Comments on: What TV Shows Use Keyword Domain Names?

By: EMDN

EMDN — Sun, 04 Mar 2012 16:47:15 +0000

Nearly all show names are very generic, and will have been taken years ago.
The TV companies do their own research to name the show, and I would guess they would aim to keep them as generic, and catchy as possible form their target market to remember.
The actual shows are the core business, and exact match domain names must always take a back seat.

And I bet there are some very exxcited domain owners around when these shows come out!

By: RH

RH — Sat, 03 Mar 2012 21:14:53 +0000

Another point is Twitter, most of the time I see a show advertised I see the hashtag and show name #AmericanIdol etc…

By: RH

RH — Sat, 03 Mar 2012 21:12:02 +0000

I agree with Harrison. They like that integration.

Secondly some names would be expensive, Entourage or Chuck which are generic would be more expensive than the easy handreg of “HowImetyourmother”

I have done a lot of work talking to companies about tv and had great conversations with people who were involved with the original dot tv corp, they said a lot of studios just were not interested, did not feel there was value.

But Harrison said it perfectly imo.

By: Elliot Silver

Elliot Silver — Sat, 03 Mar 2012 15:16:11 +0000

@ Nadia

I completely agree. However, I think it would be smart to buy the domain name and at least forward to the correct website. I would think type-ins for the exact match would be high, and why let someone else own the matching domain name. It would seem smart to buy the name of potential titles or at the very least, but the name as soon as a final title is chosen.

By: Nadia

Nadia — Sat, 03 Mar 2012 03:18:20 +0000

Harrison has a good point. There may be a benefit (from the networks’ perspective) to keeping people on their site, where they can easily advertise for other shows and increase page views/time on the site. Many of those networks group shows together in a “Thursday-night line up,” etc., so maybe it’s about generating a community feel across all their programming, rather than a single show.

By: BFitz

BFitz — Fri, 02 Mar 2012 20:08:57 +0000

Just becuse the industry is not embracing something does not mean they are less savvy.

By: Harrison

Harrison — Fri, 02 Mar 2012 19:41:53 +0000

What I have seen with alot of network shows is they just are a part of the network’s domain name.

nbc.com/the-voice/
sho.com/site/dexter/home.do
Ect

Keeping the user on their site helps keep things simple for the user because everything stays the same in regards to look and feel of the site. I can look at one nbc show (for example) while they try and promote other shows to me as well. This is probably much easier for the network to manage all of their shows on one site rather than having them separated.

It could be a liability for them to leave the domain name in some other person’s hands though, so this is definitely an interesting topic.

By: AB

AB — Fri, 02 Mar 2012 18:07:02 +0000

In my opinion, there are 2 issues

1)They’re cheap.

2)Confidence

Why spend tons of money buying the exact match (especially if it’s generic and has long been registered) for a show that may not make it past season one. Easier and cheaper to use networksite.com/show instead

By: jayjay

jayjay — Fri, 02 Mar 2012 17:24:47 +0000

Doesn’t make sense to me either. I can say however that Australian media is a bit move savvy in this area. I haven’t found a show yet that doesn’t have it’s own domain used either as a standalone or redirected to their main portal (like 9 MSN, Yahoo 7 etc)

The worry here is that these name types above (plus music/movie titles, up and coming artists..etc) are candy for TM domain squatters who will no doubt register them believing they have intrinsic value.

By: Leonard Britt

Leonard Britt — Fri, 02 Mar 2012 17:03:57 +0000

More and more shows are using the letters TV to promote their shows. For the domain name I have seen keyword/sTV.com, keyword/s.TV and even KeywordTV.org. I know of two cases where they use TheKeyword/s.TV as the domain. I believe it is an increasing trend but it may or may not necessarily translate into increased aftermarket activity. Companies will often opt for an inferior reg fee alternative rather than pay for an aftermarket domain.