Cynopsis: DIGITAL
03/23/09
Good morning, it’s Monday, March 23, 2009, and this is your first early morning digital briefing.
Productivity must have taken hit at the workplace last week. CBS fired all on cylinders with its multiplatform coverage of March Madness, tipping off tourney simulcasts on Thursday with record traffic. Broader distribution, heavy promotion and the addition of Silverlight 2-powered (and Akamai-served) HD-quality streaming this year helped drive 2.7 million unique visitors to the NCAA March Madness on Demand video player, a 56% spike from last year. Users consumed 2.8 million hours of live video and audio streaming, up 65% from 2008. Hundreds of web and mobile properties signed on to participate in the NCAA March Madness on Demand Developer Platform, providing access to games across Facebook, YouTube, CBS Interactive and Audience Network sites, CBS Television and CBS Radio stations and affiliates and major sports and media websites including ESPN.com, Yahoo! Sports and SI.com. Rather than cannibalizing on air, the increased availability of (quality) tourney hoops online actually coincided with higher linear ratings this year-up 9% on Thursday.
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Encouraged by the success of BBC.com’s hugely popular catch-up service, The BBC Trust agreed to increase is the pubic broadcaster’s online budget by 27% to more than £145m per year over the next three years, per the Guardian.
To help keep Ugly Betty fans appeased during the show’s spring hiatus, ABC.com premiered the first of six new short-form episodes of the web exclusive Ugly Betty: Mode After Hours series starring Michael Urie and Becki Newton. The initial six webisodes garnering over 10 million views, according to ABC.
Following the launch of Conceptis Sudoku, King Features and logic puzzle creator Conceptis Ltd. have added a whole suite of downloadable games for newspaper site clients. Available seven days a week as a package or a la carte, the new games include “Battleships,” “Hashi,” “Mega” and “Diagonal,” a new take on the classic Sudoku word game.
Ad-supported, DRM-encumbered online music service SpiralFrog went dark on Friday just 18 months after launching, per CNET. SpiralFrog, which had output deals with only two of the four major labels, had trouble competing with better-established music streaming services.
MyDamnChannel, home of the much beloved You Suck at Photoshop, has secured the rights to stream Pilot Season, one of the real gems to come from NBCU’s now defunct Trio network. It stars a wonderful cast of comedic talent including the promiscuous Sarah Silverman.
Web video and roller derby girls? – sounds like a natural fit. Purveyor of downloadable, web ready, HD royalty free video clips Footagehead.com is rolling up its sleeves to sponsor the L.A. Derby Dolls, one of five women’s roller derby leagues in the U.S. that now fight on banked tracks.
~ DIGITAL ADVERTISING ~
Strategic media agency Media Storm partnered with Creative Images and the Big Ten Network to create a hologram of Big Ten Network analyst and ex-Titan Eddie George to promote the network’s Big Ten Squad show. The “Virtual Eddie” was on display throughout the Big Ten Men’s and Women’s Basketball Tournaments in Indianapolis. The partners also created a microsite where users were able to download pictures they took with the two Eddies. In all, over 1,200 photos were posted and nearly 1,000 people logged in to get them.
Live Nation and Ticketmaster Entertainment have each received an expected “request for additional information” from the United States Department of Justice regarding their proposed merger announced on Feb. 10. The news comes a day after Ticketmaster reported a fourth-quarter loss of $1.07 billion, as the company took a goodwill charge of $1.1 billion to reflect the decline of its stock price. Live Nation reported losses of $337.5 million earlier in the month.
Multiplatform Olympic sports service Universal Sports signed a deal to utilize the web video services of Ooyala. Sites such as Skiracing.com, skireport.com, skispace.com, trackandfieldnews.com, tilastopaja.org, intlgymnast.com, and fasterskier.com have partnered with Universal Sports to roll out video implementations using Ooyala’s video publishing and monetization platform, Backlot.
Recessions drive interest in job listings and classified listings for used stuff. Craigslist overtook MySpace as the most searched-for term on the web last week, according to traffic-tracking firm Hitwise. U.S. searches for the term ‘Craigslist’ increased by 105% for the week ending March 14, 2009, compared with a year ago. MySpace had been the top searched-for term since March 11, 2006.
Hulu’s big TV ad campaign helped it reach 55% more unique visitors in Feb, making it the #2 top gaining property on the internet according to comScore behind Firefox creator Mozilla (thank Alec.) Valentines Day and Tax time proved to be big drivers as well. Travel sites also experienced seasonal gains in February sparked by spring travel bargain hunting.
comScore Top 10 Gaining Properties by % Change in Unique Visitors (U.S.)
Feb. 2009 vs. Jan. 2009
Total Uniques (000) Jan-09 Feb-09 % Change Rank by Unique Visitors
The Mozilla Organ. 14,161 22,851 61 35
HULU.COM 5,022 7,796 55 127
Wells Fargo 11,724 18,121 55 53
IRS.GOV 14,663 22,068 51 39
TaxACT 5,883 7,771 32 130
Hallmark 3,827 4,863 27 222
News International 4,040 4,902 21 221
Intuit** 16,172 19,563 21 46
H&R Block** 6,073 7,269 20 143
Betawave Partners-Partial 3,582 4,279 19 245
Total Internet : Total
Audience 191,863 192,187 0 N/A
Source: comScore Media Metrix
*Ranking based on the top 250 properties in February 2009.
**Intuit and H&R Block properties include non-tax related products
and services such as Quicken, Quickbooks, and H&R Block Banking Services
comScore Top 50 Properties (U.S.) – Feb. 2009 Unique Visitors (000)
Rank Property Unique Visitors Rank Property Unique Visitors
(000) (000)
1 Google Sites 148,885 26 Target Corporation 26,961
2 Yahoo! Sites 144,304 27 Bank of America 26,148
3 Microsoft Sites 121,093 28 Time Warner 25,911
4 AOL LLC 105,016 29 Weatherbug Property 25,515
5 Fox Int. Media 84,632 30 Answers.com Sites 24,997
6 Ask Network 71,343 31 Demand Media 24,574
7 eBay 67,474 32 United Online, Inc 23,860
8 Wikimedia Sites 60,892 33 Gorilla Nation 22,968
9 Amazon Sites 59,944 34 Expedia Inc 22,880
10 Facebook.com 57,375 35 Mozilla Organ. 22,851
11 Glam Media 51,121 36 Photobucket.com 22,606
12 Apple Inc. 50,867 37 Gannett Sites 22,289
13 Turner Network 48,904 38 AT&T, Inc. 22,137
14 CBS Interactive 48,872 39 IRS.gov 22,068
15 NY Times Digital 46,199 40 WordPress 22,015
16 Viacom Digital 44,346 41 JPMorgan Chase 20,800
17 craigslist, inc. 39,016 42 Real.com Network 20,407
18 Weather Channel 37,215 43 Shopzilla.com Sites 20,154
19 AT&T Interactive 35,324 44 CareerBuilder LLC 20,083
20 Adobe Sites 33,287 45 Everyday Health 19,942
21 Comcast Corp. 31,958 46 Intuit 19,563
22 Wal-Mart 29,415 47 Monster Worldwide 19,559
23 Superpages.com 28,956 48 iVillage.com network 19,433
24 Verizon Comm. 27,979 49 WebMD Health 19,339
25 Disney Online 27,615 50 NBC Universal 19,091
Total Internet : Total Audience 192,187
Source: comScore Media Metrix
There are tons of elegant sports-related apps for the iPhone but sometimes they’re more than you need. If you’re looking for something to give you basic scores or stats in the fewest steps possible check out the free SportsTap for no-nonsense NFL, MLB, NBA, NHL, soccer, Golf Tennis, Auto racing and, of course, NCAA info in two taps or less.
A CYNOPSIS MESSAGE FROM ACADEMY OF TELEVISION ARTS & SCIENCES
Thursday, April 30, 2009
“What was important for me in making this story is that one person really can make a
difference…and to show a woman from my part of the world that wasn’t oppressed or
meek, but was instead strong and powerful.”–Mohammed Naqvi, accepting for Shame, 2008 Television Academy Honors
Television has the power to enlighten, create awareness and encourage positive change.
CELEBRATE THIS YEAR’S HONOREES; CELEBRATE TELEVISION WITH A CONSCIENCE
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So far the competitive online travel segment has addressed the problem of trigger-shy consumers (worried about booking tickets that later drop in price) with the idea of the rebate check. Priceline was the latest to introduce a price guarantee program last week. But this assumes users will trust these sites to accurately track price drops after the fact. If you can’t trust your insurance company to not pocket their government bail-out money, how can you trust a website to cut you a check after it already made its commission? Seattle-based Yapta.com has a better idea. Yapta tracks flight and now hotel prices before you book and alerts you when there’s a price change. Initially a browser plug-in, Yapta enables you to track multiple airlines and destinations at once and even tracks the availability of frequent flier seats. Yapta also offers a cool embeddable FlightFares widget that will track flights for users of third party sites. For instance, this is a great way to encourage people to come to that tech conference they’re on the fence about. Tools that empower the consumer are what the economy needs right now.
Later — Wayne
Wayne Karrfalt for Cynopsis: Digital
03.23.09
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SITUATION WANTED: Recent graduate educated & experienced in audio, video, & television production. Very passionate and hard working; looking to get my foot in the door. Contact: Griffin Campbell 9082682078/[email protected] (3/27)
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