Cynopsis: DIGITAL
10/08/12

Good morning. It’s Monday, October 8, 2012, and this is your first early morning digital briefing.

RightThisMinute is a twice-daily news show from Cox Media Group, Raycom Media, E.W. Scripps Company, and Magic Dust Television, focused entirely on covering viral videos that are trending on the web. It airs in 45 markets across the country, and has just launched its second season. The show looks to tell the story behind popular web videos as well as introduce its audience to content that hasn’t gone viral just yet, but is about to. I spoke with RightThisMinute’s Co-Executive Producers Lisa Hudson (former EP of TMZ and Extra) and Dennis O’Neil about the show, as well as with David Miller, Founding Partner of Magic Dust Television, on what a show about the web, is doing on the web.

What interested you in doing a show that focuses solely on the web?

LISA: I think it’s a natural byproduct of where the world is going. Moreover, I would say the videos you largely see on the web, they feel real. If you can capture that and put it into a TV show like we have done, that’s money.

How do you figure out which videos are on track to go viral? What does the show do to not only be current but sort of get in front of a trend as it’s beginning to develop?

DENNIS: We have a group of people, who do nothing but keep track of what people are posting, watching, and talking about online. Our first crew hits the building at 7am, and we have people on site round-the-clock keeping track of the web. This includes a web crew that works over night. All of them look at hundreds and hundreds of videos every day, and thousands over the course of a month. Through time, the staff has developed a real sense of what the next big thing is going to be. And some videos are just what interest them.

LISA: We have a good gut for what is going to be great. You know it when you see it, when you watch something and go, “Oh, this is amazing or interesting or provocative,” and you can’t look away from it. We’re tapping into that. When our staff watches something that makes them feel the same way, when we look around and see five editors crowded around one computer, we know what they’re watching is likely to go viral at some point. 

How much does social media and word-of-mouth buzz contribute to a video going viral (when it essentially feels like a flash in the pan), and how much is it established publishers like Mashable, BuzzFeed, or RightThisMinute even, driving viewers to the video?

DENNIS: You know, it’s a real mixed bag. Social is obviously huge. You get compelling or funny videos from friends, and I’m sure plenty of times you share them as well. On our Facebook page, we will occasionally post just the right video that really gets picked up and spikes viewership on our website. So yes, social is very important. However, the publishers are big as well.

LISA: YouTube is like the white pages. If I don’t know to look for your name or the name of the video, I’m never going to find it. So when the sites begin to pick these videos up, the viewership spikes. Our TV show works the same way. And a lot of these sites also look to RightThisMinute as a source.

DENNIS: There’s this woman in Arizona who has a cat who always looks grumpy. You’ve probably seen the video now. Her brother came over one day and took a video of the cat and posted it on YouTube. For a while it just sat there and nothing happened to it. One of our staff members found it and we did a story on it. Within three days, the Daily Mail in the UK picked it up. And it just began to explode. Huffington Post and other sites then picked it up. Now they have t-shirts for the cat and have sort of built a brand around this grumpy-looking cat. When we first saw this video, it had a few hundred views. Now, it’s topped 2 million.

People watch videos online all of the time. What sets your show apart and makes it worth watching when people can surf the web and have a great chance of coming across something funny or compelling or unique?

DENNIS: You can watch the video all by itself, but you can also watch a show like ours, which not only alerts audiences to what is trending or compelling on the web, but also gives a story behind it. It’s a convenience too, you don’t need to waste time looking for a great video to share with your friends. We’ve got videos before they go viral and we bring them to you with every piece of information you need to know about it to participate or lead a conversation. 

LISA: Who has time and the resources to track videos down all the time? We go get the story so you don’t have to. It’s applying journalism to viral video, and we present them in a very conversational way. In addition, what we’ve found is that people also see a video on the internet, and then come to our show to get more information.

For a show like this, it goes without saying that it needs a strong digital extension or component. What are you doing online and on mobile to drive viewership to TV? Would you say the average RightThisMinute viewer consumes the show’s content on both TV and online, or is one still largely above the other?

DAVID: Broadcast branding appears throughout the site and is organically baked in to each of almost 20,000 video segments. The app, the website, and the broadcast are all complementary. It is clear that a pretty big chunk of our viewers are watching our show and consuming our content on the website at the same time. We see traffic spikes in each hour as it plays in different time zones across the country. It’s definitely a two-screen show.

“My Channel” is a new feature on RightThisMinute’s website and mobile apps that allows anyone to submit a video, which the show then might consider to cover or feature on air. Aside from building engagement with the show’s audience, what else does this feature do that not only differentiates itself from other “citizen journalism” offerings, but contributes to the viewing experience?

DAVID: We’re looking at My Channel as more than just a way for us to crowd source content. Most citizen journalist sites tend to have a one-way connection. In our environment, we want to offer a place where you can become your own producer and curate your own news to share with friends and other readers as well. My Channel is more of a “one to many” connection rather than “one to a producer.”

DENNIS: We have now aired several videos on the show that we have received through My Channel. There are other media outlets that offer this sort of opportunity, so it in itself isn’t something that’s terribly new. However, My Channel allows you to do things socially that others’ don’t. Other users can follow you and you can then share content with each other, essentially allowing you to build an audience of your own.

The Reserve Channel, one of the official YouTube premium channels, is launching three new talk shows. In ARTST TLK with Pharrell Williams, the musician/rapper will invite guests from different creative sectors to discuss each other’s work and inspirations. Then there’s Across the Board with Joy Bryant, an “action talk show” in which the actress interviews guests who enjoy skateboarding, surfing, and snowboarding, while actually doing that very activity. The third new show is Hooked Up with Tom Colicchio, which features the chef going on a fishing trip with athletes, celebrities, and even other chefs.

CBS Interactive’s ongoing concert series Live on Letterman will air its 50th webcast this Wednesday, October 10, with a live performance from KISS. The concert, which is timed for the day after the legendary rock band releases its latest album, Monster, will be available on CSB.com as well as all VEVO platforms beginning at 8pm ET. The Live on Letterman series has surpassed 130 million views to date across both CBS.com and VEVO.

Little Bird, a start-up that helps agencies, brands, and media companies find online influencers, has raised a $1 million seed round led by Mark Cuban’s Radical Investments, with additional participation from Social Leverage Group, Hubspot Co-Founder Dharmesh Shah, and early Twitter lead engineer Blaine Cook. The start-up also announced the private beta launch of its platform, which up until now has been in a pilot phase with undisclosed boutique marketing firms and Fortune 500 companies, from Wieden+Kennedy’s Portland Incubator Experiment. Little Bird says its platform uses the social graph and data from Twitter, LinkedIn, and blogs to determine which influencer holds actual sway over his or her particular topic. Then it provides users with tools that helps them engage with these influencers and their content on social networks. In the coming weeks and months, the start-up plans to expand its data sources to include Google+, academic research citations, and “other sources of structured social data.”

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Gannett and comScore will work together on implementing viewable impression measurement across ad campaigns that appear on USAToday.com. The site will use comScore’s validated Campaign Essentials (vCE) product and Digital Analytix Monetization tools to validate that the desired target audience saw the ad and optimize inventory. Gannett paints this agreement is part of USA Today’s overall strategy of creating a premium environment for advertising on the property’s website through the combo of guaranteed ad viewability and large-canvas advertising that’s integrated into the user experience.

Speaking of influencers, SocialCode, a subsidiary of The Washington Post and one of Facebook’s Strategic Preferred Marketing Developers, has launched Social Influencer Targeting and Social Influencer Profiling. For its Social Influencer Targeting offering, the social marketing solutions provider says it developed industry-specific segments of social influencers by observing the behavior of millions of consumers across thousands of Facebook pages. Segments available to advertisers include: Automotive, Consumer Electronics, Fashion, Health and Beauty, Food and Beverage, Retail, and Travel. Brands also have he ability to develop unique segments. Once a brand has built its network of influencers, SocialCode says it can tap Social Influence Profiling to learn more about them, including what they do and what they consume, which includes data on their affinity for other brands, competitors, interests, and media properties. Brands will also have the option to try and capture additional fans that match their Social Influencer Profile.

According to data from VINDICO‘s Q2 2012 report, full-episode player (FEP) sites, such as Hulu, a TV network site, or any other publisher that offers full TV episodes, accounted for 29% of delivered video impressions from April 1 to June 30 of this year. FEP sites also brought in the highest video ad completion rate for the quarter, at 93%. Based on other data from VINDICO’s tracking and measurement of video ad activity, completion rates (CRs) tend to be higher on long-form content (91%), which the digital video ad company defines as anything 10 minutes and above, and lower on short-form content (73%). Conversely, click-through rates (CTRs) on long-form content stood at 0.63% in Q2 2012, while jumping to 0.85% when on short-form content. Interestingly, the CRs for 15-second ads and 30-second ads were pretty much the same (92% vs. 91%) when placed on long-form content in the second quarter.Other findings from the report include:

• While repurposed TV spots are still the kings of digital video advertising (94% of ads), interactive video advertising has grown from 1% of video ads in 2010 to 6% in 2012.
• In fact, VINDICO says advertisers are allocating more spend to interactive video ad units than ever before, and that interactive video ads grew over 5x in volume during the first half of 2012, from 2% in January to 11% in June.
• The interactive ad data comes from VINDICO-managed campaigns that include ad units built by VINDICO as well as other companies.

Join us on November 14, 2012 at the Cynopsis Digital Video Measurement Summit in NYC. REGISTER NOW.

3M and Roku unveiled an all-new Streaming Projector, which is available for $299 exclusively on Amazon. Paired with and powered by the Roku Streaming Stick, the device joins the growing family of “Roku Ready” consumer electronics devices offering access to the streaming platform’s lineup of 600+ channels. The Streaming Projecter will have a battery life of almost three hours and will be able to project video wherever there is a WiFi connection. As Roku notes in a blog post announcing the product, this can be a “basement wall, a bedroom ceiling, or even a backyard fence.” The Streaming Projecter will begin shipping on October 22.

Seattle-based customer data company Globys has named Craig Baughn VP/Client Delivery. In the role, Baughn will lead a global team responsible for the customization, configuration, and deliver of the company’s full product suite to its clients.

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1. Fast & efficient personalized service

This week is “Healthy Week” at NBCUniversal, with a focus on the themes of sleep, recess, portion control, hydration, and “taking five.” Kicking off during Football Night in America last night and running through October 14, NBCU plans into insert healthy messaging across 50 of its TV properties, from NBC’s Up All Night to E!’s E! News. On the digital front, the Healthy at NBCU Facebook page will offer 25 different videos of NBCU stars across its online and on-air properties discussing how they incorporate the aforementioned themes into their lives. Users will also get the chance to enter sweepstakes to win tickets to Late Night with Jimmy Fallon, The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, Chelsea Lately, and Universal Studios Orlando. In addition, NBCU’s iVillage will serve up health-related content throughout the week and Daily Candy will feature exercise how-to articles and videos, as well as ideas for healthy snacks adults and kids.

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Cynopsis Digital Video Measurement Summit
Monetizing Cross-Platform Video | November 14 | NYC
Sponsor: Tremor Video & Media Sponsor: Ad Club of NY

Content Is King, But Revenue Rules
Beyond Eyeballs: The Best Measures of Online Video
Content, Content Everywhere – Key Solutions to Audience Fragmentation
Building Brand Revenue With Strategic Metrics
Measuring Monetization: New Views on Original Content
Future Predictions and How to Measure Tomorrow’s Viewers
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Later – Sahil
Sahil Patel, Associate Editor for Cynopsis Digital
10.08.12

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