07/20/17: Report: AT&T in talks to buy up Otter Media, other joint ventures

Good morning. It’s Thursday July 20, 2017 and this is your your first early morning Digital briefing!

TODAY’S CODEBREAKER

Meta tag: A meta tag is a snippet of text that describes the content of a webpage. Meta tags don’t actually appear on the page itself – just in its code. They help tell search engines what a webpage’s content is like.

JUST IN…

Hulu just inked a major licensing deal with 20th Century Fox Television Distribution. Over the coming weeks, Hulu will add almost three thousand episodes from 26 different drama and comedy series to its library. Both recent and older shows will be included, including How I Met Your Mother, Glee, and Bones. Hulu also gained the exclusive VOD rights to all episodes of M*A*S*H and NYPD Blue, both of which will debut on the service this summer. Other exclusives include Reba, The Practice, and St. Elsewhere, which are now available. Fox Entertainment Group owns a 30% stake in Hulu.

Plenty of news publishers have expressed frustration with Facebook’s Instant Articles tool, observing that it’s easier to monetize news content on their own sites than on Facebook’s platform. So it’s no surprise that the social giant may be changing up the product: As first reported by The Street, Facebook recently told a gathering of publishers that it’s going to start testing a subscription model for news content. Details are thin, but it seems that Facebook may offer access to a certain number of free articles before requiring readers to subscribe. (It’s essentially the same paywall model that the New York Times uses.) According to The Street, Facebook news partnerships chief Campbell Brown told publishers that the company will start testing the new product in October.

Jeffrey Katzenberg has a new mobile-centric entertainment project up his sleeve – all he needs now is $2 billion. According to Variety, the former Dreamworks Animation Chief – who left the company after its sale to NBCUniversal last year – has recently met with a number of high-powered tech executives from the likes of Apple, Verizon and YouTube. He’d use the $2 billion investment to build up a company he’s tentatively calling New TV. Geared toward 18-34-year-olds, Katzenberg says that New TV would spearhead projects with TV-level production budgets, along with high-profile writers, directors and, stars. The twist: It would all be devoted to short-form content for the mobile screen. In addition to tech companies, Katzenberg has reportedly been pitching companies like Disney and CBS Corp., with the aim of getting them on-board as content producers.

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Tickets will be available soon but should you have any questions in the meantime, please contact Cathy Pearson at 203.899.8470

PROGRAMMING

NBCUNiversal’s Snap Inc. partnership just got more newsy. Yesterday, NBC News debuted Stay Tuned, a two-to-three minute Snapchat newscast that will run twice every weekday and once a day on weekends. NBC News anchors Savannah Sellers and Gadi Schwartz will helm the show. It’s Snapchat’s first-ever daily program. NBCuniversal was one of the first major TV companies to partner with Snap Inc. on short form content; the company also invested $500 million in Snap this past March.

Looks like Stupid Idiots is making its way to television. The TV development rights for the comedy web series, which hails from writer/director/star Stephanie Koenig, have landed with Paramount Television and Anonymous Content. Michael Sugar and Ashley Zalta will executive produce the TV series for Anonymous Content, along with Zoe Worth of Paramount. Six episodes of the web series are available on the YouTube channel of Brian Jordan Alvarez, who co-stars.

APPS + PLATFORMS

Spot.IM, a tech startup focused on social engagement, announced the launch of its native Software Development Kit (SDK) for iOS and Android. The SDK is designed to let publishers build social communities around content. Among other features, the tool allows website visitors to comment and interact with other readers in real-time. Publishers can then direct targeted ads toward those articles and comments. Spot.IM also says that the SDK has an integrated monetization feature. The company cites clients including Time Inc., AOL, and Refinery29.

LET’S MAKE A DEAL

Otter Media may not be a joint venture much longer. The digital media unit, which owns companies and services such as Fullscreen and Crunchyroll, has been co-owned by AT&T and The Chernin Group since its inception in 2014. But according to The New York Post, AT&T has been in talks to buy up The Chernin Group’s stake. The Post reports that the talks are part of a wider effort by AT&T to take ownership of a variety of joint ventures ahead of its acquisition of Time Warner. Those ventures reportedly include MLB Network, the NHL Network, and Game Show Network, each of which AT&T owns a stake in.

MEASURING UP

SHAREABLEE SOCIAL TV RATINGS: Top 10 U.S. Primetime and Streaming Shows for July 10 – July 16. Based on Shareablee’s Video Power Index (VPI), which combines viewing, consumer interactions and audience scale across all active platforms, and includes the video performance of primetime and streaming shows.

Source: Shareablee Inc. The total actions metric includes the total volume of post-level likes, shares, favorites, retweets and comments across social platforms.

OpenSlate Engagement Data for the Sports vertical, based on the engagement metric for the week ending July 16.
Channel (Engagement) / Monthly Views / Total Subs / SlateScore
Desimpedidos (9.3) / 34,849,862 / 4,045,031 / 713
Dude Perfect (9.0) / 203,728,482 / 20,575,258 / 704
WWE (9.0) / 481,522,789 / 16,835,750 / 756
ESPN (8.7) / 108,143,048 / 1,967,160 / 681
Esporte Interativo (8.6) / 17,134,225 / 2,104,544 / 659
LaLiga Santander (8.5) / 7,454,332 / 1,561,800 / 545
ajyari watersports (8.5) / 359,672 / 15,372 / 439
nilcobax (8.5) / 23,778,339 / 1,072,804 / 613
SporTube (8.5) / 8,023,424 / 416,903 / 543
VelodromStudioTV (8.5) / 44,992 / 12,876 / 400
Source: The Engagement metric is one of OpenSlate’s component scores, and is a measure of a producer’s ability to evoke meaningful interaction with their audience. It is calculated on a scale of 1-10 with higher being better. The OpenSlateEngagement score uses a subset of the data incorporated in the SlateScore to perform a set of unique calculations. It factors in views, comments, likes, and more.

Tweet of the week: @senoritacruzz: Wow what an opening #GameOfThones

Canvs, the emotion analytics company, analyzed tweets about TV and streaming programming from July 12-18 using Twitter data from Nielsen. Insights from the 1,823,031 tweets expressing a specific Emotional Reaction (ER) include:

– A monologue by host Peyton Manning had viewers in stitches during the 2017 ESPY Awards, which was broadcast on ABC (and also livestreamed). Humor doesn’t typically go hand-in-hand with sports-related programming, so the unexpected hilarity arguably made Manning’s performance even more buzzworthy.

– Tops in crazy: the season 7 premiere of HBO’s Game of Thrones, where the opening with Arya Stark had viewers gasping in shock. (A surprise cameo by Ed Sheeran later on also prompted expressions of craziness.)

– Congratulatory messages blew up during the 2017 Wimbledon Championships on ESPN, with fans applauding Roger Federer on his eighth title.

– People were freaked out during an episode of Ghost Adventures on Travel Channel that featured a particularly creepy gnome statue in a sketchy hallway in an abandoned nursing home.

– Canvs

RESEARCH

So just what drove Netflix’s far-better-than-expected Q2 subscriber growth? According to app analytics firm App Annie, mobile sign-ups were a major factor. App Annie told Variety that the average number monthly active Netflix users on mobile devices grew by 60% year-over-year in the second quarter. The company now has more than 100 million streaming subs worldwide. And according to App Annie, almost 70 million of those were accessing the service through mobile devices in Q2.

EXECUTIVE MOVES

Discovery Communications has hired Fred Graver, formerly the Global Head of TV Creative for Twitter, as SVP of Digital Content and Social for Discovery Digital. In the new role, he’ll oversee Discovery’s network teams across its U.S. portfolio. Based in New York, he’ll report to Karen Leever, Discovery Communications’s EVP and GM of Digital Media.

TRIVIA

Billy Bob Thornton plays the lead role in which streaming series? (Email [email protected] with your answer and be sure to include your name, company, city and state.)

Our Last Trivia Question: Which Hunger Games actor is starring in the upcoming Hulu series Future Man? Answer: Josh Hutcherson. Kudos to Andy Pittman-TAMU/TX, Susan Nessanabum-Goldberg-M and S Entertainment/NY, Kelli McCabe- Chicago Association of Realtors/IL, Tom Moore-Kalt Productions/CA, Lorrie Shilling/CA, and Aaron Paquette-Screen Engine/CSA/TX

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DIGITAL SPOTLIGHT

If you ever go to Hong Kong, you might want to check out the Playdium Virtual Reality arcade. Or you could just learn more about the place from a new TechCrunch video – here.

David Teich
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