.tv The challenge of selling a .TV domain name

[garptrader]

While video content is far more common today than fifteen years ago when fewer people had high-speed internet connections, the reality is there are many Youtube channels which operate without a domain name. Alternatively they can select a brandable .COM or now even a new TLD. While every two to three weeks there will be some .TV sale reported at DNJ, it appears to me the sales ratio of .TV is so low that it is difficult to justify the higher renewal rates. I continue to hold my better names but see no reason to invest in aftermarket names. Hardly anyone is buying .TV unless it is an expiring name they can backorder.

 

[Vito]

My experience has been the polar opposite of your post here these past few years. It also seems that activity just picks up more and more as time passes and these crappy new dot wtf's are released 4 and 5 tlds at a time. I keep seeing many of the top dot tv portfolio holders renewing their entire portfolios and selling with reported sales getting higher and higher prices. I am wondering why you are so down on the extension but yet you keep renewing whatever you own? I know you have invested in some local Florida Suburban towns and thats great if you are regging names for development but what towns/cities are you getting? If you are getting Orlando, Jacksonville, Miami, Tampa, Key West, Ft Lauderdale, etc I cannot see how you are pessimistic at all because i am sure those cities get tons of offers. Are the smaller towns worth the investment for hopeful sales only? I doubt it. I have had and still hold a few Chicago Suburban towns but have let more drop then i care to admit. I have owned some growing towns from 20k and up to prob close to 75k populations but have only made money on one of those. I have been and will be dropping the remaining few towns i own, but then again none of them were huge cities and i had no development plans with them either. I am also just curious what domains are you considering your "better" domains? If you keep losing money and are not confident in your development or portfolio at all, maybe your domaining strategy needs to be tweaked quite a bit. IMHO.

 

[Ammudamus]

Agree with Dot Stop's analysis. Your posts over the past years keep indicating how 5 figure sales in .TV are an anomaly and not the norm, yet the data continues to suggest otherwise. In addition, you keep buying .TV domain names yet seem to not make any ROI. Why? Either you are killing it and using reverse psychology or you may want to evaluate your holdings more carefully. JMHO.

A

 

[GoneWalkabout]

Must agree with DotStop on this - owning small geo's is perhaps not the way to keeping a smile on your face.

But there is profit in geo .tv - and most know it. It is just NOT in small geo's as there is no market at the moment.

I did own one of the names mentioned by dotstop - Orlando.tv - but owned it for just a few hours before I sold it. I sold cheap, but I sold quick.

That made me smile.

That was a few years back, but really nothing has changed. Big geo's good - small geo's pointless.

Things do go in waves, but some factors will always remain. Big geo's I will always keep - but keywords, LL.tv and LLL>tv are where more of the interest is found.

 

[garptrader]

My comments are consistent with having dropped more than half my .TV portfolio the last few years as .TV sales are rare. I guess the other observation which could be made is that the Spanish .TV market is clearly "emerging market" and not performing well - at least yet. Should I drop Spanish names like "real estate" and "puppies" and cities with populations over 1 million and keywords with 50k+ monthly search volume when TV domains I would not even backorder reportedly sell for $5k+? The only solution is to pare the portfolio so that renewals are not so costly. Regarding smaller-city names, at this point I have scaled back most of those to South Florida names. In one such market, there is not only the local city government which has a TV channel called CITY TV but a local news periodical with a Youtube channel with six hundred plus videos titled CITY NEWS TV

 

[Vito]

We all drop names sometimes. Everything is not always a moneymaker. I would hate to tell you to drop Spanish names because i know as soon as i said that, there will be an uprising of Spanish dot tv sales reported. That is the way this works. Have confidence in at least some of your portfolio that makes sense. I believe Real Estate in Spanish is an incredibly killer name. Puppies in Spanish, not so sure. Here is how we can solve your "challenge of selling a dot tv name" I will buy the spanish real estate name from you right now and you will double your money in a heartbeat!. The puppies one, probably not for me. That is just my 2 cents. As for smaller Geos, i have spent some time and money on those and those really havent worked well as a niche for me. So i would guess since i am in Chicago and you are in Southern Florida it would be a very similar situation with smaller Florida Geos. Drop those that are just costing you money as long as you are not super passionate about that town. Lets say youve put tons of time and money into developing your own home town. Well then definitely keep that. It should be very easy to make $30+ a year on anything you have put some time into. That will just keep gaining value as time pazses and content is added. As for the aftermarket, there are so many ways to make money. Keywords have done very very well for me. Aftermarket keyword and short tv donains have afforded me the luxury to dabble with lots of different tlds and each and every niche within the tv extension. Numbered dot tvs are working for some investors. LLs are working for others. Adult, Product, LLL, etc. The list is endless.
Just dont go crazy in any specific direction if you need to sell immediately. That doesnt work. Sometimes you get 2 great sales in a week. Sometimes one a year...lol
Dont do anything you cant afford to lose until you start making money. Then at that point, swallow your pride and drop some crap and go after the things that have worked. Once some money is made and you want to try another direction/niche take that money, invest in a new direction while affording to keep the rest of your portfolio from your ROI, then rinse and repeat!

V

 

[Ammudamus]

My comments are consistent with having dropped more than half my .TV portfolio the last few years as .TV sales are rare. I guess the other observation which could be made is that the Spanish .TV market is clearly "emerging market" and not performing well - at least yet. Should I drop Spanish names like "real estate" and "puppies" and cities with populations over 1 million and keywords with 50k+ monthly search volume when TV domains I would not even backorder reportedly sell for $5k+? The only solution is to pare the portfolio so that renewals are not so costly. Regarding smaller-city names, at this point I have scaled back most of those to South Florida names. In one such market, there is not only the local city government which has a TV channel called CITY TV but a local news periodical with a Youtube channel with six hundred plus videos titled CITY NEWS TV

I will tell you that you are undermining the Spanish market. With the right name, you can sell for great ROI. My first .TV sale was a Spanish keyword for close to mid $X,XXX. The Spanish market is behind the USA, but it's no surprise that the US in general is lagging behind Europe and Spanish speaking countries for .TV. I sold VEO.tv for 10K as well. Either way, cities that are not huge populations are instant drops unless you have a competitive advantage in the local landscape or know an isolated end user.

Take time to put risks in different categories so when one area slows down, you can hedge and not have renewals be a burden. The days of waiting around for end users to come and buy your names are gone. You need to be proactive. 2015 was the best year in .TV for me personally.

A

 

[donnied79]

Without considering the sale of USA in the last years I've been able to make at least 1-2 good .tv sales and they were mostly domains handregged after March 18th 2010, just sitting there waiting for someone to believe in them.
Although this I have huge difficulties to sell geo .tv, because I think is a lot harder to find the right enduser.
Sometimes you just need to make that sale that gives you more confidence and maybe the liquidity to invest in premium names in the aftermarket.
In any case we all make bad registration and we all let drop domains that then sells for X.XXX, it's part of the game, I dropped a NNN.cc and some NNN.in during last couple of years and I've "lost" at least 20K in sales but at that time, with the information I had, it was the best choice so I can't regret.
Regarding the size of the portfolio I own between 150 and 200 .tv names because more would mean more than 4K of yearly renewals and I don't want to have negative years in domaining.
I wish you the very best.
Ale

 

[KickstartNames]

I picked up a dropped addictinggames.tv and thought I did a really good buy.
Sigh..even tried selling it here, but eventually let it expire...

 

[Cdomains]

I did own one of the names mentioned by dotstop - Orlando.tv - but owned it for just a few hours before I sold it. I sold cheap, but I sold quick.

@GoneWalkabout - Just curious, how did you sell it - Inbound whois, marketplace, outbound contact?

 

[Blueforever]

I got a few LLL.tv (zky, uxu, ezn) but can't seem to shift em for a decent price either. Not sure how to go about targeting end users on these.

 

[TheConqueror]

i have 2 offers in 5 figure range for my .tv s. like every other extension just hold the best ones. they will pay back.