Fashion.tv sells for $125,000. First off tip of the hat to Ammar from Legacy Fund who did some research and posted on Namepros that Fashion.tv,Fun.tv and Play.tv have all been sold by Cyber Tavern. Cyber Tavern was a partnership which was headed by the late Igal Lichtman. .TV investors checking the whois over the years, regularly saw the name Cyber Tavern or Mrs Jello. The names owned under Cyber Tavern he once told me were names he owned with partners where the Mrs Jello names were just him.
I interviewed him back in 2011 and it also included a take on the new gtlds.
Q1) When did you start registering .tv ?
Igal: As soon as the registry opened up.
Q2) How many .tv do you own today ?
Igal: 900
Q3) There is an old myth that has gone around for a long time, it stated the domain Golf.tv was acquired for $600,000. There was controversy around the name that a gentleman from South Korea won the name but the original DOT TV Corp never awarded him the name. Did you pay $600,000 for Golf.tv ?
Igal: No I did not pay anywhere near $600,000 for Golf.tv. I cannot disclose the price but it was not $600,000.
Q4) What do you think about the new tlds coming down the road ? Will they affect .tv ?
Igal: Dot Tv is an international extension. When you look at the world the US has adopted .com, but when you go into other countries its all about the CCtld. Go to Holland and its .nl, you can register a dutch word in .com and it will not receive much traffic if any at all.
Now with the new extensions, take for example .music, it does not mean the same in every language. TV means TV universally.
These new domains will cause confusion and bring back value to the likes of .com and .tv. Toll free numbers work like domains in some respect. When there was a need to expand from 800, to whatever it was 888 ? The price went down 30%, when the next number 877 or something came it lowered the prices again. But when the next one came out all the prices went back up for the original because there was too much confusion. 800 is 800 and .com is .com, people will revert back to what they really know.
Q5) How do you feel .tv has done over the years ?
Igal: I think its gaining in popularity but it does not do enough for being 11 years old. I think they are getting smart by lowering the price and getting rid of premium renewal. I was not just a registrant back in the day, but I was also an investor in the Dot Tv Corp, I got my money back on the Verisign buyout.
Q6) What do you think about existing legacy premiums ?
Igal: They want you to return it, that’s why there was no deal for premium holders. They got your money for a few years and a premium renewal, now you can drop it and they get to resell it. Brilliant.
Q7) What do you think about leasing .tv names to entities not sold on the extension ?
Igal: I do it and it works. I leased Football.tv for a long time and then we got the name back, its now currently going to be leased again to another party.
Live.tv is another name we are now leasing, before the lease the name got hundreds of uniques a day. (Editors note NSFW). There is money in leasing if you have good names.
Q8) Do you still register or buy .tv names ?
Igal: No. I am done buying as I am focused on many development projects. No time for keeping up with the auctions and the drops.
Thank you very much for the time you spent today Igal.
Igal: It was my pleasure.
It looks like Fashion.tv was acquired by the company that owns Fashion-TV.com, Fashion Television Media out of Mexico.
Ammar has said that things are in the works to get the documentation to Ron Jackson for documenting the sale on DN Journal.
Fashion.tv is up and running, they mention a Fashion TV set-top box slated to come out.
Through some exciting new strategic partnerships, we’re extremely proud to announce the soon-to-be released Fashion TV Set-top Box.
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In addition to Fashion.tv, Ammar reported that Play.tv and Fun.tv have both been sold for $35,000 each.
