The history of th Dot TV extension

equity78 · 02-04-2011, 09:42 AM

A history lesson

.tv the country code for the tiny island nation of TUVALU the world's smallest country. Tuvalu is a Polynesian island nation located midway between Hawaii and Australia. Back in the mid 80's when countries were being allotted two letter codes for their identity is when Tuvalu struck gold. They were assigned .tv as their cctld. In the 80's no one had any idea that this was to be such a windfall for the tiny island nation.

In 1998, Jason Chapnik a Canadian entrepreneur who was president of Information.ca approached the Tuvalu government with an idea on how to profit from their popular country code. However Chapnik was not the only one interested in .tv. Anton Van Couvering who was the former President of Net Names had been consulting Tuvalu on how to profit from their country code. Van Couvering stepped down as a consultant in order to become a bidder for .tv through his company Net Names.

After months of negotiation in the fall of 98 Tuvalu decided to go with Chapnik. Chapnik started out with a pricing structure that would price .tv much more than traditional prices for .com/net/org but more reasonable than the current premium pricing under Verisign. They started out taking $1000 deposits for the first year with renewals at $500 a year. There was also an auction structure set up to settle domain disputes or if there was two or more entities that shared a certain name.

Chapnik made many promises and gave rather high estimates to the Tuvalu government on sales of .tv domains. When Chapnik was unable to raise the $50 million upfront payment to the Tuvalu nation he brought in a white knight to save the deal.

*See the notes at the end of this post for all the contract details.

Enter Idealab, the California incubator came in and Tuvalu agreed to license its cctld for $1million per quarter adjustable for inflation, with a $50 million cap over 10 years. Additionally the Tuvalu nation got a 20 % interest in the company.

In August of 2000 Idealab announced the three most expensive sales in .tv history. Free.tv,China.tv and Net.tv were sold for $100,000 for the first year and an additional percent for each year following. ChinaGo.com is the registrant of China.tv and Net.tv and have maintained their registration to the present day. Free.tv is registered to a Pennsylvania man that also has kept the registration up to date.

In another marketing deal Dot Tv gave the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences the domain emmys.tv for free in exchange for them to promote the site during their telecast of the EMMYS in Sept of 2000.

During this time some individuals started to make a big leap into the .tv extension. The two largest being Thunayan K Al-Ghanim a Kuwaiti businessman who has one of the largest domain portfolios on the planet. Al-Ghanim through his Future Media Architects owns suchs gems as Sexy.tv, Mp3.tv,several 1 letter .tv domains such as s.tv,t.tv,l.tv and z.tv and many more. Another major player Igal Lichtman also know to many as Mrs Jello/exoticdomains.net/Boogie Productions, owns such gems as xxx.tv,girls.tv,n.tv,x.tv, fun.tv and many more. One benefit these early adopters received was cheap premium renewal fees. Al-Ghanim has $50 renewals and Lichtman has $25 renewals. It was not uncommon to be able to negotiate renewal fees back in the early days especially if you were a big player in the .tv extension.

On January 7,2002 IdeaLab sold its Dot Tv International unit for $45 million to Verisign. The deal was an all cash deal and Verisign at the time stated the transaction would add less than $1million in sales for the 4th quarter of 2001. Verisign also said it would add $7 to $10 million in deferred net revenue.

Verisign took over and started doing business at www.tv where premium registrations could only take place through Verisign with a minimum two year contract. Non premium registrations were $50 at www.tv but other registrars such as Go Daddy, Idotz.net, Moniker and a whole host of others offered 1 year registrations for as little as $29.99 to as high as $59.99.

In the world of domain forums .tv was pretty much shunned, either considered to be too expensive or just commented on as .tv sucks. There was little to no information on the extension until November of 2005, Namepros.com started what was to be the first ever extension specific subforum. The forum located at www.namepros.com/dot-tv picked up steam quickly and educated a whole new domainer on the .tv extension.

In September of 2006 Verisign offered a once in a lifetime chance for the small domain investor interested in premium domains. Since Verisign took over the pricing had changed from Idealab now a LL.tv cost anywhere from $1000 to $10,000 a year. A LLL.tv a very popular genre of domain, cost $5oo and then rose to $750 a year. There was now to be a sale of all sales in the .tv extension. Verisign offered 70 % off the initial registration period and 50 % off renewal fees. An LL.tv could be regged for $300 for as many years as someone wanted to pay upfront and then $500 a year after in renewal.

In December 2006 Verisign announced it had partnered with Demand Media for a new marketing program for the .tv extension. Demand Media led by Richard Rosenblatt who successfully turned around and sold MY SPACE to News Corp is very bullish on the .tv extension. Demand Media rolled out Me.tv a set of social tools to allow anyone to set up their own "TV"channel.

Tom Gardner of Motley Fool fame gave his backing of the extension at a T.R.A.F.F.I.C. domainer convention where he said he thought the extension would be an extension to watch in 2007.

The extension responded in 2007 posting more sales than the previous 3 years combined. Such names as De.tv, Surface.tv, Six.tv and AuctionNetwork.tv have all sold for over $20,000. It is also known that the domain ME.tv sold with a non disclosure we did verify that it was at least xxx,xxx Demand Media being the buyer.

Highest reported sales in the secondary market are Travel.tv for $65,000 and Mail.tv for $35,000 both purchased by Thunayan K AL-Ghanim from the same seller.

ChannelMe.tv turned out to be a bust. Demand Media closed the channel me platform in July of 2009 suggesting users move to magnify.net.

.TV really staggered along over the next year then came March 17,2010. Enom sends out an email that only some received. Top .tv investors started regging names at the deal price. The early buzz is that legendary domainer Frank Schilling is in. But the offer on March 17 is nothing compared to what happens next.
????: NamePros.com http://www.namepros.com/dot-tv/700497-the-history-th-dot-tv-extension.html

On top of this new pricing plan, premium renewal was gone. March 18,2010 some start regging names and noticed there was no

premium. Names like Debt.tv and Tech.tv and Shows.tv along with one letter P.tv and D.tv were all just a regular fee. Enom allows all these regs to stand. Now they take the premium system down and send another email stating that March 19,2010 everything will be back up and the frenzy began. Although this time some names were priced non premium. Some slipped through and others did not. Apparently Frank Schilling was able to give his .tv back as he did not want them at the price offered March 17,2010. A few more big domainers come into .tv. Michael Berkens of www.thedomains.com who owned one .tv prior (Great.tv, which he pays a $3000 premium renewal) jumped in and regged about 20 names. Telepathy Inc. came in and regged a few including California.tv and Florida.tv. The regging frenzy lasted for about a week.

Another result of this change was that more than just ENOM could offer premium .tv. Registrars like Name.com and Dynadot got in the game. Even though there is no premium renewal, a premium cannot be transferred.

With the new pricing Sedo held an auction for some of the top premium .tv. The auction started April 1,2010. Top 5 sales were:
????: NamePros.com http://www.namepros.com/showthread.php?t=700497

business.tv $100,999
learn.tv $41,000
christmas.tv $32,000
home.tv $31,000
guide.tv $29,500

A big buyer at the auction was a company called Portalis. They were high bidder on many names in the auction including:

$100,999 Business.TV
$41,000 Learn.TV
$32,000 Christmas.TV
$31,000 Home.TV
$29,500 Guide.TV
$25,500 Job.TV
$20,500 Jobs.TV

Right away people made money from the change in pricing. The Chinese investor who got beyond lucky and regged P.tv and D.tv for reg fee, sold D.tv to Michael Berkens for $18,000. Berkens posted recently that he turned down $125,000 for the name.

At the end of 2010 the owner of Hollywood.tv dropped Sports.tv. This name was picked up on the drop for $54,000. In a poll on Namepros 74 % of the people thought this was a good buy at $54,000.

Top .tv domainers in the world include but not limited to:

James Black

James Barclay

Thunayan-Al-Ghanim

Igal Lichtman

George Pickering

Ben Van Dyk

Joel Williams

John Van den Berg

Richard Kligman

Jean Francis Arrou Vignod

Michael Berkens

Notable .tv sites include:

MLB.tv Major league baseball uses the site for the streaming of live baseball games.

TNT.tv a large cable tv station owned by Time Warner.

Ustream.tv

Mtv.tv European Mtv a Viacom property.

HG.tv Home and Garden Network.

Exercisetv.tv An exercise show on Time Warner Cable and Comcast Cable.

Justin.tv

Allthings.tv

WFN.tv World Fishing Network

There have been some notable drops in using the .tv extension. Most notably the NFL which dropped NFL.tv and all 32 team names. The team names have been picked up and sold in the aftermarket at mostly reseller prices. NFL.tv was regged by the owner of Hollywood.tv and later dropped. It is interesting to find out why they dropped their .tv domains ? Even more interesting is will the NFL go after those who registered their licensed trademarks ?

* Contract info

In 1999, the Government of Tuvalu signed a contract

with USA based DotTV Corporation International to market and manage

its ccTLD ‘.tv’ indefinitely. In return for the exclusive rights to sell

second-level domain addresses, the Government would receive US$1

million per quarter for 12.5 years and 20% equity in the company.

To 30 September 2000, the Government duly received five quarterly

payments of US$1 million, plus a one-off lump sum payment of

US$12.5 million after the principal investor, Idealabs Inc. Pasadena,

California, exercised a call option under the agreement. In late 2000,

the Government arranged with DotTV Corporation to forego quarterly

payments for the December quarter of 2000 and the first two

quarters of 2001, to acquire US$3 million of preferred stock in the

corporation. In mid-2001, the DotTV Corporation ran into financial

difficulties and in December 2001 the company was purchased by

VeriSign, Inc., the domain administrator for ".com." Tuvalu’s share

of the sale amounted to about US$10 million, which was received as

a lump sum. The new contract with Verisign provides Tuvalu with

US$2.2 million per annum plus 5% of all revenue exceeding US$20

million sales per year. VeriSign holds the rights to market ‘.tv’ for 15

years. The contract expires Dec 31,2016.

Source: GOT.

claudedauman · 02-04-2011, 10:24 AM

Really great post.

I tried to add reps, but apparently, I have given you so many reps already, that namepros would not allow me to add another.

montechristos · 02-04-2011, 10:53 AM

thats a wiki post!

great work

rep added

Keith · 02-04-2011, 10:57 AM

Solid info. Really allows members to get a good grasp of this extention...where it's been and where it could potentially go!!!

the dot stop · 02-04-2011, 11:09 AM

Through the years as you have given out many bits of this info here and there, I have always wondered when you would write the full history out, and finally that day is here.

Excellent!
Thanks Ray.

Lets see how many people steal this info for their own blogs now...

I cant rep you either. too fond blah, blah, blah...

*theo* · 02-04-2011, 11:12 AM

Very interesting information! Thank you!

sdsinc · 02-04-2011, 11:29 AM

Interesting read, thank you.

tj1897 · 02-04-2011, 11:40 AM

Thank you for providing a much needed historical backdrop - looking forward may the best be yet to come!

jwdomain · 02-04-2011, 02:24 PM

Great job - thx!

Worth noting:
* Richard Rosenblatt, and then Bob Parsons, each in turn hitched their wagons directly to the dot tv extension for a time, hoping to cash in on reg fees. Rosenblatt's "Richard.tv" now redirects to CarsonDaly.tv (as do all former ChannelMe.tv / Me.tv domains that chose not to or neglected to migrate to Magnify.net). BobParsons.tv now redirects to BobParsons.me. Notice how both these great domain entrepreneurs jumped on the dot tv bandwagon a little too soon. I bet Bob Parsons wishes he had stuck with BobParsons.tv a little longer. His move from 'dot tv' to 'dot me' for GoDaddy's ccTLD promotional focus looks bass ackwards in hindsight =P

* Carson Daly was the DemandMedia spokesperson during the latter days of the time he had a TV show, though, unfortunately, he never promoted dot tv directly on his Carson Daly tv show. He still posts to his former Me.tv channel at CarsonDaly.tv. Its always been rock band focused, and now is a UGC channel for his 'Last Call' performances and for other rock bands to post vids.

donnied79 · 02-04-2011, 03:28 PM

Very interesting.
Repped.

rokoroko · 02-04-2011, 03:50 PM

great post, I was reading somewhere Golf.TV for 500.000 usd was the highest reported documented sale of TV ext., but I dont remmember where I have read it.

equity78 · 02-04-2011, 05:56 PM

The figure thrown out is $600,000 its not true. Golf.tv was actually a name that had a legal situation. The original buyer was from Korea, I believe he won the name for $1150 paid and then THE old Dot TV corp said he did not win. In speaking to Scott Higgason who ran .tv after this, he said he believed IGAL bought many names and the figure was used just for Golf.tv he said he did not believe it was Golf.tv alone that sold for that.

discovernow · 02-05-2011, 07:49 AM

Ray, excellent post!!! Thanks for sharing, great days ahead for .tv!!!

freedom30 · 02-05-2011, 08:46 AM

...an accurate, enjoyable and easy to read historical analysis of the .tv extension.

Thanks for the time and effort to put the extension in its proper perspective. Would make for intelligent reading for newbies and veterans alike.

defaultuser · 02-05-2011, 10:23 AM

...

domainacrobat · 02-05-2011, 01:23 PM

So much babling and constant background noise have cluttered this forum, thanks Ray for always helping to give information and perspective to those who may be new around here.

tj1897 · 02-05-2011, 02:31 PM

Yes the article provides a gr8 perspective to newbs on the history .. i also think newbs should bring their perpsectives on what .tv means to them to the forum as their views comprise the new landscape.

If the bigger .tv guns then took this new revised picture and tarted it up bit and presented it as a compelling sequal to 2007 scene, to the spin masters at motley fool, we could quite easily see a lot more eyes on the dot.tv space! Their newsletters go out to the masses - no time better than now given the state of global markets and retrenchment - people are hungrier than ever for the next big thing!
tj

snoop · 02-06-2011, 06:34 PM

Seems the rose colored glasses were on when this was written, especially the only very vague reference to the 2008-2010 bust. There was also major issues in the early 2000's with lots of people losing their shirts.

Also needs information on DotTVKing, he was the the first major .tv speculator

gambling.tv
channel.tv
information.tv
cable.tv
beijing.tv
888.tv

etc

http://web.archive.org/web/200102050...king/first.htm

He lost millions on .tv.

finster · 02-06-2011, 06:50 PM

So snoop, in all seriousness, do you belive that .tv would have failed as miserably as it has if it wernt for the premium renewal fee structure? Or the extra high regular fees? If it had been competively priced with .com and they had auctioned off the best at the begining would the situation be radically diffferent than now?

Originally Posted by snoop

Seems the rose colored glasses were on when this was written, especially the only very vague reference to the 2008-2010 bust. There was also major issues in the early 2000's with lots of people losing their shirts.
????: NamePros.com http://www.namepros.com/showthread.php?t=700497

Also needs information on DotTVKing, he was the the first major .tv speculator

gambling.tv
channel.tv
information.tv
cable.tv
beijing.tv
888.tv

etc

http://web.archive.org/web/200102050...king/first.htm

He lost millions on .tv.

snoop · 02-06-2011, 07:49 PM

Originally Posted by finster

So snoop, in all seriousness, do you belive that .tv would have failed as miserably as it has if it wernt for the premium renewal fee structure? Or the extra high regular fees? If it had been competively priced with .com and they had auctioned off the best at the begining would the situation be radically diffferent than now?

If the registration fees were normal and the premium situation had never happened I think it would be a in a much better position.
????: NamePros.com http://www.namepros.com/showthread.php?t=700497

I still don't think it would be in a strong position though, because it is an extension with niche appeal, it is going to be a limited market no matter how low the pricing is. I think it could have been seen as somewhat better than the other alt's but not as good as .org for example.

MicroGuy · 02-06-2011, 10:58 PM

Originally Posted by finster

So snoop, in all seriousness, do you belive that .tv would have failed as miserably as it has if it wernt for the premium renewal fee structure? Or the extra high regular fees? If it had been competively priced with .com and they had auctioned off the best at the begining would the situation be radically diffferent than now?

????: NamePros.com http://www.namepros.com/showthread.php?t=700497
The reason that .TV has 'failed' in terms of mass adoption is directly tied to its ccTLD classification.

In my view, this bastard status keeps smart money on the sidelines along with big business, big development, big advertising, along with the prospects of mass adoption.

***mwzd*** · 02-07-2011, 12:22 AM

Originally Posted by equity78

On top of this new pricing plan, premium renewal was gone. March 18,2010 some start regging names and noticed there was no premium. Names like Debt.tv and Tech.tv and Shows.tv along with one letter P.tv and D.tv were all just a regular fee. Enom allows all these regs to stand.

I missed this, didn't know till the system went down, some people got really lucky here, like you mentioned.

Originally Posted by equity78

Now they take the premium system down and send another email stating that March 19,2010 everything will be back up and the frenzy began. Although this time some names were priced non premium. Some slipped through and others did not.

All the one's I got that 'slipped' through had premium fees slapped on after the fact.

Originally Posted by equity78

Another result of this change was that more than just ENOM could offer premium .tv. Registrars like Name.com and Dynadot got in the game. Even though there is no premium renewal, a premium cannot be transferred.

I think this is incorrect, a premium reg CAN be transferred to any other registrar that offers .tv, I haven't tried to yet, but I have this in writing from name.com at least.
????: NamePros.com http://www.namepros.com/showthread.php?t=700497

Good article though, gives a basic understanding to people who think .tv was launched in march 2010.

Btw, snoop, any further info about this DotTVking - identity or holdings or some documentation of him 'losing millions' will be appreciated.

Microguy - being a ccTLD hurts, but premium renewals is what kept it down all this time. Both of these are non-issues at this time.

equity78 · 02-07-2011, 12:37 AM

I doubt that Samit. On the phone Name.com told me a premium registered at Name.com could not be transferred to say ENOM for example. Enom and Dynadot both said the same. A premium name cannot be transferred, I would check who said that at Name.com because that's not true.

sdsinc · 02-07-2011, 03:38 AM

Originally Posted by finster

So snoop, in all seriousness, do you belive that .tv would have failed as miserably as it has if it wernt for the premium renewal fee structure? Or the extra high regular fees? If it had been competively priced with .com and they had auctioned off the best at the begining would the situation be radically diffferent than now?

Very likely, I think Verisign spoiled the extension for short term gain.
????: NamePros.com http://www.namepros.com/showthread.php?t=700497
Two problems:

no long term vision, because the lease only lasts so long. The registry 'must' milk the extension as much as possible, hindering future growth and end user adoption.
not a regulated TLD: there is no guarantee of stable/predictable prices

As for the future, I'm afraid it won't be much different than the past. I think Snoop is right, the potential is there but limited by the niche nature.

snoop · 02-07-2011, 03:06 PM

Originally Posted by sdsinc

Very likely, I think Verisign spoiled the extension for short term gain.
Two problems:

no long term vision, because the lease only lasts so long. The registry 'must' milk the extension as much as possible, hindering future growth and end user adoption.
not a regulated TLD: there is no guarantee of stable/predictable prices

As for the future, I'm afraid it won't be much different than the past. I think Snoop is right, the potential is there but limited by the niche nature.

As far as registries go, I think this one has been run very well. That is from a business perspective, getting customers to pay as much as possible. They've left very little money on the table over the years with minimal spend on marketing/staff etc which has been the financial downfall of others such as .mobi.

They've also adapted, when customers have walked out the door because they've realised it doesn't work for them verisign changes the game and brings them back it.

They'd price other extensions they same way if they could, and if they did again there would be very little money in it for domainers and massive profits for the registry.

---------- Post added at 03:06 PM ---------- Previous post was at 02:49 PM ----------

Originally Posted by mwzd

Btw, snoop, any further info about this DotTVking - identity or holdings or some documentation of him 'losing millions' will be appreciated.

I can't remember his name it has been so long ago, all the good stuff he owned had huge reg fees and he held for a few years. He had approx 3000 .tv's according to below and dozens, maybe hundreds of premiums from what I recall,

Here is some old commentary from that time, over a decade ago, similar statements about the extension are still being made today,

Quote:

Dottvking owns many premium tv domains, Beijing.tv, fan.tv, motorsports.tv(!!!), German.tv, GOD.tv(!!!), and winner.tv, gambling.tv(!!!) ,gaming.tv, a great collection of tv domains. I believe these tv domains will hit as high as dotcoms in two or three years later. Do need to argue now, just wait and see

If you don't like tv domains, just not to buy it.  yesonline Sun Dec 10 04:12:57 2000 - 211.75.22.163 - message #740

????: NamePros.com http://www.namepros.com/showthread.php?t=700497
????: NamePros.com http://www.namepros.com/showthread.php?t=700497

Quote:

 I just spidered dotking.tv's domains all 2972 of them

  "If" and that's a "big if" dot.tv makes it big time he will be in a prime position with his domains.  Something interesting... 289 of his domains have yet to be registered in the .com versions.   . Rd Sun Dec 10 05:17:05 2000 - 216.237.42.14 - message #741

Quote:

Re: dottvking  Now I don't want to be a sceptic but a few things worry me about dottvking. Firstly he has an awful lot of annual rent to pay on all those names, I assume he is paying $10,000+ each plus on the high profile names. How long will it be before he can cover the annual fees with cash from traffic/sales? Fortunately none of us with our .coms have to worry about huge annual fees (which increase by 5% each year).  Secondly it is worrying that his aim seems to be to resell all these names, there seems to be no development plans there, the guy doesn't even point the names to his own site so he wouldn't know if he was getting traffic!  It takes no talent to buy a name with the *hope* of selling it in the future, thats just rampant speculation, however it does take talent to buy a name and make it profitable NOW.  I'd give dottvking a 10% chance of being profitable. I think its a case of more $$$ than sense.     Paul Sun Dec 10 11:52:33 2000 - 130.194.13.209 - message #753

Quote:

You can debate .TV forever.....but here is the REAL answer.  There is but one way that will determine the success or failure of .tv  ADVERTISING DOLLARS.  Yes, It was HUGE when the emmyawards used emmyawards.tv. But what has happened since?  Well if you are playing CLOSE attention you may have seen something like tellthetruthtv.com  Yes, they use the tv but before the .com  

http://fragerfactor.blogspot.com/201...-archives.html

02-04-2011, 09:42 AM	THREAD STARTER #1 (permalink)
equity78 NamePros Expert Join Date: Oct 2004 Posts: 7,639	The history of th Dot TV extension A history lesson .tv the country code for the tiny island nation of TUVALU the world's smallest country. Tuvalu is a Polynesian island nation located midway between Hawaii and Australia. Back in the mid 80's when countries were being allotted two letter codes for their identity is when Tuvalu struck gold. They were assigned .tv as their cctld. In the 80's no one had any idea that this was to be such a windfall for the tiny island nation. In 1998, Jason Chapnik a Canadian entrepreneur who was president of Information.ca approached the Tuvalu government with an idea on how to profit from their popular country code. However Chapnik was not the only one interested in .tv. Anton Van Couvering who was the former President of Net Names had been consulting Tuvalu on how to profit from their country code. Van Couvering stepped down as a consultant in order to become a bidder for .tv through his company Net Names. After months of negotiation in the fall of 98 Tuvalu decided to go with Chapnik. Chapnik started out with a pricing structure that would price .tv much more than traditional prices for .com/net/org but more reasonable than the current premium pricing under Verisign. They started out taking $1000 deposits for the first year with renewals at $500 a year. There was also an auction structure set up to settle domain disputes or if there was two or more entities that shared a certain name. Chapnik made many promises and gave rather high estimates to the Tuvalu government on sales of .tv domains. When Chapnik was unable to raise the $50 million upfront payment to the Tuvalu nation he brought in a white knight to save the deal. See the notes at the end of this post for all the contract details. Enter Idealab, the California incubator came in and Tuvalu agreed to license its cctld for $1million per quarter adjustable for inflation, with a $50 million cap over 10 years. Additionally the Tuvalu nation got a 20 % interest in the company. In August of 2000 Idealab announced the three most expensive sales in .tv history. Free.tv,China.tv and Net.tv were sold for $100,000 for the first year and an additional percent for each year following. ChinaGo.com is the registrant of China.tv and Net.tv and have maintained their registration to the present day. Free.tv is registered to a Pennsylvania man that also has kept the registration up to date. In another marketing deal Dot Tv gave the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences the domain emmys.tv for free in exchange for them to promote the site during their telecast of the EMMYS in Sept of 2000. During this time some individuals started to make a big leap into the .tv extension. The two largest being Thunayan K Al-Ghanim a Kuwaiti businessman who has one of the largest domain portfolios on the planet. Al-Ghanim through his Future Media Architects owns suchs gems as Sexy.tv, Mp3.tv,several 1 letter .tv domains such as s.tv,t.tv,l.tv and z.tv and many more. Another major player Igal Lichtman also know to many as Mrs Jello/exoticdomains.net/Boogie Productions, owns such gems as xxx.tv,girls.tv,n.tv,x.tv, fun.tv and many more. One benefit these early adopters received was cheap premium renewal fees. Al-Ghanim has $50 renewals and Lichtman has $25 renewals. It was not uncommon to be able to negotiate renewal fees back in the early days especially if you were a big player in the .tv extension. On January 7,2002 IdeaLab sold its Dot Tv International unit for $45 million to Verisign. The deal was an all cash deal and Verisign at the time stated the transaction would add less than $1million in sales for the 4th quarter of 2001. Verisign also said it would add $7 to $10 million in deferred net revenue. Verisign took over and started doing business at www.tv where premium registrations could only take place through Verisign with a minimum two year contract. Non premium registrations were $50 at www.tv but other registrars such as Go Daddy, Idotz.net, Moniker and a whole host of others offered 1 year registrations for as little as $29.99 to as high as $59.99. In the world of domain forums .tv was pretty much shunned, either considered to be too expensive or just commented on as .tv sucks. There was little to no information on the extension until November of 2005, Namepros.com started what was to be the first ever extension specific subforum. The forum located at www.namepros.com/dot-tv picked up steam quickly and educated a whole new domainer on the .tv extension. In September of 2006 Verisign offered a once in a lifetime chance for the small domain investor interested in premium domains. Since Verisign took over the pricing had changed from Idealab now a LL.tv cost anywhere from $1000 to $10,000 a year. A LLL.tv a very popular genre of domain, cost $5oo and then rose to $750 a year. There was now to be a sale of all sales in the .tv extension. Verisign offered 70 % off the initial registration period and 50 % off renewal fees. An LL.tv could be regged for $300 for as many years as someone wanted to pay upfront and then $500 a year after in renewal. In December 2006 Verisign announced it had partnered with Demand Media for a new marketing program for the .tv extension. Demand Media led by Richard Rosenblatt who successfully turned around and sold MY SPACE to News Corp is very bullish on the .tv extension. Demand Media rolled out Me.tv a set of social tools to allow anyone to set up their own "TV"channel. Tom Gardner of Motley Fool fame gave his backing of the extension at a T.R.A.F.F.I.C. domainer convention where he said he thought the extension would be an extension to watch in 2007. The extension responded in 2007 posting more sales than the previous 3 years combined. Such names as De.tv, Surface.tv, Six.tv and AuctionNetwork.tv have all sold for over $20,000. It is also known that the domain ME.tv sold with a non disclosure we did verify that it was at least xxx,xxx Demand Media being the buyer. Highest reported sales in the secondary market are Travel.tv for $65,000 and Mail.tv for $35,000 both purchased by Thunayan K AL-Ghanim from the same seller. ChannelMe.tv turned out to be a bust. Demand Media closed the channel me platform in July of 2009 suggesting users move to magnify.net. .TV really staggered along over the next year then came March 17,2010. Enom sends out an email that only some received. Top .tv investors started regging names at the deal price. The early buzz is that legendary domainer Frank Schilling is in. But the offer on March 17 is nothing compared to what happens next. ????: NamePros.com http://www.namepros.com/dot-tv/700497-the-history-th-dot-tv-extension.html On top of this new pricing plan, premium renewal was gone. March 18,2010 some start regging names and noticed there was no premium. Names like Debt.tv and Tech.tv and Shows.tv along with one letter P.tv and D.tv were all just a regular fee. Enom allows all these regs to stand. Now they take the premium system down and send another email stating that March 19,2010 everything will be back up and the frenzy began. Although this time some names were priced non premium. Some slipped through and others did not. Apparently Frank Schilling was able to give his .tv back as he did not want them at the price offered March 17,2010. A few more big domainers come into .tv. Michael Berkens of www.thedomains.com who owned one .tv prior (Great.tv, which he pays a $3000 premium renewal) jumped in and regged about 20 names. Telepathy Inc. came in and regged a few including California.tv and Florida.tv. The regging frenzy lasted for about a week. Another result of this change was that more than just ENOM could offer premium .tv. Registrars like Name.com and Dynadot got in the game. Even though there is no premium renewal, a premium cannot be transferred. With the new pricing Sedo held an auction for some of the top premium .tv. The auction started April 1,2010. Top 5 sales were: ????: NamePros.com http://www.namepros.com/showthread.php?t=700497 business.tv $100,999 learn.tv $41,000 christmas.tv $32,000 home.tv $31,000 guide.tv $29,500 A big buyer at the auction was a company called Portalis. They were high bidder on many names in the auction including: $100,999 Business.TV $41,000 Learn.TV $32,000 Christmas.TV $31,000 Home.TV $29,500 Guide.TV $25,500 Job.TV $20,500 Jobs.TV Right away people made money from the change in pricing. The Chinese investor who got beyond lucky and regged P.tv and D.tv for reg fee, sold D.tv to Michael Berkens for $18,000. Berkens posted recently that he turned down $125,000 for the name. At the end of 2010 the owner of Hollywood.tv dropped Sports.tv. This name was picked up on the drop for $54,000. In a poll on Namepros 74 % of the people thought this was a good buy at $54,000. Top .tv domainers in the world include but not limited to: James Black James Barclay Thunayan-Al-Ghanim Igal Lichtman George Pickering Ben Van Dyk Joel Williams John Van den Berg Richard Kligman Jean Francis Arrou Vignod Michael Berkens Notable .tv sites include: MLB.tv Major league baseball uses the site for the streaming of live baseball games. TNT.tv a large cable tv station owned by Time Warner. Ustream.tv Mtv.tv European Mtv a Viacom property. HG.tv Home and Garden Network. Exercisetv.tv An exercise show on Time Warner Cable and Comcast Cable. Justin.tv Allthings.tv WFN.tv World Fishing Network There have been some notable drops in using the .tv extension. Most notably the NFL which dropped NFL.tv and all 32 team names. The team names have been picked up and sold in the aftermarket at mostly reseller prices. NFL.tv was regged by the owner of Hollywood.tv and later dropped. It is interesting to find out why they dropped their .tv domains ? Even more interesting is will the NFL go after those who registered their licensed trademarks ? Contract info In 1999, the Government of Tuvalu signed a contract with USA based DotTV Corporation International to market and manage its ccTLD ‘.tv’ indefinitely. In return for the exclusive rights to sell second-level domain addresses, the Government would receive US$1 million per quarter for 12.5 years and 20% equity in the company. To 30 September 2000, the Government duly received five quarterly payments of US$1 million, plus a one-off lump sum payment of US$12.5 million after the principal investor, Idealabs Inc. Pasadena, California, exercised a call option under the agreement. In late 2000, the Government arranged with DotTV Corporation to forego quarterly payments for the December quarter of 2000 and the first two quarters of 2001, to acquire US$3 million of preferred stock in the corporation. In mid-2001, the DotTV Corporation ran into financial difficulties and in December 2001 the company was purchased by VeriSign, Inc., the domain administrator for ".com." Tuvalu’s share of the sale amounted to about US$10 million, which was received as a lump sum. The new contract with Verisign provides Tuvalu with US$2.2 million per annum plus 5% of all revenue exceeding US$20 million sales per year. VeriSign holds the rights to market ‘.tv’ for 15 years. The contract expires Dec 31,2016. Source: GOT. __________________ Host your website with name.com and get up to $10.99 off any domain registration First Quarter 2012 5 letter.com sales report Last edited by equity78; 02-04-2011 at 09:51 AM.

02-04-2011, 10:24 AM	#2 (permalink)
claudedauman NamePros Regular Join Date: Oct 2006 Posts: 475	Really great post. I tried to add reps, but apparently, I have given you so many reps already, that namepros would not allow me to add another. __________________ Claude - My Blog: Domains90210.com - Follow me at http://twitter.com/Domains90210 -- http://Professor.info is the smart place to buy domain names. See my well priced domain portfolio at http://domains90210.com/?page_id=50

02-04-2011, 10:53 AM	#3 (permalink)
montechristos NamePros Regular Join Date: May 2010 Location: Funafuti beach Posts: 300 Follow @10catsplus	thats a wiki post! great work rep added __________________ L.B.R.T.T.I.TV Last edited by montechristos; 02-04-2011 at 11:00 AM.

02-04-2011, 11:09 AM	#5 (permalink)
the dot stop Senior Member Join Date: Dec 2008 Location: DomainSales.TV Posts: 3,585 Follow @thedotstop	Through the years as you have given out many bits of this info here and there, I have always wondered when you would write the full history out, and finally that day is here. Excellent! Thanks Ray. Lets see how many people steal this info for their own blogs now... I cant rep you either. too fond blah, blah, blah... __________________ DomainSales.tv ANALYZE.TV

02-04-2011, 11:29 AM	#7 (permalink)
sdsinc Domains my Dominion Join Date: Aug 2005 Location: Web 1.0 Posts: 9,961	Interesting read, thank you. __________________ NameNewsletter.com - free lists of available domain names ZoneFiles.net (beta) - ccTLD and gTLD droplists

02-04-2011, 10:57 AM	#4 (permalink)
Keith Senior Member Join Date: Jan 2007 Location: "D" town Posts: 3,617	Solid info. Really allows members to get a good grasp of this extention...where it's been and where it could potentially go!!!

02-04-2011, 11:12 AM	#6 (permalink)
theo NamePros Supporter Join Date: Oct 2009 Location: Europe Posts: 578	Very interesting information! Thank you!

02-04-2011, 11:40 AM	#8 (permalink)
tj1897 NamePros Regular Join Date: Oct 2010 Location: British Columbia Canada Posts: 346	Thank you for providing a much needed historical backdrop - looking forward may the best be yet to come!

02-04-2011, 02:24 PM	#9 (permalink)
jwdomain NamePros Member Join Date: Dec 2008 Posts: 142	Great job - thx! Worth noting: * Richard Rosenblatt, and then Bob Parsons, each in turn hitched their wagons directly to the dot tv extension for a time, hoping to cash in on reg fees. Rosenblatt's "Richard.tv" now redirects to CarsonDaly.tv (as do all former ChannelMe.tv / Me.tv domains that chose not to or neglected to migrate to Magnify.net). BobParsons.tv now redirects to BobParsons.me. Notice how both these great domain entrepreneurs jumped on the dot tv bandwagon a little too soon. I bet Bob Parsons wishes he had stuck with BobParsons.tv a little longer. His move from 'dot tv' to 'dot me' for GoDaddy's ccTLD promotional focus looks bass ackwards in hindsight =P * Carson Daly was the DemandMedia spokesperson during the latter days of the time he had a TV show, though, unfortunately, he never promoted dot tv directly on his Carson Daly tv show. He still posts to his former Me.tv channel at CarsonDaly.tv. Its always been rock band focused, and now is a UGC channel for his 'Last Call' performances and for other rock bands to post vids. Last edited by jwdomain; 02-04-2011 at 05:07 PM.

02-04-2011, 03:28 PM	#10 (permalink)
donnied79 Senior Member Join Date: Jun 2008 Location: Milano Posts: 1,089	Very interesting. Repped. __________________ Sunglasses.tv

02-04-2011, 03:50 PM	#11 (permalink)
rokoroko Senior Member Join Date: Jul 2005 Posts: 1,081	great post, I was reading somewhere Golf.TV for 500.000 usd was the highest reported documented sale of TV ext., but I dont remmember where I have read it. __________________ AmoledTV.com StockExchange.TV

02-04-2011, 05:56 PM	THREAD STARTER #12 (permalink)
equity78 NamePros Expert Join Date: Oct 2004 Posts: 7,639	The figure thrown out is $600,000 its not true. Golf.tv was actually a name that had a legal situation. The original buyer was from Korea, I believe he won the name for $1150 paid and then THE old Dot TV corp said he did not win. In speaking to Scott Higgason who ran .tv after this, he said he believed IGAL bought many names and the figure was used just for Golf.tv he said he did not believe it was Golf.tv alone that sold for that. __________________ Host your website with name.com and get up to $10.99 off any domain registration First Quarter 2012 5 letter.com sales report

02-05-2011, 07:49 AM	#13 (permalink)
discovernow Senior Member Join Date: Feb 2007 Posts: 1,502	Ray, excellent post!!! Thanks for sharing, great days ahead for .tv!!!

02-05-2011, 08:46 AM	#14 (permalink)
freedom30 Senior Member Join Date: May 2007 Location: Windy City Posts: 2,437	...an accurate, enjoyable and easy to read historical analysis of the .tv extension. Thanks for the time and effort to put the extension in its proper perspective. Would make for intelligent reading for newbies and veterans alike. __________________ .TV - go ahead...turn it on! DomainSales.TV

02-05-2011, 10:23 AM	#15 (permalink)
defaultuser Senior Member Join Date: May 2009 Location: internet@ctivist.com Posts: 4,789	... __________________ A Member of: IdeationTeam.com HowToBeADomainer.com - a Domaining How To AuthorEditor.com Last edited by defaultuser; 02-06-2011 at 10:55 PM.

02-05-2011, 01:23 PM	#16 (permalink)
domainacrobat Senior Member Join Date: Jul 2006 Location: USA Posts: 3,669	So much babling and constant background noise have cluttered this forum, thanks Ray for always helping to give information and perspective to those who may be new around here. __________________ Outlets.Tv Decorator.TV Lifeguard.Tv Lifeguards.Tv Cosmetologist.tv Paleontology.Tv Paddling.Tv Surfboard.TV Baseballs.Tv Basketballs.Tv FightChannel.Tv StockPhotography.Tv TwentyOne.Tv HairStylists.tv A Sea of .Tv

02-05-2011, 02:31 PM	#17 (permalink)
tj1897 NamePros Regular Join Date: Oct 2010 Location: British Columbia Canada Posts: 346	Yes the article provides a gr8 perspective to newbs on the history .. i also think newbs should bring their perpsectives on what .tv means to them to the forum as their views comprise the new landscape. If the bigger .tv guns then took this new revised picture and tarted it up bit and presented it as a compelling sequal to 2007 scene, to the spin masters at motley fool, we could quite easily see a lot more eyes on the dot.tv space! Their newsletters go out to the masses - no time better than now given the state of global markets and retrenchment - people are hungrier than ever for the next big thing! tj

02-06-2011, 06:34 PM	#18 (permalink)
snoop New User Join Date: Dec 2004 Posts: 4,986	Seems the rose colored glasses were on when this was written, especially the only very vague reference to the 2008-2010 bust. There was also major issues in the early 2000's with lots of people losing their shirts. Also needs information on DotTVKing, he was the the first major .tv speculator gambling.tv channel.tv information.tv cable.tv beijing.tv 888.tv etc http://web.archive.org/web/200102050...king/first.htm He lost millions on .tv.

02-07-2011, 12:37 AM	THREAD STARTER #23 (permalink)
equity78 NamePros Expert Join Date: Oct 2004 Posts: 7,639	I doubt that Samit. On the phone Name.com told me a premium registered at Name.com could not be transferred to say ENOM for example. Enom and Dynadot both said the same. A premium name cannot be transferred, I would check who said that at Name.com because that's not true. __________________ Host your website with name.com and get up to $10.99 off any domain registration First Quarter 2012 5 letter.com sales report

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