Comcast announced in late June that they will launch a version of their VOD channel, Fearnet, as a linear, ad-supported cable network. Fearnet’s VOD service is available in 28 million homes, and the linear, ad supported channel will expand its reach. Presumably, the ads and license fees will bring in more money, since the VOD service is available free to digital subscribers. This is a significant development. When Comcast launched Fearnet on Halloween 2006 they hailed the VOD-only channel as a new paradigm in cable service. The days of the linear network were numbered, since consumers wanted to consume their video on demand. Fearnet would be the first in a series of new VOD networks.

A funny thing happened on the way to this future. Linear cable networks continued to launch — news channels, local sports channels, foreign language channels, HD versions of current channels. There are groups looking for funding for several more. Instead of fading away, networks with limited distribution continued to expand. Satellite services like Direct TV and DISH made more networks available to homes and cable systems competed by adding more channels and creating their own proprietary channels. The VOD interfaces that cable networks put in homes turned out to require several clicks to find specific shows. Most consumers didn’t want to work that hard. It was so much easier just to see what was currently on your favorite channels than hunt for specific VOD programs.

Comcast further demonstrated the importance of networks and content last year when they bought NBC for its popular cable channels like USA, and the most old-fashioned dinosaur of them all– a broadcast network. Although an increasing number of people time shift their viewing of shows, they still rely upon networks to schedule programs at specific times so they can record them.

What does this mean for your program idea? It means that cable networks in the U.S. and around the world will be a viable market for the foreseeable future. Selling a program to a cable channel remains a good way to make money and increase your program’s visibility. That doesn’t mean you have to wait for a network to buy your show before you create some video for your web site. It does mean that you should consider a network sale as a viable part of your business plan. And if you’re dreaming of creating a new linear network don’t give up hope. It looks like they will be around for awhile.

Peter M. Gordon is a writer, public speaker, and media consultant in Orlando, FL.

Justin Halpern, whose twitter feed, “S*** my Dad Says”, will become a sitcom on CBS’ fall schedule. There’s a lot we can learn from Justin’s story.

Justin was an aspiring screenwriter who moved back home to San Diego in his late twenties after his screenplay did not become a movie. Although he had a job writing for maxim.com, his dream of making it in Hollywood was dead. While living at home he started writing down his father’s words of wisdom and posting them on Twitter (119 posts so far). His dad’s witty and sometimes profane thoughts became very popular, and eventually a production company came calling.

Justin’s story shows the extraordinary opportunity you have to get your idea directly to the audience. Twitter, Facebook, you tube, and other web outlets give you the chance to tell your story. If your work strikes a chord out there, you may be able to move it to the more traditional media that can pay you significant money for it.

Here are two lessons from Justin’s story that are particularly important for you. First, create something. If Justin hadn’t written down his father’s words in the first place, nothing would have happened. Don’t wait for everything to be perfect: just get going.

Second, create for multiple platforms. S*** my Dad Says” is a twitter idea that became a tv sitcom. Do you have a movie idea that can also be a novel? Try writing the novel first. Perhaps you’ll find a publisher, but you can also self-publish. If you have a popular novel, the film and television rights will pay you more.

Whatever you’re creating, get started today. Moving from conception to creation to publication can take months or years. The sooner you start, the sooner you’ll get done.

Peter M. Gordon is a writer, public speaker, and media consultant in Orlando, FL.

In my years working in television programming, I received literally thousands of program pitches, from everyone from my neighbors to my personal hero in programming, Brandon Tartikoff. I always tried to listen respectfully, and treat the people pitching the idea as I would want to be treated. I would remind myself that even though I might have heard this idea a hundred times, the person pitching it didn’t know that.

One question would irritate me to a point where I couldn’t help but show it. That was, “How do I know you won’t steal my idea?” Usually I would respond, “if you’re that worried about it, don’t tell me the idea.” Occasionally, that would stop the pitch in its tracks, and I would get a half hour of my life back.

Sometimes it’s hard to tell what’s a stolen idea, and what’s just popular imitation. For example, I might think it’s a good idea to launch a series about an adolescent with magical powers. That describes both the Harry Potter series and the Percy Jackson series. Were these stolen ideas? Of course not. While they both can be described broadly the same way, they differ in thousands of different details.

That’s the best way to protect your idea. Write it down and make it as detailed as possible. Don’t wait for someone at a television company to buy it before you create it. For example, you can copyright your novel about a magical boy in Brooklyn who saves the city; you have no protection if you’re just walking into someone’s office telling them you’d like to write a movie about that topic.

Of course, if you already have a track record in the business, you don’t have to finish a piece before you sell your idea. Executives want to do business with you if you have a history or writing hit films or novels. If you’re like most of us, trying to get our ideas a hearing, you have more to prove.

Protect yourself by turning your idea into a property. JK Rowling didn’t sell the idea of writing a book about a young wizard named Harry Potter, she wrote the book first and sold that. So get busy.

Peter M. Gordon is a writer, public speaker, and media consultant in Orlando, FL.

I told my twenty-three year old son the other day about something I posted on my Facebook page. He said, “If five years ago someone told me my dad and his friends would be spending more time on Facebook than I was, I would have thought he was crazy.”

A short five years ago Facebook was a college phenomenon. Now it’s spread to all levels of society – major companies, non-profit institutions, and even products have Facebook pages. What does this have to do with NBC’s late night television controversy? Just this: Both of them demonstrate the impossibility of predicting consumer taste five years down the road.

Five years ago NBC had a problem – their competition was courting Conan O’Brien, their money-making ‘Late Night’ host, to leave at the end of his contract. In order to prevent that NBC paid him a boatload of money and promised he could host ‘The Tonight Show’ in 2009. That only makes sense if NBC executives believed Conan would be more popular than Jay Leno five years later.

Even if they weren’t sure, that agreement had an immediate benefit. It solved the immediate late night problem and pushed the controversy five years in the future. Since the glory days of Brandon Tartikoff and Warren Littlefield in the 80s and 90s, the tenure for heads of programming at NBC has been short. It made sense to solve the short term problem at the possible expense of the long term.

Fast forward five years – NBC’s prime time schedule is mired in fourth place, and the time for Conan to take over The Tonight Show approached. Leno was still popular and coming to the end of his contract. NBC proclaimed the bold, innovative, and fiscally responsible move of Leno to prime and Conan to the Tonight Show. If Leno’s show in prime time only performed as well as it did in late night, NBC would make more money than they would with more expensive scripted programming.

As you know if you followed the media news, delaying the Day of Reckoning did not turn out well for NBC.  They plan to return Leno to the Tonight Show. In the meantime, David Letterman of CBS is now the King of Late Night Television, and NBC’s programming problems are jokes in every comedy monologue and stand-up routine in the country.

Therefore, the lesson to learn from Facebook, Leno and Conan is the futility of predicting the public taste five years down the road. Ironically, that’s exactly what television networks and movie studios do. It takes time to write screenplays and teleplays, put them into production, and release them. There’s an inevitable time lag between conception, creation and finished product. Tastes change, or in the case of Leno and the Tonight Show, they don’t. Either way, no one can be sure what will work.

So what’s a Head of Programming or studio Production Chief to do? First, understand the limits of what’s possible. Since we can’t know for sure what will work, networks and movie studios need a wide and deep development slate to maximize opportunities for hits. Some shows and films should be in the current mainstream, but always make sure to develop some things that aren’t. I recommend looking for genres that once were popular but have fallen out of fashion. For example, there hadn’t been a regular talent or variety show in prime time for years until American Idol hit big.

Second, understand that entertaining the public has been a hit-driven business since Florenz Ziegfeld brought Anna Held to New York to star in the Follies. Stars command high salaries because of their proven ability to entertain. That doesn’t mean everything they do is a hit (even Steven Spielberg directed 1941), but over time they’ll have more hits than misses. After all, no one ever paid to watch the accounting department.

And finally, since they’ll blame you when things go wrong, make sure to take the credit when things go well.

Peter M. Gordon is a writer, public speaker, and media consultant in Orlando, FL.