A CYNOPSIS MESSAGE FROM TV LAND

Cynopsis: DIGITAL

07/16/09

Good morning, it’s Thursday, July 16, 2009, and this is your first early morning digital briefing. 

Verizon announced plans to roll out a series of interactive widgets for its FiOS TV service, laying down a gauntlet of sorts that should force the cable industry to accelerate its iTV efforts. The first “Widget Bazaar” apps, which have already begun rolling out in select markets, will provide TV access to some of the most popular applications on the web: an ESPN Fantasy Football widget will provide real-time fantasy updates; a Facebook widget will enable viewers to update their status as well as view photos and friend updates; and a Twitter widget will provide two-screen, real-time interaction with television programs. Later this month, customers who subscribe to Verizon’s Home Media DVR service will be able to search and view online videos from the popular online video portals blip.tv, Dailymotion and Veoh. A My Videos feature will also allow subscribers to access videos stored on their PCs. Even more exciting is a plan to open up the platform to third-party developers who will be able to offer apps to the public through the service’s Widget Bazaar outlet – Verizon’s own living room version of the app store.
 

 
Along with CBS, Comcast also announced a slew of new cable network participants in the On Demand Online trial, including A&E, AMC, BBC America, DIY Network, Fine Living Network, Food Network, Hallmark Channel, HGTV, History, IFC, MGM Impact, Sundance Channel, WE tv, E! Entertainment, The Style Network, G4 and FEARnet.
 
NBC Universal Digital Studio rolled out its latest web series CTRL with its most extensive distribution plan yet. Based on the Sundance award-winning short film, “CTRL Z,” CTRL stars Arrested Development’s Tony Hale as a downtrodden office worker who can utilize his (Mac) keyboard to achieve super abilities. A total of 10 webisodes will be distributed to NBC.com, Hulu and USANetwork.com; on mobile via NBC’s WAP site, AT&T, Verizon, Sprint and MobiTV; on VOD on Comcast, Time Warner Cable, Charter, Dish Network, Verizon, AT&T and Cablevision; and as direct downloads via Xbox, Zune, Amazon UnBox, Sony Playstation Network and iTunes. 
 
BBC Comedy has commissioned ITV Studios, Comedy to produce a five-part online series starring The Fast Show’s Simon Day as an aging 70’s rocker named “Brian Pern.” Weekly installments of the vlog-format mocumentary will launch exclusively throughout July at www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/comedy .
 
Oxygen Media introduced the new music campaign featuring a series of on-air vignettes that drive viewers to emerging artist profile pages oxygen.com. The “Sounds Like Oxygen” campaign kicks off with three artists – Laura Izibor, Asteroids Galaxy Tour and Caitlin Crosby.
 
Primetime Emmy® Awards Note: Cynopsis will be rolling out five Special Edition issues focusing on the 2009 Primetime Emmy® Award nominees, going out to all Cynopsis subscribers.  These special editions will cover the following categories: 

• 7/29 Special Edition:  Outstanding Comedy Series, Outstanding Directing for a Comedy, Outstanding Writing for a Comedy
• 8/5 Special Edition:    Outstanding Drama Series, Outstanding Directing of a Drama, Outstanding Writing of a Drama
• 8/12 Special Edition:  Outstanding Reality-Competition Program, Outstanding Reality Program; Outstanding Non-Fiction Series; Outstanding Non-Fiction Special
• 8/19 Special Edition:  Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series, Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series
• 8/24 Special Edition:  Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series, Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series

The nominees will be announced this morning, and if you’re among them … congratulations!!  And if you’d like to send us a description or brief bio of the nominated series/director/actor/writer (maximum of 150 words – emailed 48 hours prior to publication date), we will include it in our special edition.   Please send the description to me at cynthia @cynopsis.com. 

 
Next New Networks announced a reorganization splitting the video distribution and marketing company into two separate departments. Co-founder Tim Shey will head the new Audience Development Group, overseeing distribution, promotions and outreach, and the shared web/community platform for all networks. Tim will work with former head of entertainment Vanessa Papas. Producer and “the Burg” creator Kathleen Grace will lead the Programming Group, working with Barely Political founder Ben Relles. NNN says it has grown to reach over 10 million users/month across its networks and that several new networks are in the works.
 
Revision3 launched a new weekly show dubbed HD Nation all about how to squeeze better performance out of your home entertainment set up. Tech gurus Patrick Norton (Tekzilla) and Robert Heron (PCMag and DL.TV) are the hosts. New episodes premiere every Tuesday.
 
Call for Content: The gang at Funny Or Die are casting the net wide in the new Let’s Go Viral contest, launched in conjunction with HBO Home Entertainment’s Comedy Fetish campaign. Submit a video of something you find funny but that others find inappropriate for a chance to produce an original short with the likes of Will Ferrell, Judd Apatow, Adam McKay and Chris Henchy.

A CYNOPSIS MESSAGE FROM TV LAND

 
MTV Networks unveiled a new study to help measure both the effectiveness and likeability of various ad formats across a range of audience, content and advertiser categories. The “Project Inform” study identified a five-second pre-roll combined with a ten-second lower 1/3 ad unit as the most audience-friendly ad product for short form online video. The lower 1/3 unit actually ranked as the most likeable, while the Sideloader Product Suite ranked third and showed promise in certain areas, such as online ad awareness. The study was conducted in partnership with InsightExpress and the ads were developed and deployed using the Panache video ad platform.
 
Pet-themed ad network DogTime launched a Pet Insurance comparison site with a variety of sponsorship opportunities including banner advertising, sections sponsorships, custom content integration and lead generation programs.
 

 
Video solutions provider Harmonic announced plans to integrate Audible Magic‘s audio and video fingerprinting tools to make it easier for copyright owners to protect and track their video assets online. Under the partnership, clients who use Harmonic’s Rhozet Carbon Coder solution to transcode their video can embed digital fingerprints on the files to help distribute, track, validate, authorize and monetize usage across the web.
 

 
Microsoft‘s new heavily promoted Bing search engine has failed to make much of a dent yet on the company’s share of the search market, according to ComScore‘s June search report previewed by the NYTimes. Microsoft gained .4 percentage points to capture 8.4% of the U.S. search market in June. The gains seemed to come at the expense of Yahoo rather than Google, however, as Yahoo’s share dropped from 20.1% in May to 19.6%, while Google’s share remained flat at 65%, comScore confirmed.
 

 
Google unveiled a new mobile voice app for the Blackberry and Android mobile operating system designed to smooth the operation of the Google Voice universal voice mailbox/call-routing service on mobile phones. The new Google Voice app allows users to make calls and send SMS messages with your Google Voice number directly from your mobile phone. (The person you call will see your Google Voice number rather than your actual mobile number, so it can be useful for protecting privacy.) The app also allows users to access voicemail, view message transcripts and have messages read them “karaoke style.” You can download the app from the Google Voice mobile site at m.google.com/voice. Non Blackberry and Android users can type www.google.com/voice into their mobile browser) to access Google Voice features.
 
The folks at Palm Inc. can only think – ‘we must be getting to them’ … Apple released an update to its iTunes music management suite yesterday that blocks Palm Pre users from connecting to the software. The smartphone shipped last month with the ability to download and purchase music and videos directly from the iTunes store.
 
Warner Bros. Digital Distribution has partnered with Guinness World Records to offer iPhone and iPod touch users a chance to appear in the GWR 2010 Gamers Edition. Download a GWR app for $4.99 and try to rack up the top scores in a 36 mini games including sheep shearing and washing machine toss. You must register a GameSpy account to qualify. 
 
In more voice-over actor news (see the WSOTD,) David Sobolov (who’s the go to guy to voice creepy characters in video games) has cobbled together 32 of his most recognizable lines for a new iPhone app called iMEvil. Available for $1.99, it’s like Mr. T’s iPity except that it recites evil lines. It is one of first apps to be released under the new Screen Actors Guild new media agreement.
 

 
ESPN veteran Jeff Siegel and former NBCU and MSN sales executive Manon Bone will both join iTV specialist Ensequence as VP/Sales. They will be based in New York and will each be responsible for business development and maintenance of the company’s current portfolio of clients.
 
Dominic Schmitt, an original member of TACODA digital ad network, has joined retail-themed online contextual advertising platform Adtuitive. He will be based in New York and serve as VP/Business Development.
 

A CYNOPSIS MESSAGE

 
CBS promo Creative Director Jay Lutsky and CBS promo writer/producer/editor Dan Greenberger have decided to cash in a bunch of their savings and favors to live the dream and produce their own web series. Sort of a superhero-themed Office Space, Captain Alpha Male is all about encouraging cubicle viewers to live vicariously through the actions of said Captain – played by Jay himself (who seems to channel Hugh Laurie of House in both appearance and tone.) Their experience in the trade shows as the series sports a polished look and feel despite its shoestring budget. “We feel we have made a quality production that is comparable to a much more expensive content creation,” says Mr. Lutsky. And Jay and Dan’s industry connections have given Captain Alpha Male a small claim to fame; the voiceover you hear in the trailer is none other than the late legendary Don La Fontaine in his last on-camera performance. The show premieres today and will be distributed across YouTube, Metacafe, FunnyorDie and Revver in the coming weeks as the producers search for a sponsor to help fund a second season.

ALERT:   CYNOPSIS EDITORIAL STAFF IS ON VACATION ALL NEXT WEEK RETURNING ON MONDAY, JULY 27

Later — Wayne
 Wayne Karrfalt for Cynopsis: Digital
07.16.09

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JOB OPENING: ON AIR TECHNICIAN/New York: OnAir Tech Master Control Ops Prod & post production duties. Apply @ www.mylifetime.com/about-us/welcome https://www.abso.com/jobboard/Default.aspx?JOBBOARDID=507&JobDetail=58756 (7/30)

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SITUATION WANTED: Seasoned special sales/sub rights PUBLISHING PRO is searching for the next great opportunity in children’s media, licensing or product development.Creative, strategic and conceptual seller. Please contact me at [email protected] (7/29)

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SITUATION WANTED: SEASONED SPECIAL SALES/SUB RIGHTS PUBLISHING PRO seeks next great opportunity in children’s media, licensing or product development. Creative, strategic and conceptual seller. Please contact me at [email protected] (7/29)

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SITUATION WANTED: With 7years of TELEVISION ADVERTISING SALES experience with major media broadcasting companies in NYC and Dallas, I am seeking a Local/National Media Sales position. Contact me at [email protected] (7/28)

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SITUATION WANTED: Seasoned special sales/sub rights publishing pro is searching for the next great opportunity in children’s media, licensing or product development. Creative, strategic and conceptual seller. Email: [email protected] (7/28)

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SITUATION WANTED: STORY PRODUCER/EDITOR – FIELD PRODUCER/DIRECTOR/LA: 10 yrs exp. from conception to final edit in Reality TV, Film, New Media & Video Production. Seeking next great project. [email protected] (7/28)

SITUATION WANTED: Emmy award winning doc producer/director/exec producer . 20+ years experience: history, music, public affairs, doc reality for PBS, BBC, A&E, Nat Geo etc. Great international co-pro experience: [email protected] (7/28)

SITUATION WANTED: Recent college graduate with 3 years of AD SALES EXPERIENCE in the media industry such as CNN, and Com Radio. Please feel free contact me via email at [email protected]     Located in NYC (7/18)

SITUATION WANTED: PRODUCER/EIC/PROD MGR/LA: 10+ Yrs Industry Experience. TV/Web/ Industrial. Seeks long term full time position. Camera and FCP savvy.  Package deal. On schedule and under budget! Contact – [email protected] (7/18)

SITUATION WANTED: EIC/LINE PRODUCER with 10+ yrs exp. Variety, Docu-Reality, Game Show, Scripted, Competition/Elimination- Mngd biz of Prod. Co’s. for major TV & cable nets. Looking for next project. [email protected] (7/17)

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