Cynopsis: DIGITAL
11/19/12

Good morning. It’s Monday, November 19, 2012, and this is your first early morning digital briefing.

comScore released its online video and video ad rankings for October 2012.

182.6 million US internet users watched more than 37.24 billion online videos in October. Google once again led the way with 153.21 million unique viewers during the month. The rest of the top five under this category were Yahoo (55.25 million monthly uniques), NDN (53.22 million), VEVO (53.1 million), and AOL (53.09 million). When ranked by online video views, Google stood at the top with 13 billion total views in October, with AOL coming in second at 711 million.

Online video ad views reached nearly 10.887 million views in October. Each of the top five video ad properties generated more than 1 billion video ad views: BrightRoll (1.83 billion); Google (1.75 billion); Hulu (1.54 billion); LiveRail (1.24 billion); and Adap.TV (1.09 billion). Time spent watching video ads totaled 3.82 billion minutes, with BrightRoll coming out on top here again, delivering the highest duration of online video ads at 897 million minutes. Hulu delivered the highest frequency of ads per viewer with 58.8. comScore says that overall online video ads reached 52% of the total US population an average of 68 times during the month.

BBC Worldwide plans to launch Earth Unplugged, a new YouTube original programming channel from BBC Earth, the company’s global natural history brand. The nature channel will feature “a feast of new films” created by BBC Earth Productions, and will be a part of the company’s strategy to build a “multichannel network” on the world’s biggest video site. “With Earth Unplugged we’re seeking to connect a new audience with the world around them,” said Amanda Hill, Managing Director/BBC Earth at BBC Worldwide. Current plans are to premiere seven new shows after the channel launches:

• Earth Juice is a weekly news show discussing the latest discoveries in the natural world as well as little-known facts.
• Meet My Planet is a “glossy and intimate look” inside the world of people who have been inspired by the natural world, including explorers, naturalists, filmmakers, and musicians.
• Deadliest… is a spin-off of BBC’s popular TV show, Deadly 60, showcasing “ultimate showdowns” between the planet’s deadliest animals, as well as the world’s most extreme habitats and forces of nature.
• Walking with Dinosaurs will feature videos covering everything you’d want to know about dinosaurs.
• Earth Files will give “iconic nature stories” a digital makeover, fusing them with high-quality graphics, photos, and music.
• Zoo La La is a travel show that will uncover “the most extraordinary animal behavior.”
• Amazing Animal Babies is pretty self-explanatory.

Food Network is in “advanced negotiations” with YouTube to launch a new original programming channel on the video site, reports GigaOM. While the budget for whatever is produced for such a channel would be much lower than what is needed for its TV shows, according to Bob Madden, Scripps Networks’ SVP and GM/Digital Food Category, he also told GigaOM that the company would focus on creating content that builds a “community mindset” with the audience.

Showtime has ordered a third season of Web Therapy, the web-to-TV comedy series starring Lisa Kudrow as a delusional, narcissistic online therapist who treats her patients via three-minute webcam sessions. The show is currently shooting websides, with plans to bring the third season of 10, half-hour episodes to the pay-TV network in 2013. Guests to be featured in the third season include a bunch of recognizable names, including Matt LeBlanc, Meg Ryan, and Jesse Tyler Ferguson. More celebrity “patients” will be announced soon. Web Therapy, which was created by Kudrow, Don Roos, and Dan Bucatinsk for Is or Isn’t Entertainment, was nominated for the “Outstanding Special Class — Short-format Live-Action Entertainment Programs” Emmy in 2012.

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LongTail Video has released an update to its flagship product, the JW Player, titled JW Player 6 (JW6), which now features built-in ad support for VAST and VPAID, allowing publishers to deliver ads from any VAST-compliant ad server or network. Other new features available via the update include a redesigned user interface, enhanced video playback for iOS and Android devices, and out-of-the-box support for Apple’s HTTP Live Streaming (HLS) on iOS and Flash. The support for HLS means publishers can now deliver live and adaptive streaming on desktop browsers and iOS 6 with a single format and embed, says LongTail. The JW Player currently has a reach that generates over 4 billion monthly streams across 2 million sites. With this release, LongTail has also switched up how it’s packaging the JW Player. A la carte add-ons are no longer available; popular skins and other plug-ins that boost the JW Player’s base functionality are now built into specific packages, ranging from Free to Premium and Ads.

GateHouse Media has added 15 publishers to its private ad exchange, adhance media, which is now comprised of over 500 local, hyper-local, and major city newspapers and broadcast sites nationwide. Powered by Casale Media’s sell-side platform, Index Platform, adhance media connects publishers with advertisers through DSPs and agency trading desks, and provides advertisers with demographic and geographic targeting options. “The goal of adhance media is to expand beyond GateHouse Media’s regional properties and give more and more local publishers the opportunity to grow their digital revenue through programmatic selling and real-time bidding,” said Mike Moreau, VP/Digital at GateHouse Media. “We’ll continue to seek like-minded publishers for the private ad exchange.”

Thanksgiving is this week, which also means Black Friday is this week, which also means we’re about to be inundated with scores and scores of holiday shopping data. Here’s one: About 60% of consumers surveyed in the Compete Holiday Intelligence survey had already begun shopping for the holidays by the beginning of November. This marks a 20% increase in shopping activity compared to two weeks prior to the survey. In addition, the number of people who had completed at least 75% of their holiday shopping is growing steadily by 3 percentage points every couple of weeks. And while electronics and video games continue to grow in popularity in the past several weeks, Compete’s data shows that gift cards are still the top choice among shoppers, with close to 40% of consumers purchasing the category. Compete says it plans to survey its 2 million consumer panel throughout the holiday season.

Automakers were some of the biggest movers and shakers in NBCUniversal Integrated Media’s third quarter Brand Power Index (BPI), which tracks real-world conversations, social media buzz, and search queries to determine the list of the top 500 most talked about brands among adults 18 and older. Mercedes-Benz, Toyota, Chevrolet, and Acura led the way in this category, all using a variety of digital tactics to generate buzz, including partnerships with leading digital companies like The Huffington Post, Pandora, and Electronic Arts. For example, Mercedes-Benz offered a series of mix-tapes every eight weeks featuring 10 new artists from around the world, an initiative that catapulted them up the BPI 52% among women and 36% among men. Toyota, which partnered with the Huffington Post on a 10-part branded video series, among other tactics, jumped from 23 to 21 (10%) with women and form 18 to 16 (11%) with men during the Q3.

YouTube has finally launched an app for the Nintendo Wii. Owners of the game console in the US can download the app from the Nintendo Wii Shop Channel. YouTube says it will bring the app to additional countries in the coming months. Once they’re signed in, users can access the channels they’ve already subscribed to, as well as search for new ones based on categories like gaming, music, sports, trending videos, and more.

Global Eagle Acquisition has named Dave Davis VP and Chief Financial Officer, pending the closing of a business combination transaction that will see Global Eagle acquiring Row 44 and 86% of the issued and outstanding shares of Advanced In-flight Alliance AG (AIA). He will be responsible for Global Eagle’s group finance functions including financial planning and analysis, controllership, tax, treasury, investor relations, and mergers and acquisitions activity. Davis is the current Director of Row 44, which is a satellite-based broadband service provider to the global airline industry. First announced on November 8, this deal serves to help Global Eagle create an entertainment and connectivity platform for the worldwide airline industry. AIA is a supplier of games, movies, general entertainment, and apps to the airline industry. It currently serves more than 130 airlines from across the globe. Once the deal has been closed, Global Eagle Acquisition will be renamed Global Eagle Entertainment.

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Vimeo has released six full-length feature films to preview its new “pay-to-view” movie service, which will be widely available in early 2013. Once purchased, these movies can be accessed and watched on any device that Vimeo is available on, which include an array of smartphones, tablets, game consoles, connected TVs, and “other alien technologies.” According to Vimeo’s blog post on the matter, “These films — hand-picked by us and thereby deemed certifiably awesome — are exemplars of a new age of creative sustainability, one in which creators can sell their own work directly to their fans on their own terms.” To that end, the new service will enable creators to upload and distribute their work.

Later – Sahil
Sahil Patel, Associate Editor for Cynopsis Digital
11.19.12

Denise O’Connor: Group Publisher, Media Entertainment
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