Back in the day if you owned a premium .tv like say one I owned Six.tv it was $500 as a premium but then $500 each year after that. In 2010 that changed when Verisign made new premium names a one time premium but then standard renewal.
I have written a few times about all the new gtld premium pricing and wondering if inside Verisign they were saying “WTF”. They took a lot of complaints and criticism for the premium renewal price on domains that were premium names.
As Jim from Legacy pointed out in the comments this is only for new premium names or if you are trying to catch a dropping name. If you have one time premium names you are fine and will pay just the standard renewal.
Verisign updated their .TV page July 29
Premium .TV Domain Names
“Premium .TV Domain Name(s)” are .tv Domain Name(s) that have been designated as having non-standard pricing, which may vary per .tv Domain Name and may include .tv Domain Names that are generic or common words, as well as certain one-to three-character combinations. Verisign offers Registrars that execute the Premium .tv Amendment with Verisign, the ability to offer Premium .TV Domain Names (“Premium .TV Domain Name Registrars”). For those Registrars offering Premium .TV Domain Names, Verisign will publish a report each day available via FTP site and Verisign’s web interface for download that provides the Fees set by Verisign for each Premium .TV Domain Name1. The renewal fees for certain Premium .TV Domain Names may be different than the standard Total Renewal Cost for other Domain Names (“Non-Standard Premium .TV Renewal Fee”).
Ammar from Legacy Fund and Domains.TV posted on Namepros
Hi Ammar,
We were not permitted to sell premium TV’s with premium renewals until last week when the premium policy for TV’s changed. This is the first time that I have seen or dealt with any TV’s that have a premium renewal rate on them. All of the premiums that you have purchased with us, were premium registrations with standard renewal rates. There are premium TV’s that Verisign has stated have a premium renewal. I would advise that when making purchases or backorders to check the renewal rate when you are completing the search to ensure that the domain has either a standard renewal rate or a premium renewal rate.Let me know if you have any other questions.
I kept saying there was no way Verisign was going to see domain investors happily pay Donuts and other registries premium renewals and not feel shorted. They had to be like, “Hey, we invented this game”
So make sure you understand what you are registering.
Thanks new gtlds for reversing something it took years to finally get accomplished.
You called it, I have the email you sent me back in June. This sucksssssss, what are these people thinking ?
Ammar and I are partners in Legacy Fund. The headline here might confuse people. Premium domains are only back if you pick them up on the drops from now on. For example, Ammar and I bought Finland.tv a couple of months ago which was a premium domain dropped, but we got it for reg renewal. therefore, were grandfathered and so are others who picked up premium drops the last couple of year. It’s the new drops that are picked up where you have to pay premium renewals. Ammar and I have bought 150+ premium names off backorder the last few year and we will always pay standard renewal. With the new policy, Ammar and I are done buying any more drops thought with premium renewal pricing.
Thanks, Jim Holleran
I think the title is fine Jim because they are back, but I did put in the little tidbit that you mentioned here in the comments, I agree, I don’t want people panicking their old one time premium names are going to get repriced.
Thanks for commenting.
Still, this will scare away investors as well as buyers and will make the extension more confusing than it already is. Why they are insisting on wasting a good extension such as TV. They should learn from the people who behind the successful .me extension.
you said all in 3 lines
Why Verisign doing their best to kill the extension?
I’m afraid Verisign has jumped aboard a bandwagon headed for a cliff.
Ongoing premium renewal rates tend to be an obstacle for retail buyers and are most certainly an impediment to resellers / investors who do so much of the marketing for a TLD. Applying premium renewal rates will doom many a TLD’s best “spokesmodel” domains to neglect and disuse.
What could have made .TV an enticing proposition — namely, superior pricing for registrants coupled with an upsurge of interest in novel extensions — is now an opportunity, if not missed, then at least dampened.
I can’t help but think this a bad long-term strategic move for Verisign. At least, if their goal was to see more .TV domains prominently implemented, they’ll now see less.
Some people have made out some have not. I personally have done both. I am still stuck with Spain.tv at $1000 renewal, Moscow.tv $500 renewal, Georgia.tv, $500 renewal. If I bought them off the drops I will still be stuck with it, so I am in no-mans land with those names.
Got many from drops with reg renewal so nobody going to feel sorry for me though.
Verisign has made this very difficult and confusing for people. .TV should be by far the #2 extension behind .com, the only thing holding it back is Verisign!
I agree number 2 all the way.
Premium names don’t need domainers to market them for them to sell at the registries premium rates / renewals.
It wouldn’t suprise me to see more of this in the future.
They won’t be selling many new premium .tv names. too many options to play this game.
Most domain brokers (myself included) have been approached by nTLD registries to sell their higher priced domains. And most of the higher nTLD sales so far are associated with various domain brokers, most frequently enlisted by the registries themselves. Obviously the registries DO think they need domainers to sell for them, since they’re explicitly asking domain brokers to do so.
There has also been a disproportionate amount of marketing by nTLDs aimed at domainers. So either the registries view domainers as suckers who will buy but can’t market their nTLD wares, or else the registries must view domainers as their unofficial marketers. Take your pick, depending on your level of cynicism!
Great comments all around
@Sameh who knows why they do what they do, especially when .tv is such a small component of their business.
@Joseph Exactly, this was a time to have superior pricing with an extension that means the same everywhere, instead short term greed that will backfire.
@Jim should be in the top 5 for sure, but these people are clueless.
Someone could say that Verisign is either experimenting or trying to make .tv not attractive to most of the people.
They were the first applying premium renewals and now that all the new gtlds came live they probably thought its a good time to run that vagon again.
Either way their ever changing policy on reg and premium fees is destroying .tv like ti would destroy any product and brand.
Dot TV has been making things complicated since they started offering them to the general public as far as I can remember, that is probably why they have never really taken off, this is disappointing but it sure doesn’t surprise me, they are hustling backwards…