Perils of Web Stardom: Overexposure?

Written by Daisy Whitney. Editor’s note: Daisy is a reporter in the online video space that we’ve long admired, so we asked her if she’d like to contribute to NewTeeVee. The plan is for her to write a weekly column, focusing especially on the parallels and interaction between old and new media. Daisy’s work can be found all over the web, but she still manages to be interesting, so we think she brings a particular insight to the topic of her first post.

When you surf channels on TV you’re bound to see Oprah and Rachael Ray more than once or twice. That same phenomenon is happening on the web, too, with online viewers jumping from site to site also starting to see some of the same faces along the way.

Take Alex Albrecht, for instance.

When I first heard that Albrecht, of Diggnation fame, was launching a new web series this week, I started to wonder if it was possible for an online host to become overexposed.

I’m not saying the already popular Albrecht is overexposed. In fact, his decision to front Project Lore, a daily online show about World of Warcraft, is smart and strategic. Albrecht just won two Webbys (for Diggnation and The Totally Rad Show), so adding to his resume while he’s hot is a good idea. To borrow a page from the traditional TV playbook, Katherine Heigl has done this to great success, bolstering her film career on the back of both her hit TV show and an Emmy win.

Still, Heigl is a star in a different stratosphere. And she’s an actress playing different characters. She’s not showing up as herself over and over again.

Of course, TV stars like Oprah and Ray show up as themselves in countless venues and they’re not considered overexposed. But, Oprah and Ray — and even Heigl — are famous famous, not just web famous.

So do web hosts risk diluting their brand by adding new shows to their repertoire? Will fan loyalty be put to the test if a host helms two shows, the way web darling Veronica Belmont does? She joined Revision3’s tech advice show Tekzilla as co-host in April and then launched a gaming show called Qore on the Sony Playstation network in June. Of course, the latter is a monthly show and it’s available on Sony PlayStations, so her expansion moves seem wise.

That’s no surprise, since Albrecht and Belmont share the same agent, ICM’s George Ruiz. I called him to find out how he advises his clients when to say “yes” and when to say “no” to a new show. “There are several considerations,” he said. “What is your passion? What do you enjoy doing? And when you enter into a new deal with certain companies are you honoring your obligations for exclusivity and no competing? And you should also take into consideration your audience and what they appreciate you have done in the past and want you to continue doing.”

And web personalities should be strategic when riding on their own coattails, using their existing audience as a springboard to build another one. Alex Lindsay, who runs the web production shop Pixel Corps, calls it the 60-40 rule. “How do you take 60 percent of your audience and move them to a new show and gain 40 percent new audience?” he asked.

Still, web hosts must be careful and calculating when considering expansion. They shouldn’t simply pad their resumes and they shouldn’t do the same shtick on every show. Web stars should protect their brands, especially in these tender, early days as they build their reputations. It’s easy for Oprah and Rachael Ray to keep doing more shows. They’re megastars.

Besides, whether you’re Oprah or Alex Albrecht, you always want to leave the fans wanting more.

Daisy Whitney is a contributing writer with TelevisionWeek and the host of the New Media Minute, a weekly webcast on the business of online video.

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