All’s not well in the land of GoPro. The action-camera maker missed its Q3 goals by a borderline-catastrophic margin, pulling in only $240 million in revenue. That’s a year-over-year drop of $160 million. The company shipped about a million cameras, compared to almost 1.6 million last year, and posted a net loss of about $84 million, as opposed to a $36.6 million gain in Q3 of 2015. The company has hired production vets from the likes of MTV and HBO to help it develop original content, including 32 short-form shows, but with its primary business in dire straits, it remains to be seen whether investors will be on-board with the company’s escalating media goals.
 

At Friday’s Cynopsis Digital Model D Awards, we honored the best the digital media industry has to offer. A huge congrats to all our winners: Boingo Wireless, Giant Spoon, WWE, AMC, Campfire, SapientNitro, Food Network, USA Network, Viacom Velocity, Viacom Velocity International, Red Bull Media House, Red Bull TV, NBA.com, RLJ Entertainment, NCAA Digital, E! Entertainment, TruTV, iStrategy Labs and USA Network, Disney Interactive, The Ellen Digital Network, NBA on TNT, ESPN Creative Works, History, TubeMogul, Portal A, A+E Networks, Adobe, Turner Sports, Ayzenberg Group and EPIX, Crackle/Sony Pictures Television, Univision Communications, Defy Media, MTV, Bravo Digital Media, Fox Broadcasting Company, and Outfit 7 Limited. Excellent work, all. See you next year.
 

"When I stood on stage and recognized the accomplishments and stature of my fellow award recipients, I felt a profound sense of honor to be among them." That’s Jason Krebs, Maker Studios’ Head of Sales. On Friday, Cynopsis also honored the most innovative execs working in digital media today. Huge kudos to Krebs, Science Channel’s Eileen Marable, Telemundo’s Peter Blacker, Canvs’s Jared Feldman, Indigenous Media’s Jake Avnet, Scripps Lifestyle Studios’ Vikki Neil, Horizon Media’s Maikel O’Hanlon, Yahoo’s Liz Lapp, Innovid’s Tal Chalozin, A+E Networks’ Evan Silverman, Participant Media’s Jay Ku, Fusion’s Boris Gartner, Groupe Média TFO’s Laurent Guérin, Ayzenberg Group’s Rebecca Markarian, Teads’ Rebecca Mahony, Tivo’s Tara Maitra, Studio 71’s Reza Izad, Univision’s Dennis Estrella, NeuLion’s Nancy Li, Atlanta Hawks Basketball Club’s Jaryd Wilson, Games For Change’s Susanna Pollack, Mindshare’s Emma Witkowski, Participant Media’s Eric Noe, Jukin Media’s Jonathan Skogmo, Crackle’s Eric Berger, ListenFirst Media’s Jason Klein and Christian Anthony, MTV’s Kristin Frank, NBCUniversal’s Patricia Hadden, Engine Shop Agency’s Josh Pelz, E!’s John Najarian, Time Inc.’s Zoe Ruderman, Def Media’s Andy Tu, Intersport’s Shannon Dan, Zenith’s Sean C Reardon, Nielsen’s Eric Solomon, CBS Interactive’s Katie Kulik, iSpot.tv’s Sean Muller, BET Networks’ Kay Madati, Boingo Wirless’s Lauren de la Fuente, UM’s Natalie Monbiot, and Octagon’s Sebastian Oddo.

A CYNOPSIS MESSAGE

Sometimes civic virtue trumps all else. Starting tomorrow, November 8, The New York Times will suspend its website paywall for 72 hours. (Apparently some important event or other will be taking place tomorrow.) "This is an important moment for our country,” said Times publisher Arthur Sulzberger Jr. in a statement. “Independent journalism is crucial to democracy, and I believe there is no better time to show readers the type of original journalism The New York Times creates every day.” (Both the Times the Wall Street Journal did the same thing in 2012, to give readers access to coverage of Hurricane Sandy.) While one might think the Times is forfeiting a ton of subscription dollars tomorrow, there are actually sound business considerations at play. The move gives the Times the chance to boost its ad revenue, and, more importantly, expose new potential subs to their content. In addition, the Times will live-stream election coverage on its Facebook page starting tomorrow at 4:30pm ET.
 

Netflix has long seen original content as its ticket to continued growth, and that’s just as true in other countries. The streaming giant announced that production has begun on Suburra, its first Italian original series. The series will focus on connections between politics and organized crime in Italy’s capital. The show – like a 2015 film of the same name – is based on the novel Suburra by Giancarlo De Cataldo and Carlo Bonini. The series will premiere globally in 2017.
 
Lionsgate’s upcoming SVOD service with Univision just landed a whole lot of content. Hemisphere Media Group, a specialist in Spanish-language programming, will provide the (still unnamed) service with its entire movie library. The service, slated to launch next year, will be aimed squarely at the U.S. Hispanic market. Lionsgate has become a go-to partner for those looking to launch niche streaming services. So far, the company has launched streaming services with Tribeca Enterprises and Comic-Con International, and has partnered with comedian Kevin Hart on another upcoming services.

Quiver Digital, a digital platform for self-distribution, has some big new plans. The company has announced the launch of a new boutique service for film acquisition and distribution. The new operation will start with three titles: Undecided: The Movie, a satirical political documentary; Long Way to the Top, a doc about the challenges of being a musician; and Seven Lovers, a scripted romantic comedy. “Quiver’s focus will always be self-distribution and empowering filmmakers with the tools and services to go it alone,” the company said. “However, they also recognize that there is a large contingent of filmmakers who can’t or don’t want to self-distribute.” The news, announced at the American Film Market, was first reported by Variety.

Nielsen is re-releasing its cable universe estimates for November, concluding that cable nets indeed saw a larger-than-usual decline over the course of October. The company had temporarily withdrawn its report on October 30, worrying that it showed a “larger than usual change as compared to the prior month.” But after a review, Nielsen is confident in its findings. The overall decline was about half a percentage point in the “cable plus,” universe. In other words, fewer households are subscribing to cable through conventional means  (i.e., a telco, a conventional cable, or a satellite provider). “The decline was not specific to a network or group of networks,” Nielsen concluded. Instead, the decline is likely due to a shift to streaming services like Netflix, as well as multichannel providers such as “virtual MVPDs” – i.e., internet-based live TV services.
 

Which ‘Son of Anarchy’ stars in the Amazon series Hand of God? (Email [email protected] with your answer and be sure to include your name, company, city and state.)
 
Our Last Trivia Question: In the Netflix animated series Bojack Horseman, what’s the name of the (anthropomorphic) Labrador Retriever whose former sitcom was nearly identical to that of the titular character? Answer Mr. Peanutbutter. Kudos to Steve Johnson-SJConnects/IL, Susan Nessanbaum-Goldberg-M and S Entertainment/CA, Lauren Weeks-Viacom/NY, Dan Arsura-Cartoon Network/GA, Matthew Wilson-FOTOfwd/NY, David Westberg-SAG-AFTRA Federal Credit Union/CA, Amy Markus-Roku, Inc./CA, and Mike Carlton Pop (A CBS/Lionsgate Partnership)/CA
 
Watcheroo Premieres and Tune-in Alerts for the week of November 7-November 13
–People Now at People.com, Monday-Friday at 8:30a ET and 11:30a ET: Guests include actor and TV personality Nick Cannon (NBC’s America’s Got Talent), TV personalities Captain Lee Rosbach and Kate Chastain (Bravo’s Below Deck), Genevieve Angelson (Amazon’s Good Girls Revolt)
– Netflix: Season 2 of the U.K. animated kids’ series Danger Mouse makes its U.S. debut Wednesday, November 9
– Netflix: The animated family series All Hail King Julien returns for its fourth season Friday, November 11
– Netflix: Case, a new drama, debuts Friday, November 11
– Netflix: Roman Empire: Reign of Blood, a mix of documentary and historical epic, debuts Friday, November 11
– Netflix: The True Memoirs of an International Assassin, an original action-comedy starring Kevin James, debuts Friday, November 11
– Amazon Video: The comedy series Red Oaks returns for its second season Friday, November 11

A CYNOPSIS MESSAGE

Kevin James is busy these days. On top of his CBS sitcom, he’s got a new original movie coming out on Netflix this Friday. Check out the trailer for The True Memoirs of an International Assassin here.

See you on tomorrow,
David Teich
11.07.16

Roberta Caploe: Publisher @robertacaploe
Diane K Schwartz: Senior Vice President, Media Communications Group

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