HOLD THAT REMOTE! Forbes Poised to Overtake CNBC in Video Viewership, Declares Top Exec

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Forbes.com has developed a sophisticated and successful online video platform which produces a considerable amount of original content. It has a full blown television studio and production staff. Like CNET, it has been a pioneer among Web publishers who have made a strong commitment creating original video – and have delivered.

I spoke with Forbes.com CEO Jim Spanfeller who was a panelist at a fascinating industry roundtable on journalism and convergences organized by Shoba Purushothaman, CEO of The NewsMarket. 

Jim tells Beet.TV that the online video viewership is booming and he predicts that the number of eyeballs for Forbes online TV segments will surpass those for CNBC. Jim says the Web provides the opportunity for other publishers to pass established broadcast operations in reach and scope. 

Here’s a partial transcript of Jim Spanfeller’s comments on Beet.TV:

• “That’s one of our bulls eyes out there is the fine people at CNBC. The idea is, then again, they have a relatively limited reach. I mean, I think if you look at their numbers they might get about 300,000 viewers in a day, so there will be a lot more than 300,000 streams because presumably people are watching some number of things throughout the day. But nonetheless we think we can get to that kind of a level of reach in a year, year and a half, maybe even sooner depending how fast video gets adopted online.”

(Coming Clean: The NewsMarket is a former client and CNET Networks is a current client of Plesser Holland, publisher of Beet.TV)

-- Andy Plesser

Forbes, Online Video, Financial News on the Web, The NewsMarket, CNBC, Fordham University

Update from our Vlog Factory: This is so exciting, our brand new vlog for the Fordham University School of Law, LawClinic.TV just got a nice mention in the Chronicle of Higher Education, the "bible" of the acamemic world.  We're going to add some great new elements soon including beautifully produced segments about the law students' work in organizing a restaurant founded by surviors of the World Trade Center collapse. So please come back to visit the site again in about a week.

News Flash from the Wild West of Community Video:  YouTube is sued by another video journalist.