A CYNOPSIS MESSAGE FROM SONY PICTURES TELEVISION

Cynopsis: DIGITAL
05.23.13

Good morning. It’s Thursday, May 23, 2013, and this is your first early morning digital briefing.

181.9 million Americans watched 38.8 billion online videos and an all-time high of 13.3 billion video ads in April 2013, according to comScore‘s latest Video Metrix numbers. This was a slight drop from March (182.4 million Americans watching 39.3 billion videos), but not by much.

• The top-five video properties/networks by unique viewers: Google/YouTube (154.6 million); Facebook (62.7 million); VEVO (52.9 million); NDN (45.3 million); and Yahoo (45.1 million).
• The top-five video ad properties by views: Google Sites (2.42 billion); BrightRoll (2.17 billion); LiveRail (1.69 billion); Adap.tv (1.48 billion); and Hulu (1.44 billion).

Other tasty nuggets:

• When broken down by views, Google still ranked first with 13.02 billion
• Time spent watching video ads totaled 5.1 billion minutes, with BrightRoll bringing in the highest duration at 1.1 billion minutes
• Hulu delivered highest number of ads per viewer, with an average of 63

Now that the Xbox One has been unveiled, the next step is to figure out what sort of content is going to be available on the home entertainment device. In the realm of original video, Microsoft yesterday announced a Halo TV series from executive producer Steven Spielberg. But that’s just the beginning. According to what Nancy Tellem, President/Entertainment and Digital Media at Microsoft, told Variety, Microsoft has plans to launch several original shows on Xbox Live by the end of the year. Tellem is apparently also considering non-fiction programming in genres such as reality, game shows, sports, and other live events. As for that Halo series, apparently the quality is on par with HBO’s Game of Thrones.
— In other words: Similar to how Netflix marketed and spoke about House of Cards, Microsoft wants you to perceive the shows it produces for Xbox Live as being television, except they will be available on a connected device instead of (at least initially) on a linear channel.

Singer Sara Bareilles has launched a new video series on VEVO called Sara Bareilles Makes a Record. Per New Media Rockstars, the series will span eight episodes, all of which will track the musician as she, well, makes her new album, which will be released on June 16. This series is not exclusive to VEVO, but the music video platform will be premiering additional episodes over the next few weeks, a VEVO spokeswoman confirmed to Cynopsis.

Destination America is serving up some digital video and social extensions to Meat Week, a programming event beginning on Memorial Day, May 27. The custom Meat Week website will feature behind-the-scenes content and bloopers from Myron Mixon and Moe Carson of BBQ Pitmasters. On Friday, May 31, from 10-11am ET, Destination America will air two episodes of the United States of Bacon. During the telecast, the channel will curate relevant tweets and air them via a bacon-styled crawl on the TV screen. On the social TV front, Destination America will release custom Meat Week and BBQ Pitmasters GetGlue stickers, which viewers can earn by checking into Meat Week programming.

Cynopsis Digital’s BIG Monetization Summit is on June 18, less than a month away, live from New York at the Time Warner Center. We have an awesome lineup of speakers ready to drop some knowledge on you, including executives from companies such as AOL, CAA, CBS Interactive, FreeWheel, Mediacom, Starcom MediaVest Group, The Weather Channel, YouTube, and USA Network. See you there.

A CYNOPSIS MESSAGE

Interlude, a video tech start-up that helps content creators build “choose your own adventure”-style online video experiences, has raised $16 million in new funding, according to The Next Web. The new round, which brings Interlude’s total to $20 million, comes from investors like Intel Capital, Sequoia capital, Innovation Endeavors, and Marker Capital.

A new study from Starcom USA aims to determine if original online video content is just as good as TV by measuring consumers’ responses to each type. Splitting 4,800 respondents into three groups, Starcom measured consumers’ perceptions of web and TV content as well as their viewing habits. The two major findings: 1) Though consumers are more likely to consider original online video as being of lower quality than television, there was no statistical relationship between quality or likeability scores and whether respondents believed the content was from the web or television. 2) The performance of ads did not change much from original web video to television. In fact, Starcom says consumers were less likely to recall ads when they believed the content was from TV.
— In other words: If consumers pre-judge online video to be lesser than television, then there’s an opportunity for publishers to win over viewers by simply pushing some of their high quality content to them. Of course, this means doing a better job of marketing the content to the consumers, and improving things like video discovery and measurement (or maybe like Microsoft and Netflix, they can just start calling it TV). So even if you win the perception battle, there is still a lot of ground to cover.

Alcohol brands saw strong growth within social video in Q1 2013, with overall shares within the vertical rising from 143,000 in Q4 2012 to more than 4.8 million in Q1 2013. This finding comes via a new whitepaper from social video ad firm Unruly Media, which analyzed the performance of the alcohol vertical for the first three months of 2013. The problem, Unruly says, is that while overall share growth was strong, 97% of shares came from only four ads (from Budweiser, Neft Vodka, Carlsberg, and Heineken), which means there’s still a lot of work alcohol brands can do to increase their social video presence. Among the other findings, beer brands’ share of voice dropped from 97% in Q4 2012 to 75% in Q1 2013, with spirit brands’ share rising from 3% to 24.6%. Wine brands pretty much remained flat, dropping from 0.4% share of social video voice to 0.3%.

Cartoon Network is launching a new mobile game tied its surrealist animated series, Regular Show. Available for $2.99 in the iTunes App Store, Best Park in the Universe features Mordecai and Rigby, the two main characters from the show, as they battle “aliens, monsters, and deranged park employees” while trying to make the park they are working at the Best Park in the Universe. The game spans 15 levels across three different worlds, and allows users to play as either character.

Tim Mohn, co-creator of the HBO Go app and former VP/Technology at NBCUniversal and Comcast, has joined Fullscreen as the YouTube multichannel network’s new SVP/Engineering. He will be responsible for “pushing Fullscreen’s technological innovation to the next level,” according to a blog post from Fullscreen CEO George Strompolos.

Digital ad network Broadcast Interactive Media (BIM) has hired Paul Barford, PhD and Professor of Computer Sciences at the University of Wisconsin/Madison, as its new Chief Scientist. In the newly created position at the company, Barford will direct the development and operation of a new BIM platform designed to help local publisher sites identify and avoid invalid traffic, which BIM says is costing the online ad ecosystem over $10 billion in wasted ad spend.

Creative services agency Quantasy has named Alicia Herczeg as its new Director/Analytics. A former Digital Analyst at Edelman, Herczeg will now be responsible for the development, strategy, and execution of digital analytics and measurement for Quantasy’s branded ad campaigns.

Advertising Women of New York (AWNY) installed its 2013-2014 Board of Directors, which include: Cyndi April (SVP/Account Director, TargetCast); Sheila Buckley (Global CRO, Vibrant Media); Carol Watson (President, Tangerine-Watson); Janet Balis (former Publisher, Huffington Post); Missy Foristall (SVP/Operations, MediaLink); Jill Kelly (EVP, Global Director/Corporate Communications, DigitasLBi); Karen Kovacs (Publisher, People/Time); and Lisa Donohue (CEO, Starcom).

A CYNOPSIS MESSAGE

The 17th Annual Webby Awards were held Tuesday night in New York, honoring all sorts of excellence on the internet, from memes to original programming and branded entertainment. Notably, the Webbys gave out Special Achievement Awards to people behind (and in front of) three prominent series within the world of online video: Kevin Spacey and Dana Brunetti for House of Cards; Jerry Seinfeld for Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee; and Ben Stiller, Erica Oyama, and Ken Marino for Burning Love. For a full list of winners, click here. If you want to watch the full awards show, or check out individual highlights, go here.

A CYNOPSIS MESSAGE

Later – Sahil
Sahil Patel, Editor for Cynopsis Digital
05.23.13

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