LET’S MAKE A DEAL
Sony Pictures Television Networks has reached a deal to acquire a 95% stake in Funimation Productions, an anime distribution company based in the U.S. Sony will spend $143 million; the deal values the whole company at about $150 million. Funimation, which was founded in 1994, holds distribution rights to a slew of anime titles, including Dragon Ball Z, Cowboy Bebop, Attack on Titan, and Your Name. Funimation is highly active in the digital space; it has its own North American streaming platform, called Funimation Now. In addition, many of its titles are available on Hulu.
CYNOPSIS DIGITAL AWARDS
Miss the deadline for the Cynopsis Digital Awards? You’re in luck –now have until August 8th to submit your stellar digital campaign, state-of-the-art contributions to technology or breakthroughs in video content so that you can get the recognition you deserve! Don’t let this deadline pass you by, enter now!
ADVERTISING
YouTube is moving to offer high-profile publishers more control over their ad inventory, according to a report from Ad Age. The company is looking to let major publishers control ad sales on both YouTube and their own sites, according to the report. In the past, the Google-owned video giant has always restricted the sale of ads into its video player, making it hard for websites to sell their own inventory. But now it seems YouTube is aiming to step up its competition with third-party video players, while at the same time trying to entice publishers to place more content on the platform. One publisher, The Atlantic, has reportedly made the switch already.
OTT + SVOD
Lionsgate and Hemisphere Media Group have launched a new Spanish-language SVOD service. Called Pantaya, the service features Spanish-language films, concerts, documentaries, and other content. To start, the service is available through Roku, Android, and iOS devices, as well as to U.S. Amazon Prime members through the Amazon Channels platform. It costs $5.99 per month. Lionsgate has now partnered on several streaming services, including Tribeca Shortlist, Comic-Con HQ, and Kevin Hart’s Laugh Out Loud, which is slated to launch tomorrow.
CBSN, CBS’s digital streaming service, is debuting on two new platforms. One, not surprisingly, is the CBS All Access SVOD service; CBSN will debut there tomorrow. (At first it will only be available via desktops and laptops; it’ll hit other platforms, including mobile devices, this fall.) CBSN will also launch on the OTT TV service fuboTV; that comes as part of fuboTV’s agreement with CBS Corp. to carry CBS, CBS Sports Network, Pop, and The CW.
INFLUENCERS
A number of Instagram “micro-influencers” – social media influencers with roughly 10,000 to 100,00 followers – have been turning to bots to give themselves a boost. As detailed in a new piece from DigiDay, such influencers often turn to automation software platforms – which can cost anywhere from $9 to $40 per month – to help generate likes, followers, and automatic comments. While there are no reliable statistics to indicate just how many Instagram accounts are turning to bots, marketing execs say they see the practice quite often. You can check out the story here.
PROGRAMMING
Before joining Saturday Night Live in 2003, Kenan Thompson was best known for the Nickelodeon shows All That and Kenan and Kel. Looks like he’s returning to his kid-friendly roots; Thompson is teaming with digital media startup pocket.watch to produce a family-friendly live-action sketch comedy show. Called Pocket.watch Presents Skoogle, the show will feature Thompson as the voice of a digital assistant for kids. The show will satirize things such as social media and streaming services. Kids will make up most of the cast. Comprised of 10-13 half-hour episodes, the show will be shopped to various services and TV networks.
APPS + PLATFORMS
In its ongoing efforts to combat extremist content (and appease nervous advertisers), YouTube announced some new updates. For one, it will soon place videos that don’t technically violate its community guidelines – but have nonetheless been flagged by users for hate speech – in what YouTube is calling “a limited state.” Such videos will be viewable, but only under a warning. In addition, they won’t be monetized, recommended, or include comments, likes, or suggested videos. This new feature will roll out over the coming weeks – first on desktops, then on mobile devices.
In addition, YouTube says it is implementing new machine learning technology to identify and remove terrorist-related content, and the company says it’s started working with 15 new NGOs – including the No Hate Speech Movement and the Anti-Defamation League – to identify content intended to recruit terrorists.
RESEARCH
TV networks have been dramatically upping their branded content footprint on Facebook. According to a new analysis from the research firm ListenFirst Media, the number of branded Facebook posts from broadcast and cable nets increased by a whopping 115% between October 2016 and June 2017. Turner’s Adult Swim had the highest response to its branded posts, with an average of 129,000 responses per post during the period. For the record, that’s 2,187% better than the average branded post. In large part, Adult Swim’s success was thanks to a teaser for the third season of Rick and Morty, which was paid for by The Real Cost, the FDA’s anti-tobacco campaign for teens. That video garnered 932,000 responses on Facebook, and has been viewed over 24 million times.
MEASURING UP
The ListenFirst Television Interest (TVI) Rating (TM) is a standardized measurement of the most buzzed-about TV programs on linear TV and streaming services. A complement to ListenFirst’s other syndicated data products (such as the ListenFirst Digital Audience Rating – TV), the metrics included in the rating capture organic actions that are largely unaffected by paid media. Programs that surface on the TVI leaderboards are the most hashtagged on Facebook, Twitter, Google+, and Tumblr, as well as most searched for on Wikipedia (used as a proxy for organic search volume).
Streaming Series (7/24/17 – 7/30/17)
Source: ListenFirst. The TVI Rating aggregates metrics that measure organically generated activity by fans of the TV show. The metric includes total volume of official hashtag mentions on Facebook, Twitter, Google+, and Tumblr, along with Wikipedia page views (as a proxy for organic search volume) for a show as a percentage of the total volume of the same activities for all shows.
OpenSlate Eng agement Data for the Education vertical, based on the engagement metric for the week ending July 30.
Channel (Engagement) / Monthly Views / Total Subs / SlateScore
Grant Thompson – “The King of Random” (8.9) / 35,812,018 / 8,318,409 / 684
ExpCaseros (8.8) / 57,412,104 / 6,864,286 / 676
Alexandre Venancio Martins (8.5) / 23,640 / 6,036 / 360
Geography Now (8.5) / 3,772,263 / 593,332 / 563
AlternateHistoryHub (8.5) / 2,831,605 / 1,237,042 / 564
Planet Dolan (8.5) / 38,086,421 / 5,466,957 / 670
NewHeaven NewEarth (8.5) / 13,682 / 5,169 / 389
CGP Grey (8.5) / 4,075,861 / 3,019,821 / 595
escolaonlinesp (8.5) / 16,371 / 7,598 / 347
Покашеварим (8.4) / 4,871,404 / 483,809 / 553
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.
TRIVIA
Brit Marling co-created and stars in which Netflix original series? (Email [email protected] with your answer and be sure to include your name, company, city and state.)
Our Last Trivia Question: Which actor played the role of Zeke “Books” Figuero on Netflix’s The Get Down? Answer: Justice Smith. Kudos to Tom Moore-Kalt Productions/CA, Andy Pittman-TAMU/TX, Louis Lewow-Lewow Media Group/GA, Susan Nessanbaum-Goldberg-M and S Entertainment/CA, David Westberg-SAG-AFTRA Federal Credit Union/CA, and Tom Moore-Kalt Productions/CA
