ADVERTISING
YouTube is advertising to advertisers. In a new campaign, Google’s video giant is touting the effectiveness of its six-second ad format, emphasizing that Gen Z’ers and millennials aren’t the only demos that watch online videos nowadays. The new ads are geared toward brands and agencies. Not surprisingly, many of them are six seconds long.
APPS + PLATFORMS
Amazon is preparing to roll out two new models of its Fire TV connected device, according a new report from AFTVNews.com. The site – which managed to dig up specs and photos of the devices – reports that the new flagship Fire TV will be cube-shaped, with a built-in speaker and microphones that will let users interact with the Alexa digital voice assistant without needing to use their voice remote. And the device will reportedly enable users to speak with Alexa or listen to music even when a TV is off. The second device – a dongle – will be less powerful, though it’s intended to be an upgrade over the current Fire TV Stick. It’ll reportedly support HDR and 4K viewing. Instead of a stick, it’ll take the form of a small square box that hangs behind a TV. According to AFTVNews, the new dongle will be announced later this month and will go up for sale in October. The Fire TV cube, however, reportedly hasn’t been finished yet; it may not even make its debut by the end of the year. Amazon hasn’t commented on the report.
Earlier this year, Microsoft announced plans to close down Skype’s office in Stockholm, Sweden. According to a new report from Variety, Google is taking advantage. In the wake of the closure, Google has reportedly snatched up a number of key Skype engineers. While the number of new hires isn’t known, it’s reportedly in the double digits.
Twitter may soon make it easier to rattle off a tweetstorm. According to a new report from The Next Web, Twitter is developing a feature that would allow users to draft an entire tweetstorm at once; after hitting send, the messages would automatically be broken up into a single thread. At the moment, tweetstorm composers have to write each tweet one after another. (If you’ve never tried it, rest assured that it can be quite the hassle.) The Next Web found the feature within Twitter’s Android app, though it isn’t live on the service yet. Twitter hasn’t commented.
PROGRAMMING
The Last Tycoon has seen its last season. The Amazon drama series, which debuted on July 28, has officially been canceled. The Last Tycoon was based on an unfinished F. Scott Fitzgerald novel of the same name; it was inspired by the real-life story of ‘20s and ‘30s film mogul Irving Thalberg. F. Scott Fitzgerald has taken a bit of a beating at Amazon these past few days; Just last week, the service dropped plans for a second season of Z: The Beginning of Everything, a semi-fictionalized series focused on Fitzgerald and his wife, Zelda.
Those two cancellations may just be a sign of things to come. According to a recent report from Variety, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos is mandating major changes for Amazon’s video division. The chief exec is reportedly asking the video team to search for big-time hit shows like HBO’s Game of Thrones. As Business Insider now points out, such a shift in strategy shouldn’t take anybody by surprise; as was reported at the time, Bezos voiced some disagreements with Amazon Studios in an April letter to shareholders. In that letter, he expressed discomfort with the video team’s desire to greenlight an unnamed show, worrying that the series wouldn’t be successful. “I wrote back right away with ‘I disagree and commit and hope it becomes the most watched thing we’ve ever made,’” he wrote. Given the report from Variety, it seems quite possible that Bezos may start taking firmer stances when he harbors such disagreements.
MEASURING UP
SHAREABLEE SOCIAL TV RATINGS: Top U.S. Streaming Shows Overall by Engagement for the week of September 4-10, 2017
Program, Total Actions (000), Total Content, Actions per Post (000), Fans/Followers (000)
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).
All Series (9/4/17 – 9/10/17)
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.
EXECUTIVE MOVES
Time Inc. has made a new hire. The publisher has named Lenore Moritz as VP of Publicity for its Video and Television divisions. Moritz, who begins the role effective immediately, will report to Greg Giangrande, Time Inc.’s EVP, Chief Communications Officer and Chief Human Resources Officer. Moritz joins the company from Viacom, where she served as VP of Communications.
TRIVIA
Our Last Trivia Question: On which Amazon series did Senator Chuck Schumer guest star? Answer: Alpha House. Kudos to Andy Pittman-TAMU/TX, Matt Meachem-Gracenote/NY, Susan Nessanbaum-Goldber M and S Entertainment/CA, David Westberg-SAG-AFTRA Federal Credit Union/CA, Lorrie Shilling/CA, and Tom Moore-Kalt Productions/CA
Follow-up: The creator of Amazon’s Alpha House is better known for his long-running, politics-heavy comic strip. Who is he?
