Network Live: Press Conference Details

Notes from the Network Live press conference listen-in:
Jonathan Miller, CEO, AOL: The partnership has put together new dream team in this area. This heralds the next stage of digital entertainment...
Hugh Panero, CEO, XM: We believe live music is an essential part of our service...this deal has come together very organically. Better to do it together than go it alone.
Tim Leiweke, President & CEO, AEG: We'll ultimately be responsible for bringing content to the table. We'll also bring in our own artists and our concerts, and open them up. The second part: we're building world-class studios/venues...and we'll be providing the venues to produce these events.
Kevin Wall, CEO, Network Live: Network Live will be exclusive to the different affiliate partners we've mentioned. We'll look at other distribution avenues like VOD, wireless and others. We'll also announce some global partnerships in the next few months.
Ownership Structure: We all are partners: we are invested in the company…we're not disclosing the ownership structure, including Kevin, who is a co-founder.
Business model: It is a licensing vehicle that the different vertical partners are paying and there is an advertising sponsorship component to the programming model. The [audience] numbers are very attractive to the advertisers and internal partners. For now, we're not planning any pay-per-view...
Licensing Fees: We're being paid licensing fees for the programming, and as we develop franchises, we have opportunities to bring in advertising. Network Live will also take the product and distribute it on a global basis…that might be more traditional in the early days.
Kevin Wall: We're going to try and create a sense of community...on the lines of what we did with Live 8. We're working on this community: chat, digital signatures, interactive components on improv.
Hugh: We'll try and record everything on high-definition.
Kevin: The current plan is to distribute in digital form only...both with XM and AOl and other vertical players still to be announced. We don't have any current plans for physical distribution...
Kevin and Hugh: We will be live with our live-event programming...we're hopefully going to offer these events on an on-demand basis, and AOL will play a big part in it.
Jonathan: On on-demand: The on-demand usage is 3-5 or even 10 times the original live event...that's our experience. It is a really new model of digital entertainment.
Jonathan: On artist and label involvement: We believe we have a great position with the industry and that will continue...we already have good participation in AOL's music session and other events at AOL.
Kevin: We're offering a tremendous marketing vehicle to the recording industry...we're empowering the record industry...we're bringing all of the parties together in a very cohesive fashion.