A CYNOPSIS MESSAGE FROM HEARST

HEARST ANYSCREEN
A Higher Standard in OTT

Reach your audience, anytime, anywhere, on any screen. Hearst Anyscreen offers a targeted OTT platform that provides a single, centralized access point to the streaming TV marketplace.

With a unique focus on quality, Hearst Anyscreen delivers premium “living room experience” television that is served primarily on Connected TVs.

Apple unveiled the new iPhone 14 lineup at its press event on Wednesday. Upgrades include a new 12-megapixel main camera on the regular iPhone 14s and a 48-megapixel main camera with a quad-pixel sensor on the Pro series. The devices include an “action mode” video capture with advanced motion stabilization and support for Dolby Vision HDR, and prices are the same as iPhone 13 models, starting at $799.

Google set the date for its Pixel event. The company will showcase its newest developments and devices on October 6 in Brooklyn. This comes after the company rolled out new features for Android devices on Thursday, including audio descriptions for Google TV, a new self-share option for Nearby Share, and new features on the Google Keyboard, among other upgrades.

Vogue teamed with Snap for today’s Vogue World event at New York Fashion Week. Among the AR experiences: Attendees using the Skywalk Lens will see blossoming flowers as models walk the runway, and Snapchatters at home will be able to be able to try on runway garments themselves.

In a letter to Twitter last week, lawyers for Elon Musk said the company’s severance payments to Peiter “Mudge” Zatko, the company’s former head of security, violated a provision of Musk’s acquisition agreement. “Twitter did not seek Defendants’ consent… before making this payment nor was this payment disclosed to Defendants,” reads the letter. “In fact, Defendants only learned of this payment when Twitter filed the separation agreement with the court on September 3, 2022.”

The move continues Musk’s maneuvers to back out of his $44 billion deal to purchase Twitter. A Delaware Chancery Court judge ruled that the billionaire will be allowed to amend his countersuit against Twitter to include Zatko’s whistleblower complaint, which accuses Twitter of lax cybersecurity and reacting inadequately to spam accounts. But Musk’s request for a trial extension was denied. The longer the delay until trial, “the greater the risk of irreparable harm to Twitter,” said the judge. “Indeed, Twitter has represented that the anticipated risk of harm has materialized over the course of this litigation.” The start of the trial is set for October 17.

In non-Musk Twitter news, the company is expanding its fact-checking program, Birdwatch. One thousand new contributors will be added per week ahead of the midterm elections, and contributors must now prove their ability to identify helpful annotations on tweets written by others. “To be shown on a tweet, a note actually has to be found helpful by people who have historically disagreed in their ratings,” Twitter Product VP Keith Coleman told reporters. “This is a novel approach. We’re not aware of other areas where this has been done before.”

The first global talent ID registry for efficient discoverability, royalty collection and revenue tracking of Performing Arts and Sports launched in conjunction with the annual International Broadcasting Conference. HAND (Human and Digital) assigns a verifiable ID to talent, automating the process of talent utilization identification – including name, image and likeness – in both real world and virtual productions. The HAND ID can be used to identify legal-entity Humans, licensed Virtual Humans and Fictional Characters in Performing Arts and Sports.

Meta was hit with a $402 million fine from Ireland’s Data Protection Commission after the regulator completed a two-year investigation into the ways Instagram handled teenagers’ data. The investigation focused on users ages 13-17 who were allowed to operate business accounts, which facilitated the publication of their phone numbers and/or email address. It also covered Instagram’s default policy of making all new accounts, including those of teens, to be publicly viewable.

Hellebore, led by Zappos founder and Golden State Warriors co-owner Nick Swinmurn, launched NFT-powered play-and-earn sports prediction game Play Hellebore. Players can predict the outcomes of games in the NFL, NCAA, MLB and international soccer to increase the value of their in-game NFTs, earn physical and digital rewards, and compete against friends and family in the style of traditional fantasy sports leagues.

Call for judges! With an impressive list of candidates competing for the 2022 Model D + IT List Awards, we’re enlisting experts in the Cynopsis community to help determine the best of the best. The Model D awards honors online video content and advertising, while the IT List celebrates those 35 and younger in the digital media industry. Judges should have experience in the business, a passion for excellence, and be available to review applications by September 30. If interested, please email Carley Ashley at [email protected] and include a brief 2-3 sentence description regarding your qualifications for judging.

A CYNOPSIS MESSAGE FROM HEARST

HEARST ANYSCREEN
A Higher Standard in OTT

Reach your audience, anytime, anywhere, on any screen. Hearst Anyscreen offers a targeted OTT platform that provides a single, centralized access point to the streaming TV marketplace.

With a unique focus on quality, Hearst Anyscreen delivers premium “living room experience” television that is served primarily on Connected TVs.

Video advertising platform Unruly announced that it will protect its advertisers with tools provided by NewsGuard, a company that rates news sources for credibility and transparency, to enable brands to advertise on vetted news and information inventory. Unruly will have access to NewsGuard’s trust rating, to evaluate the credibility and transparency practices of each publisher.

Sixty-seven percent of advertisers are incorporating addressable advertising in their media campaigns, according to new research from Go Addressable, an industry initiative created by television distributors to advance addressable advertising. The first study, conducted in October 2021, found that only half of marketers were using the medium. Other key findings from the report include:
· Nearly half of teams responsible for addressable TV advertising cover both linear and digital planning, a vital and valuable approach considering that addressable can span traditional TV and CTV.
· Among those currently using addressable TV advertising, the top reasons were: 48% said it provides better targeting; 46% cited its ability to measure/prove ROI; and 37% credited successful past performance.

MuxIP, a provider of automated solutions for ad-supported streaming, introduced its FASTHub solution at IBC 2022. FASTHub is a cloud-based software as a service solution that rapidly encodes, prepares, packages, and distributes channels – including broadcast satellite, and digital – to any OTT platform, TV device, or application. FASTHub converts broadcast streams to digital, enabling the rapid creation of FAST channels.

Imagine Communications is extending its GamePlan yield optimizer to offer a turnkey, cloud-based service for linear TV advertising optimization. Designed to extract maximum profitability of ad placement in linear channels, GamePlan Optimization-as-a-Service (OaaS) enables media companies to control costs and achieve revenue-driving benefits of optimization without adding specialized expertise or resources.

Synamedia announced that Red Bee Media, the global media services provider, is deploying Synamedia Quortex technology for disaster recovery for live streaming services. By provisioning back-up resources only when required, Quortex’s cloud-native solution offers cost savings for disaster recovery and reduces energy.

Allen Media Group and Quickplay announced an agreement that paves the way for Allen Media Group’s DTC products to use Quickplay’s cloud-native OTT platform. “Allen Media Group’s direct-to-consumer strategy is to create exceptional product experiences powered by world class content for users worldwide,” said Byron Allen, Founder/Chairman/CEO of Allen Media Group. “Global audiences, along with our streaming platforms and partners, demand excellent product and content experiences. Partnering with Quickplay’s platform powered by Google Cloud will accelerate our mission of achieving the highest level of product excellence.”

While only 12% of football fans described themselves as being happy about the sports’ move to streaming-only games, 53% plan to watch games on streaming platforms anyway, according to data from DISQO. Gen Z, Millennials, and Gen X fans were more likely to watch football via streaming services than Boomers and the Silent generation. When it comes to ads, most fans find at least some of the commercials they see enjoyable, with only 17% saying they don’t like commercials during games at all.

It is 43% more expensive to acquire a new AVOD subscriber than regain a lapsed subscriber, according to a study from VIZIO Ads that looks into the effectiveness of promoting AVOD services on the smart TV home screen. Other findings include:
· It is 82% more expensive to acquire a new subscriber than retain an existing subscriber.
· The higher up and bigger the promotion appears on the Home Screen, the more traffic it drives to the AVOD service. However, the incremental traffic smaller-sized promotions located elsewhere on the Screen attracts do so at a cost-per-acquisition on par with the larger ads (making them highly cost-effective).
· The size of the promotional budget was directly correlated to the increase in results, without increasing the cost-per-acquisition.

Cloud-based video SaaS platform Frequency, which powers linear channels for content providers, and sports and entertainment omnichannel production company Bleav have launched Bleav’s FAST channels, Bleav and Bleav Football, which will initially feature Bleav’s 32 NFL team shows. Former players and media personalities host every show, breaking down game action, previewing upcoming matchups and talking through transactions.

Live and VOD platform Wowza has acquired Flowplayer, a Sweden-based video player specialist. The acquisition was made in partnership with Clearhaven Partners a US-based private equity firm that focuses on software and technology.

Vionlabs, the AI video-audio platform with a content database to offer content characteristics based on mood, announced the launch of the Global Fingerprint Platform, a global database of high-quality audio and video metadata. The Global Fingerprint Platform is powered by the Vionlabs Fingerprint+ Taxonomy, the company’s repository of analyzed and indexed content. With an open API that allows streaming providers to create and tailor their own experiences, Vionlabs’ AI-technology uses machine learning to predict consumer sentiment and mood.

HSN has debuted on YouTube TV, joining QVC as one of only two retailers currently on YouTube TV. The launch continues strategic expansion of 45-year-old HSN’s vCommerce experiences through partnerships and collaborations with new media and digital platforms.

Vidgo is relaunching with new and enhanced technology, a revamped look and an expanded channel lineup. “We’ve reimagined what an affordable video streaming service should look like and the value it should deliver. This includes more college football than any other single channel or live TV streaming service,” said Derek Mattsson, Vidgo CEO. “We have every college conference channel along with ESPN, Fox Sports – meaning no one can do what we do. If you love college sports, there is no better place to watch than Vidgo.”

Cynopsis Team