Cynopsis: DIGITAL
7/12/07
Good Morning, it’s Thursday, July 12, 2007 and this is your first early morning digital briefing. And as a quick reminder – Cynopsis is on vacation all next week, no editions, no emails, no phone calls from us. Hard to believe, eh? But we’ll be back on the 23rd, just as if this little break never happened.
United Talent Agency and Spot Runner formed a joint venture to finance and distribute professionally-produced short form videos online, recruiting the Coen brothers to create its first project. 60Frames Entertainment Corp. – a reference to the enhanced frames-per-second refresh rate offered through digital technologies – has raised $3.5 million in funding from Tudor Ventures to get the ball rolling and named UTA Digital Media Department head Brent Weinstein as CEO. 60Frames will provide financing, secure advertising sold by Spot Runner and distribute to multiple video sharing sites online.
Microsoft signed a deal with Disney-ABC Domestic Television to distribute 35 top-shelf movies through the Xbox Live platform. Xbox 360 users will be able to rent titles from Walt Disney Pictures, Touchstone Pictures, Miramax Films and Hollywood Pictures when they become available for the home video window. Xbox Live has quietly amassed more than 2,350 hours of major-label entertainment content, including movies and shows in HD. The platform’s 7 million members, who spend “points” to purchase content, have downloaded nearly 10 million titles to date according to the company.
Sundance Channel launched customizable Google Maps application called the “Eco-mmunity Map,” allowing users to search for green businesses, attractions and individuals across the U.S. Users can also sign up for a free renewable energy-powered email account to stay in touch with other eco-advocates.
Meanwhile Google added a new mashup feature for Google Maps, allowing users to create their own collages of local information and applications. The site provides a single place to find customized mapplets developers have been creating for months, tracking gas prices, real estate, crop circles and other useful info.
Lifetime will debut its next two original dramas Side Order of Life and State of Mind on Yahoo! TV before they premiere on air this Sunday at 8 pm (ET/PT) and 9 pm respectively. Lifetime also sneak-previewed hit drama Army Wives on Yahoo! TV.
A new 24/7 network PBS World will debut in nearly 20 markets across the U.S. on August 15, representing 26% of TV households. The channel will be programmed with non-fiction PBS series and specials including Frontline, American Experience and The News Hour with Jim Lehrer. PBS also announced the launch of a dedicated shelf on the iTunes store featuring the films of documentary filmmaker Ken Burns. Series such as Jazz, America, Frank Lloyd Wright and The Statue of Liberty are available at $5-$10 per episode.
Discovery Channel is fishing for maximum exposure for the 20th edition of Shark Week (July 29-August 4) with a campaign that includes shark footage on the NASDAQ board in Times Square, online 3-D video placements and a fansite featuring documentary videos, games and GPS shark tracking data to locate real sharks. Discovery mobile components include made-for-mobile shorts of what swimmers need to know about the creatures and “Classic Shark Bites,” clips taken from the past 20 years.
Netflix reported users have watched 5 million movies and TV shows since launching its online download service Watch Now in January, despite a staggered rollout that enabled roughly 250,000 subscribers a week to try the service. The most popular titles included NBC’s The Office, The Matrix and the documentary Supersize Me. Netflix currently offers its 6 million subscribers more than 2,000 titles as online rentals.
The History Channel is asking viewers to go online and vote for their favorite Modern Marvels episodes for Viewer’s Choice Marathon to air on July 28. The show is approaching its 500 episode this season!
New York-based post-production house Fluid launched an interactive division through a partnership with Boom Design Group. The venture will offer clientele a broad suite of services including editorial, music composition, sound design, art direction, web design, animation, content management, information architecture and e-commerce.
Break.com received an undisclosed amount of additional funding from Lionsgate. As part of the deal, Lionsgate will add content from its library of over 11,000 movies and TV episodes to the portal. The male-oriented video site, which counts about 17 million monthly unique visitors, has been self-funded until now.
Videopinion site ExpoTV launched a man-on-the-street feature soliciting amateur film reviews of this summer’s never-ending procession of blockbusters.
The National Legal and Policy Center posted a daunting list of full-length movies available on Google Video during the past week available by simply searching the site. Some of the films have been up for more than a year. The NLPC says it’s “laughable” that Google cannot set up a filtering system to stop such piracy, given that competitors including MySpace, TorrentSpy, DailyMotion and Break.com have already implemented such technologies.
Supermarket billionaire Ron Burkle and Yahoo! co-founder Brad Greenspan have emerged as last-minute rival bidders for Dow Jones. Rupert Murdoch “appeared frustrated” when AP reporter Seth Sutel caught up with him in Sun Valley yesterday. “They keep changing their minds,” was what Murdoch said of the ongoing negotiations with the Bancroft family.
Online music distributors Digital Music Group Inc. and The Orchard have agreed to merge. The merged entity will retain the Orchard name and DMGI’s Nasdaq listing. Orchard CEO Greg Scholl will stay on as chief executive. DMGI was the first digital music service to go public in February of 2006.
Gemstar-TV Guide signed with Cambridge-Mass. based Maven Networks to power its broadband video channels on TVGuide.com. The two companies will work to launch over 300 video players on the site in the coming months. Maven will provide management, ad delivery and user interface tools.
RealNetworks launched the LyricFind tool to allow Rhapsody digital music subscribers to search for songs by lyric. Users can also search for lyrics by artist name, song title and phrases if they don’t know the words. The service has cataloged more than 3.5 million songs, available on demand for $12.99 per month.
JP Morgan has already retracted its report about a slimline iPhone based on the Nano iPod. The prediction came from Kevin Chang, a JP Morgan analyst based in Taiwan, who apparently based it on an Apple patent filing the details of which were sketchy at best.
Chivas’ “This Is the Life” channel launched on MSN this week, promoting to its long-running “Chivas Life” campaign. It features well-heeled Chivas drinkers lounging around on their yachts, golfing and otherwise enjoying the good life. Despite the pressure Bud.tv experienced from attorneys general about insufficient age protections, the site simply asks the users age and takes their word for it. Honest under-aged users are automatically linked to CenturyCouncil.org, a non-profit that fights drunk driving and underage drinking.
Mercedes-Benz TV also launches today with a live report from Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week in Berlin with racers Lewis Hamilton and Klaus Ludwig taking test drives of new Benz cars. The site will feature five channels – lifestyle, cars, engines and sports, history & legends and innovation – and cover events such as auto shows and product presentations.
Four in five consumers who watch mobile video say they are willing to view mobile advertising if the reward is free content, but less than 30% feel that mobile ads are relevant to them, according to a new Knowledge Networks/SRI report. The proportion of users paying for mobile video dropped notably in the past year among both video iPod users (from 81% to 61%) and video cell phone users (from 64% to 50%). The average viewing session for nearly half of video cell phones users was of 5 minutes or less compared with 53% of video iPods or laptop users reporting an average session of 30 minutes or more.
USA Network named Jason Holzman to the post of VP/Brand Creative. He will develop ad concepts for USA inventory, including consumer marketing and media planning, on and off-air creative advertising/promotion, network packaging, consumer promotions, interactive, interstitial programming and digital strategy. Jason will report to Chris McCumber, SVP/ marketing and brand strategy.
Gregg Apirian was named EVP/Digital Marketing at creative marketing firm Trailer Park. Gregg was a cofounder and CEO of Blitz Digital and comes over from interactive agency Schematic, where he served as SVP.
G4.tv, the snazzy website of Comcast-owned G4 network, is providing comprehensive coverage of the annual E3 gaming confab this week, including exclusive game trailers and previews, photos, interview podcasts with developers and a webcam chatroom fed by live feeds from three separate webcams. “The Feed” provides constantly updated news embedded with video. However, G4 fans took the network to task on its message boards when commercials were inserted right in the middle of the highly anticipated trailers of Halo 3 and Mass Effect (which the LostRemote blog picked up on mid-day yesterday.) Hundreds of gamers complained in several different threads. Subsequent attempts to log on to be boards to follow up resulted in an error message.
Later — Wayne
Wayne Karrfalt for Cynopsis: Digitals
07.12.07
Cynopsis Ad Sales: Mark Bohn- 203-583-1224 / [email protected]
Classifieds – Trish Pihonak- 203-926-9878 / [email protected]
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Cyn opsis CLASSIFIEDS – For More classifieds, visit the Cynopsis.com classifieds page here
JOB OPENING: WEB PRODUCER/ NYC: Exp. with kids online media. Innovative and highly creative. Manage creative dev’t & production, establish specs, wireframes, budgets & schedules. Lead external team. Reply: [email protected] (7/26)
JOB OPENING: PLANNER, DIGITAL MEDIA & INTERACTIVE SOLUTIONS/GSN/NY: 1-3 yrs ad sales exp. BA/BS. Knwldg of MS Office, online advrtsng systems, mkt rsrch tools and media math skills. Res, cover letter & salary hist: [email protected] (7/26)
JOB OPENING: SALES PLANNER/Superstation WGN, NY: Build proposals, steward deals, and support AEs. Requires 2 yrs industry exp, proficient in Media Math/Excel/Word. Dealmaker/BMS/Transact a plus. Send resume to [email protected] (7/26)
JOB OPENING: PRODUCER /Weather Channel/ATL: Highly motivated ind for Climate/Environment prgrmng.Strong storytelling, creative writing/editing skills, 3-5 yrs. exp at nat’l level pref’d.Some travel. Apply: www.weather.com/careers (7/26)
JOB OPENING: COORD, ONLINE ADVERTISING/VERSUS -Stamford, CT: Coordinate all online advertising activities for versus.com. 3+ yrs experience req’d. For more info and to apply please visit www.versus.com EOE (7/26)
JOB OPENING: RSRCH STRATEGIST/Discovery Nets, Silver Spring, MD: Develop/execute rsrch plans for new media & Emerging Nets. 3-5 yrs media rsrch exp; Nielsen exp, advanced Excel & Powerpoint a +. Apply: www.discovery.com Req#5481 (7/26)
JOB OPENING: DIRECTOR, DIGITAL PRICING AND INVENTORY/MTV Networks/NY: 7+yrs exp in digital media and/or ad ops. Must be very analytical and strategic. Mgt exp req. EOE/M/F/D/AAP [email protected] or http://mtvncareers.com (7/26)
JOB OPENING: OPS MGR/Rainbow Media/NYC: Manage all post production activities including editing, encoding, & q.c. of programming for network, broadband and alt distribution. HD knowledge a plus. Resumes to [email protected] (7/25)
JOB OPENING: MARKETING DIRECTOR/Discovery Communications /Miami, FL: Direct brand mgmt; mktg strats, promotions, campaign budgets, media plans, staff mgmt. 7+ yrs Exp, Industry Exp a +, send Resume: [email protected] (7/25)
JOB OPENING: AD SALES OPS SUPV. – Discovery Communications/Miami, FL: 3+ yrs exp in network operations a must; previous mgmt. exp; analytical, effective communicator; bilingual ENG/SPAN. Send resume: [email protected] (7/25)
JOB OPENING: REGN’L ACCT DIR/Screenvision/Chicago: Dvlp/present/sell integrated in-theatre advrtsng & media prgrm campaigns to regn’l clients. 3+yrs selling media advrtsng exp. BA equiv work exp. Apply at www.screenvision.com (7/25)
JOB OPENING: RESEARCH DIR/Screenvision Cinema Net, NY: 8-10 yrs; Run sales resch, strong know of resch resources, Nielsen exp req, prim resch exp plus, TV bkgnd pref, Mgmt Exp req.Apply at www.screenvision.com (7/25)
JOB OPENING: ASSOCIATE MANAGER, AFFILIATE MARKETING & LOCAL AD SALES/TVN/NJ: Must have BA & 2 1/2+ yrs TV Network Dist. Sales & Mkting; Responsibilities: Asst w/ promos & events. Apply: www.nbcunicareers.com #611217 (7/25)
JOB OPENING: SALES PLAN’R/AETN, CHICAGO: Create Plans, steward accts, designate ADUs&recaps, coord make goods&post analysis prep. 2yrs exp pln’g or buyer.Exc comm skills.Client service mindset. Apply: www.aetn.com/careers.html (7/25)
JOB OPENING: ACCOUNT EXECUTIVE/MEREDITH VIDEO SOLUTIONS NY: Direct contact client sales of the Better. TV and Parents TV products. More at www.meredith.com . Send resume to: [email protected] (7/25)
JOB OPENING: RES. STRATEGIST/Discovery Nets, NY: Min 5yrs Rsch exp. Proficiency in Nielsen systems req. Strong analytical/communication/computer/presentation skills. Estimate exp. a plus. Apply www.discovery.com/careers Position 5500 (7/25)
JOB OPENING: NAT’L TV BUYING SPRVSR/NY Major NY advertising agency: 6+ Yrs exp. Cable & net TV. Train/supervise buyers. Exp added value & promotions. IAG exp a +. Cal year end upfront advtsr. Res: to [email protected] (7/25)
JOB OPENING: DIR DIGITAL MEDIA AD SALES-NBC UNI/NY: Assist and increase sales across NBC Universal properties. Degree w/ min 5 yrs related exp. www.nbcjobs.com keyword job#598623 (7/24)
JOB OPENING: DIR AD SALES MARKETING-NBC UNI/NY:Marketing and increasing multi-platform sales for Bravo. Degree w/ min 5 yrs related exp. www.nbcjobs.com keyword job#608413 (7/24)
JOB OPENING: DIR, INTEGRATED MKTG & PROMOTIONS/ABC Family, Devlpmnt & execution of multi platform mktg programs, Mgmnt of RFP process & Promo Bdgt,BA, 5-7 Yrs Exp, MS Office, Photoshop, MRI & CMR www.disneycareers.com Req# 73810 (7/24)
JOB OPENING: RESEARCH FREELANCER/ LIFETIME TV NY: short-term engagement, 3-5 days per week. Must have 3+ years experience with Nielsen N-Power. Apply at: http://www.lifetimetv.com/about/jobs.html (7/24)
JOB OPENING: US DIR OF FINANCE & PROD ACCT’G/Chorion Silver Lining, Inc/NY: Oversee acct’g & reporting function in the US, prod accounting along w/corp oversight. Animation exp pref’d. Res/cvr ltr: [email protected] (7/14)
JOB OPENING: LINE PRODUCER/Chorion Silver Lining, Inc/NY: experienced line producer for animated children’s series. Email resume and cover letter to [email protected] (7/14)
JOB OPENING: MARATHON MEDIA/SANTA MONICA. For a PRINT MEDIA BUYER/PLANNER w/1-2 years exp. E-mail resume: [email protected] (7/14)
JOB OPENING: MARATHON MEDIA/SANTA MONICA. For an ONLINE BUYER/PLANNER w/1-2 years exp. E-mail resume: [email protected] (7/14)
JOB OPENING: ACCT EXEC/WorldLink NY: Sell Nat’l Cable advertising for general market, direct to clients/agencies and dvlp new business. Nat’l cable exp min 2+ yrs in sales. Resume: [email protected] (7/14)
JOB OPENING: MKTG/SALES PROMO COORD/Fox/NY:dvlp & execute sponsor partnerships (in-show integration, promotions, events) for FOX reality programming incl American Idol; 2+ yrs ad sales mktg or agency exp pref; www.foxcareers.com (7/14)
JOB OPENING: SPONSORSHIP SPECIALIST-DISCOVERY LA: Mge devel & fulfill of Ad Sales Sponsorships on TLC/DSC/HOME. Support Mgr in execution of integrated mktg Sponsor. 3-5 yrs mktg/agency/prod exp. Apply: www.Discovery.com (req #5464) (7/14)
JOB OPENING: GROUP BUYING DIR/Spot TV-Active Int’l /Pearl River NY (15 miles NYC): 10 Exp+. in Supervising/Buying TV. Strong negotiating, operations & team bldg skills req’d. [email protected] 845-732-8943 (7/28)
JOB OPENING: SR. NEGOTIATOR/National Broadcast/Pearl River NY(15 miles NYC): Exp in all areas of Nat’l Broadcast placement. Strong analytical & presentation skills req’d. Resume: [email protected] or call 845 732-8943 (7/28)
JOB OPENING: SALES PLANNER: CBS is looking for a Sales Planner in our W/C Sales office. Interested candidates should apply online at www.cbscareers.com and reference job 2120. CBS is EOE. (7/14)
JOB OPENING: MARKETING ANALYST/News/NY: Must have BA & 5 years exp. at agency; Responsibilities: Analyze spending patterns; develop/execute promotional concepts; run SMRB/MRI data. Apply: www.nbcunicareers.com #604969 (7/14)
SUMMER INTERNSHIPS – These positions are for credit only – nobody gets paid here. They are posted for free, and students work for school credit only. For more information on the specs for posting an Internship ad, email Trish at [email protected] .
SUMMER INTERNSHIP CREDITS ONLY: SALES ASST, ADV SALES DEPT, ELMSFORD NY: Input orders for Acct Execs, search cable network websites for prog & promo info, power point presentations. If interested please email resume to akonecny @cablevision.com (7/24)
SUMMER INTERNSHIP CREDITS ONLY: NY INTERCONNECT-TRAFFIC COORD/JERICHO NY: Intern will learn the fundamental aspects involved w/ trafficking TV commercials. Visit www.cablevision.jobs req id 3189 for more details. (7/24)
SITUATION WANTED ADS, POSTED BY THOSE LOOKING TO BE HIRED …
SITUATION WANTED: ENTRY LEVEL/CHI. Smart/creative college grad. exp. interning in TV programming/research, worker/quick learner/good attitude would open for all things Web site of work on net. [email protected] (7/25)
SITUATION WANTED: PRODUCER/WRITER/FIELD DIRECTOR. Reality; Entertainment; News; Magazine format; Excellent story teller. Three-time Emmy nom. LA based, willing to travel. [email protected] (7/25)
SITUATION WANTED: FILM APOC or POC– 10+ yrs exp. as TV Line Producer/Prod Mgr. switching to film seeks APOC or POC position. Recent work on major studio feature film. LA based. Please contact: [email protected] (7/14)
SITUATION WANTED: PRODUCER LA: Former NBC producer avail. for freelance or staff basis. 5+ yrs of Entertainment Industry exp, including field/studio directing, writing, daily live-brdcst, & reality. Contact: [email protected] (7/13)
E-mail Trish Pihonak for rates and specs for Job Openings.
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