost, a miniseries involving UK broadcasters Channel 4 and Island Records, recently concluded its 12-episode run.Live and Lost, funded mainly by BlackBerry and produced by UK indie Pulse Films, saw Island Records artist Vincent Frank (aka Frankmusik) being dropped in the middle of Scotland with just £20 (US$29) and a BlackBerry to survive. He had to communicate with fans on MySpace via his BlackBerry and rely on their help for essentials, such as travel, food and shelter, while making his way back to London within 10 days, performing a number of impromptu concerts along the way. Its highest rating episode had just over 54,000 views. "There are times where people will want to do these shows because they're good marketing opportunities and they create a good audience for us. Other times it's about coming up with a show by which you know you can get a sponsor and advertising to make money," says MySpace UK and Ireland MD Anthony Lukom (below).  "We have really been waiting to make sure that we can find good original TV content. There's a lot out there. You can put something up very quickly and put product placement in, which looks great on CBeebies or CiTV, but we are disruptors of models and if we were going to do something innovative then we would want to do it the next level up."He says that the company has "a number of other things bubbling under, including working with independent as well as established production companies," but shies away from specifics. While MySpace does in some instances contribute to the costs of production in the main it's looking to secure ad partnerships that cover this - something that's proving harder in the current climate. "Is it a difficult market? Yes. But the interesting thing about social networking is it is growing. If we were an old, established business we'd feel the pinch more, but we don't because we've still got so many new opportunities to do things. That being said, like anything, you need to look at the cost," says Lukom. He adds that it's important for online players to mirror the cutbacks in production spend being made by traditional broadcasters. "That being said, there's a lot more opportunity for collaboration between broadcaster and online, so we can work together and create shows that can appear online and on television and cover some of that budget gap," he says. Lukom's words echo those of MySpace CEO Chris DeWolfe, who recently suggested there will have to be more emphasis on video in future as the firm seeks to keep users on the site longer and hit the revenue targets that Fox Interactive's parent News Corp has set, having fallen short of Rupert Murdoch's US$1bn ambition for 2008. "Look at something like the Hulu joint venture," says Lukom. "Hulu's a very good model to show people the future is there for online video. We've always been saying, 'Make sure the money's there.'" But the pressure is on at MySpace. Pali Research recently suggested "sizable lay-offs" are likely to hit parent Fox Interactive. The company's search advertising deal with Google - through which it garners some US$300m a year in revenue - is due to expire in June 2010. There's also speculation that DeWolfe and fellow co-founder Tom Andersen may not stay on when their contracts expire later this year. The business will now come under the scrutiny of Jonathan Miller, the former CEO of AOL who was named News Corp chief digital officer earlier this month. The appointment coincided with a move for Peter Levinsohn, from Fox Interactive Media president to president of new media and digital distribution at Fox Filmed Entertainment. One of his first challenges will be to arrest the apparent exodus of internet users to Facebook. Lukom is unfazed by the rival site's rise. "Well, competition is good - it drives innovation," he says. "Any entrant into the industry with something new and interesting and innovative raises everybody's game. Competition is healthy." Adam Benzine 21 Apr 2009 © C21 Media 2009 
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