Cynopsis: DIGITAL
06/12/08
Good morning, it’s Thursday, June 12, 2008, and this is your first early morning digital briefing, reporting live from the On Hollywood conference in West Hollywood, CA.
Broadband video has grown in quality and sophistication in the past year, various new media barons at OnHollywood argued. For young users in particular, the medium has truly arrived. But producers and distributors alike are still playing the waiting game when it comes to adequate monetization. Why brand advertisers remain reluctant to invest in large numbers and when they will come aboard proved points of contention. Optimists laid out ambitious time tables and projected major shifts in media planning budgets from television to online video. Pessimists warned of a “generational gap” on Madison Avenue that will likely persist until younger buyers move up at the agencies.
HBO took another baby step toward participating in the digital revolution, taking a small equity stake in Landlord producers Funny or Die.com and commissioning 10 half-hours of comedy programming from the team. Funny or Die founders Will Ferrell Adam McKay, Chris Henchy and Judd Apatow will develop the show initially for on air but the deal provides for collaboration on multiple projects and platforms, according to sources.
Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia lost its CEO but had some good news to crow about on the digital front. Martha Stewart’s Video Podcasts reached #1 on iTunes during their first day on the platform. The company is delivering about 2 hours of ad supported content (in 27 segments), all selected to tie-in to seasonal themes. The segments are also offered on the Martha Stewart On Demand service, currently available in 13 million Comcast and Cox digital homes.
ABC News is close to shutting down its daily 15-minute World News webcast, convinced its news audience skews older and is less likely to turn to the web for the podcast, reports the WSJ. Last Monday’s World News page got only about 145,000 hits.
TVN Entertainment Corp. reached a long-term agreement with outsourced IPTV services provider IP-Prime to provide VOD content and asset management services to IP-Prime operators.
GoTV Networks struck a partnership with talent agency CESD, to utilize its talent roster to create short-form serialized brand-supported content for mobile and broadband.
Earth Television Network has launched a channel on You Tube giving users access to its 80 worldwide camera locations. EarthTV.com’s broadcast quality, remote controlled cameras offer hourly insights into life in cities and natural areas across the globe including Antalya, Johannesburg, Venice, Sydney, Manila, Munich, London, Paris and New York.
mtvU, along with a coalition of MTV networks including MTV, VH1, MTV Base, MHD, VH1 Soul and VH1 Classic, are moving to mobilize young viewers to help ensure there are free and fair elections in Zimbabwe on June 27. The networks are airing PSAs driving viewers to sign an online petition encouraging the region’s leaders to send independent election observers to guard against violence, fraud and intimidation at the polls.
Price does matter when it comes to consumer adoption of tech gadgets. Netflix has already sold out of all its $100 Roku set top boxes that allow consumers to watch rental downloads from Netflix.com on their televisions, reports Bloomberg.
The MPAA filed a petition with the FCC last week offering to shorten the window for new releases to reach television. But in exchange, studios asked the commission to change regulations to prevent these movies from being recorded on DVRs. To insure unauthorized copying studios are seeking permission to block signals from certain outputs on the back of televisions and DVRs to prevent digital copies from being made.
Disney acquired green lifestyle site IdealBite for $15 million, reports paidcontent.org.
NBC Universal announced a wide-ranging multiplatform affiliate marketing campaign to promote the 2008 Beijing Summer Games. Components include local ad sales, pre-Games free on demand (FOD) coverage and free broadband and in-Games offerings of HD, FOD, Broadband, and Interactive TV content. To stoke viewer interest, content will be made available in advance and will include dozens of clips across several categories, including event previews and athlete profiles. At the start of the Games, the In-Games package will feature daily highlights of each sport, in addition to access to the best events each day, available via FOD and nbcolympics.com.
~ TRENDS, RESEARCH, ETC. ~
Michael Eisner’s latest web project Foreign Body, meant to be a prequel leading up to the latest Robin Cook novel, is nearly DOA, points out Silicon Alley Insider, racking up only 140,000 views since launching May 27 according to Tube Mogul. That’s hardly enough to justify its $500,000 budget.
With choices expanding and gadgets improving Americans are expected to expand their multiplatform video consumption by 35% by 2013, according to a new report from Toronto-based Solutions Research Group. Viewers 12 and older already spend 6.1 hours a day watching linear TV, DVRs, VOD, video games and video on PC and mobile devices, up from 4.6 hours/day in 1996. The boob tube is accounting for a lower share of overall video consumption among 12-24 year olds (42.4%) and men (57.7%) compared to the population average (63.9%). Other interesting findings include:
- Primetime viewing hours differ by platform; web video viewing peaks midday M-F
- Web and mobile video viewing is expected to triple from 1 hour/day to nearly 3 hours/day
- TV’s share of the overall viewing pie is expected to shrink from 63.9% to 47.1% by 2013
Video-based Entertainment Shares by Platform 2008, U.S. Online 12+
Platform % of total viewing
TV (cable/DBS/OTA) 63.9%
Video Games 13.0%
PC Video 10.3%
DVDs 7.2%
Video on personal devices 3.9%
Video on cell phones 1.7%
Source: SRC
Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia President and CEO Susan Lyne stepped down yesterday, replaced by President of Media Wenda Harris Millard and President of Merchandising Robin Marino, who were both named co-CEO.
John Najarian has been upped to EVP/Digital Media and Business Development, Comcast Entertainment Group. John will oversee mobile, broadband and emerging businesses for E! Entertainment, The Style Network and G4l, reporting to Ted Harbert, President & CEO, Comcast Entertainment Group.
Newspaper industry veteran James McDonald has joined online marketing firm PV Media Group as VP/Corporate Sales and Development. In the newly created role, McDonald will concentrate on extending and building the online presence of media companies, reporting to PV Media CEO Steve Rosenberg.
ReelzChannel promoted Juli Biondi to VP/Broadcast/Localization and Chris Pulis to VP/ Production Operations. Both report to Fred Poston, SVP/Operations.
The Italian American Network has appointed James K. Picinich as its first VP/Programming and Development. He reports to the multiplatform start-up’s CEO, Tony Ceglio.
Boston-based Viewpoint Creative has added Executive Producer Diana De Vries to the creative staff of the company’s Los Angeles office.
Pluggd founder and CEO Alex Castro figures online video service providers like Brightcove could benefit from a little competition. (Brightcove has enjoyed early mover status and locked many publishers into contracts to stream and manage their online content but, he would argue, has been slow to innovate.) Pluggd relaunched at OnHollywood yesterday as Delve Networks with a new customizable video player featuring a very intuitive UI. The drag and drop interface allows users to create personalized channels and easily drill down among categories. Delve has also made some real advances in enabling users to pinpoint segments within video clips. Proprietary semantic video and speech recognition technology searches footage to identify words spoken within the video. Wave your cursor on the colored bar beneath the player to pull up contextual words then click on the word to jump to that section of the video stream. Best of all Delve promises not to lock their customers into long-term contracts. “If my stuff stinks you should be able to drop me,” said Mr. Castro.
Correction: Yesterday’s link for The Young Turks was faulty. If you didn’t find it via Google, go to TheYoungTurks.com. (Left out the “The.”)
Later — Wayne
Wayne Karrfalt for Cynopsis: Digital
06.12.08
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