06/12/17: Sense8: Sorry, still canceled

Good morning. It’s Monday June 12, 2017 and this is your your first early morning Digital briefing!

TODAY’S CODEBREAKER

X3D is a royalty free ISO standard XML-based file format for representing 3D computer graphics. It became the successor to the Virtual Reality Modeling Language in 2001.

TOP NEWS

Netflix heard the outcry from fans about the June 1 cancelation of Sense8, including a #RenewSense8 campaign and petition – but the decision stands. “We wish we could #BringBackSense8 for you,” said the streaming service in a statement. “The reason we’ve taken so long to get back to you is because we’ve thought long and hard here at Netflix to try to make it work but unfortunately we can’t.” Wrote co-star Brian J. Smith in a letter to fans, “It may not seem fair in the face of such passionate fan backlash, but it always, ALWAYS boils down to numbers.”

Dentsu Aegis Network said that its media agency brands in the U.S. will use Merkle’s PII-based M1 platform for centralized data planning and activation. Dentsu ’s media agencies had been trying out M1 and it’s now being deployed as a self-service tool at Carat, iProspect and 360i, as well as at centralized programmatic unit Amnet.

Sirius XM will invest $480 million in internet-radio pioneer Pandora, which will sell Ticketfly, the ticketing startup it bought for $450 million in 2015, to Eventbrite for $200 million. The deal comes after private equity firm KKR & Co. LP agreed last month to invest $150 million in Pandora.

Horizon Media launched a new division called UNCVR in partnership with entertainment-based tech player STXsurreal. The unit will focus on augmented reality, virtual reality, mixed reality and 360-degree video. Sarah Bachman, VP Mobile Strategy at Horizon, and Monika Ratner, Director of Social Strategy, will oversee UNCVR.

The “big five” tech stocks – Apple, Alphabet Class A shares, Microsoft, Amazon and Facebook – lost over $97.5 billion in market value on Friday, in a sell-off that pushed Nasdaq down 1.8% in an otherwise high-flying year. Shares of Apple fell 3.9%, the biggest one-day decline in over a year. The slide came after a warning from Goldman Sachs analyst Robert Boroujerdi that possible outperformance by the tech sector has created “difficult-to-decipher risk narratives.”

Twitter and Bloomberg’s live stream coverage of former FBI Director James Comey’s testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee on Thursday reached 2.7 million unique viewers globally. The broadcast had an average minute audience of 129,000 viewers, and attracted a young audience – 88% of logged-in live viewers were under the age of 35.

Verizon ’s upcoming OTT service won’t be “just a me-too kind of thing,” said Marni Walden, the company’s EVP and president of media and telematics, at Thursday’s Guggenheim Media Day. “Originals are important and sports are really important,” said the exec. “There are some things you have to have but we’re not looking for the kitchen sink.” Lesson learned from go90: “Having a bunch of content isn’t necessarily a winning strategy.”

Home renovation/remodel platform Houzz is getting an addition. The company is raising $400 million in new financing led by Iconiq, reports Recode. Last fall Houzz introduced a tool that uses home photos to direct users to comparable products, and added an AR feature to its mobile app that shows what a piece of furniture might look like in a room.

A CYNOPSIS MESSAGE

Register for the June 27 Esports Webinar:

How Sports Brands Can Leverage the Esports Explosion

June 27 at 1:30pm

What you’ll learn:
• What brought current players into the esports space
• What players have they learned since their investment that can help shape company’s strategies
• How the sports and esports industries can help each other
• How media companies & content producers leverage the gaming craze with complementary programming
• The kinds of data potential partners should review

PROGRAMMATIC

Google has launched the open beta of its Exchange Bidding on DoubleClick for Publishers. As opposed to the technique of header bidding, Google claims Exchange Bidding provides publishers with monetization opportunities without compromising the user experience. In a blog post, Google says publishers can be up and running with the technology in under a day, and that those participating in the closed beta have see programmatic revenue increase by as much as 40%.

RESEARCH

First View , or promoted videos that run at the top of users’ time lines on Twitter, are more effective than “standard view” ads that appear throughout the same feeds. That’s the takeaway from The Art of the Takeover: Optimizing What Consumers See First, a joint undertaking by Interpublic’s Media Lab and its Magna division in conjunction with the social platform. According to the study, takeovers are on-screen an average of 50% more than ads that appear lower in the feed.

New data from Hitwise peg the Netflix audience size at 55.8 million, far ahead of Hulu (10 million) and Amazon Instant Video (7.6 million). Hitwise says the Netflix audience lies mostly between 25 and 44, while Amazon attracts the Gen X cohort. Hulu’s is more diverse, with its largest segment being older Millenials (25-34).

EXECUTIVE MOVES

Advertising agency R/GA has appointed Steven Moy as U.S. Chief Technology Officer to run its technology consulting practice. He most recently was CEO of Isobar U.K.

TRIVIA

This Brazilian actress who stars in Queen of the South on Netflix also had a leading role in the movie Back and Forth. What was it? (Email [email protected] with your answer and be sure to include your name, company, city and state.)

Our Last Trivia Question: This native of Belarus is a four-time New York Times best seller who brings his knowledge of serial entrepreneurialism to the Apple’s new Planet of the Apps series. Answer: Gary Vaynerchuk. Kudos to Andy Pittman-TAMU/TX, Louis Lewow-Lewow Media Group/GA, Andrew Bellamy-Producers Guild of America/NY, Luke Watson-Roker Labs/NY, David Westberg-SAG-AFTRA Federal Credit Union/CA, Lorrie Shilling/CA, Tom Moore-Kalt Productions/CA.

A CYNOPSIS MESSAGE

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DIGITAL SPOTLIGHT

We’ve certainly come a long way since the 1960’s, when some television sets emitted dangerous amounts of radioactivity. But is the popular habit of binge viewing actually unhealthy for the brain and body? Watch this video by asapSCIENCE and decide for yourself.

David Teich
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