Cynopsis: DIGITAL
02/05/09
Good morning, it’s Thursday, February 5, 2009, and this is your first early morning digital briefing.
Job cuts and poorer-than expected earning continue to mount in the tech and digital media spaces. Panasonic was the latest electronics manufacturer forced to downwardly revise its full-year earnings outlook, now projecting a net loss of 380 billion yen or $4.2 billion for the year ending March 31. The world’s leading maker of plasma televisions will cut 15,000 jobs. Time Warner reported a $16 billion Q4 loss due to a more than $24 billion in write-downs at its cable, publishing and AOL divisions, despite an 8.7% increase in revenue. The company said it will lay off 1,250 additional workers over the next few weeks. Push has come to shove in terms of making a decision regarding the future of AOL, revenue at which dropped to $968 million from $1.25 billion – despite higher page views and greater usage. During the company’s earnings call, CEO Jeff Bewkes claimed that Google is demanding that it either spin off AOL as separate entity or buy Google’s 5% stake in the company at fair market value. Google was forced to write down its $1 billion investment in AOL by nearly $750 million.
Zune, Microsoft’s answer to the iPod that offers downloadable music on a monthly subscription basis, is adding an original content production division to create free add-supported videos programming for its users. Zune will develop pilots over the next 12 months ranging from live-action and animated comedy to urban and music programming. Its first project will be Cinemash, a joint 8-episode production with arts and entertainment magazine Mean featuring famous actors reinventing classic scenes in movies they weren’t in. Previous shorts produced for MeanMag.net have featured stars such as James McAvoy, Elizabeth Banks, Kate Beckinsale, Sir Ben Kingsley and Seth Rogen and have racked up over 1 million views worldwide.
The comedians at Team Tiger Awesome have come up with an imaginative spoof of their own for MTV Network’s Atom.com to celebrate Oprah Winfrey’s recent birthday. Oprah is Dead riffs on just how much the queen of daytime television has come to mean to America.
New York public broadcaster WNET.org will launch a new concert series Live From the Artist’s Den next month, built around exclusive performances by artists such as Alanis Morissette, Raphael Saadiq, Ani DiFranco, The Hold Steady and Jakob Dylan in tiny venues. The show’s companion site features exclusive content, including extended artist interviews.
Online film site Jaman signed a deal with E1 Entertainment to add nearly 3,000 of the studio’s titles to its download service including feature films, documentaries, episodic series and classic American TV shows. E1’s library includes the works of cinema masters including Jacques Demy, Claude Chabrol, Jean-Luc Godard, Jacques Rivette, Eric Rohmer.
Rich DeMuro, a former tech reporter for KCBS and KCAL TV in LA who also starred in his own web show on CNET, has found a way to make himself useful since being downsized at CBS’ LA affiliate. He launched his own podcast SynchedUpShow loaded with tech-themed news tidbits about sites, gadgets and trends. Rich’s latest show reports on Vmedia‘s tiny 1Gig media format positioned as a floppy for movies, TV shows and video games. It’s less than half the size of the MiniDisc.
(Big, Gay) Call for Content: Logo’s comedy series The Big Gay Sketch Show is holding an online casting call for fans who want to try out for a role in next season’s show. Casting submissions, which will be voted on by the site’s users, must include an uploaded profile and a short audition video. The deadline for submissions is March 10, 2009.
Second time is a charm. The House of Representatives passed the DTV Delay Act by a vote of 264 to 158, officially postponing the nation’s transition to digital television until June 12, 2009. This time the delay is voluntary, meaning broadcasters who are ready to go are free to make the switch any time after Feb. 17, the original transition date.
MySpace turned over the names of 90,000 registered s*x offenders to two state attorneys general in response to a subpoena, per the NYTimes. The figure is nearly twice the number of offenders previously admitted to by the News Corp. division.
Alloy Media and Marketing acquired Takkle.com, the social networking site focused on high school athletics that allows student athletes to create profiles, share videos and track statistics. Takkle will join Alloy’s other teen focused community sites including Alloy.com, Teen.com, ChannelOne.com and gURL.com, acquired from NBC’s iVillage.
Many non-cable consumers are sticking with their over-the-air approach to getting television despite the impending DTV transition, reports TVNewsday – citing studies from Centris, among others. The research firm predicted that eight million homes (about half the over-the-air-only homes) would make the leap to pay TV following the transition including 5.3 million to cable and 2.7 million to satellite. However within the last six months only 2.2 million homes that rely on over the air signals as their primary source of TV have signed up for cable or satellite, according to Centris’ latest figures.
Google Sites once again ranked as the top video property in the U.S. with 5.9 billion videos viewed (a 41% online video market share), with YouTube accounting for more than 99% of all of its videos viewed, according to ComScore‘s latest Video Metrix report. Fox Interactive Media ranked second with 445 million videos (3.1%), followed by Yahoo! Sites with 330 million (2.3%) and Viacom Digital with 291 million (2.0 percent). Hulu continued its impressive growth trajectory, climbing 6% versus November to 241 million videos viewed. Nearly 150 million U.S. Internet users watched an average of 96 videos per viewer in December. Google Sites surpassed 100 million online video viewers during the month, representing two out of every three Internet users who watched video.
Top U.S. Online Video Properties* by Videos Viewed – December 2008
Property Videos (000) Share (%) of Videos
Total Internet 14,318,722 100.0
Google Sites 5,905,854 41.2
Fox Interactive Media 444,865 3.1
Yahoo! Sites 330,025 2.3
Viacom Digital 290,558 2.0
Microsoft Sites 247,903 1.7
Hulu.com 240,585 1.7
AOL LLC 197,135 1.4
Turner Network 183,948 1.3
Disney Online 148,434 1.0
ESPN 102,542 0.7
Source: comScore Video Metrix
*Rankings based on video content sites; excludes video server networks. Online video includes both streaming and progressive download video
Top U.S. Online Video Properties* by Unique Viewers – December 2008
Property Unique Viewers (000) Average Videos per Viewer
Total Internet 149,587 95.7
Google Sites 100,092 59.0
Fox Interactive Media 56,895 7.8
Yahoo! Sites 42,761 7.7
AOL LLC 31,522 6.3
Microsoft Sites 29,534 8.4
Viacom Digital 27,370 10.6
Hulu.com 24,572 9.8
Turner Network 20,499 9.0
Time Warner – Excl. AOL 17,294 2.8
CBS Corporation 14,840 3.7
Source: comScore Video Metrix
*Rankings based on video content sites; excludes video server networks. Online video includes both streaming and progressive download video.
Google may be crossing the privacy line here for some. Its new mobile mapping app Latitude allows users to take advantage of GPS technology to pull up friends’ locations whenever they’re phones are turned on. The application, bundled in with the newest version of Google Maps, is currently accessible on the Android-powered G1 phone, most color BlackBerry’s and many Windows Mobile smartphones and will soon be available for the iPhone and iPod Touch. Location updates made on Latitude are then communicated to Google Talk and Gmail. Luckily it’s opt in, meaning you’ll have to agree to share your location.
Online radio service Slacker released an app for the BlackBerry Storm featuring touch screen navigation and storage of customized stations to a memory card allowing the Slacker Mobile application to play without a network connection.
Amy Levin has been named as Counsel for the House Telecommunications & Internet Subcommittee by its new chairman, Rick Boucher, per B&C. Amy previously served as Senior Counsel on telecom and internet matters for John Dingel (D-Mich.), former Chair of the House Energy & Commerce Committee.
The NAB Show announced it will induct actor Bob Newhart into the NAB Broadcasting Hall of Fame at its April 20 luncheon during this year’s show, joining Bob Barker, Ted Koppel, Regis Philbin and others. Bob, whose classic show The Bob Newhart Show is now widely available online, is celebrating his 50th year in the business.
Cable industry acquisition and retention specialist RCH Cable named Michael A. Doyle to its Board of Directors. Michael was most recently President of the largest division of Comcast Cable overseeing more than 18,000 employees.
Facebook officially turned 5 yesterday and to commemorate the occasion the company released some pretty amazing statistics that speak to just how much impact the social network as had upon users’ lives. Facebook now has more than 150 million monthly active users (about 1 in 5 of the web’s entire audience) putting it over the top of MySpace as the world’s #1 social network. It’s used by college students, businesses, middle-aged folks (the fastest growing demo), and even Presidents to express themselves, network and reconnect with people around the world. Facebook’s recent decision to increase photo storage capabilities have made it a Flickr in its own right; more than 850 million photos are uploaded to the site each month, along with 5 million videos and 24 million other pieces of content. But what really makes the platform exciting is the applications that it has attracted. Like the iPhone, Facebook is attracting the best and brightest developers to create games, tools and other fun stuff that make the experience so much more fulfilling. There are currently 52,000 apps on the platform and with 140 new ones being added daily, developers have just begin to scratch the surface of what this rumbling, stumbling, sharing destination can achieve.
Later — Wayne
Wayne Karrfalt for Cynopsis: Digital
02.05.09
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SITUATION WANTED: GlobeTrotter TV is a lifestyle travel show that airs in the NYC market. Looking for broader distribution. For more info contact: JonHaggins@aol.com (2/6)
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