This past year, ad revenue from PSN has increased by 60 percent. While The Tester has been successful and is entering its second season, Sony admits that a learning curve has been involved.
“We’ve really had to shift our mindset from a gaming company to a media company,” said Susan Panico, senior director of PlayStation Network. “You need more flexibility. Original series are a more passive entertainment. They are a little out of our initial purview. For one thing, we didn t always have the capability to sell this content.”
“Sony has sold more ads for season two of The Tester with companies like Ford, Electronic Arts and The U.S. Air Force. The goal of the show is to reach 3.5 million downloads, but regardless of how it does, Sony isn’t going to rush into lots more programming. There are more things coming, but you won t see a huge rollout,” she said. “We have a small [programming] team so we want to really hone in on franchises. It makes perfect sense for us to create content that keeps people coming back.”
Source: MediaWeek
