Cynopsis: DIGITAL
11.29.12

Good morning. It’s Thursday, November 29, 2012, and this is your first early morning digital briefing.

Time Inc. has launched a new digital video unit, which will manage digital video production, development, and strategy across the company’s portfolio of brands. “Digital video is one of the fastest growing categories for advertisers and with our scale and breadth of quality journalism; we think we can make an impact. We also think we can bring our brands to life for consumers in compelling ways with signature digital programming,” read a statement from Todd Larsen, EVP and Group President/News and Sports at Time Inc. The unit will be led by J.R. McCabe, who has been appointed to the new role of SVP/Video, effective immediately. McCabe comes to Time from Meredith, where he was VP/Chief Video Officer. At his new position, McCabe will be responsible for growing the volume of digital video products across the company and identifying new channels of distribution, among other things. He will report to Larsen, who has oversight of the new unit.

CW Digital has picked up Backpackers, an original digital series from Shaftesbury’s digital media division, Smokebomb Entertainment. At MIPCOM 2012, it was announced that CTV had also picked up the series to distribute it across its CTV and Bell Media digital platforms. The show follows best friends Ryan and Brandon on a wild trip across Europe in search of Ryan’s fiancee, who is traveling separately on her own vacation in advance of the wedding. Targeted for the 18-34 demographic, the series will be shot on-location in Europe in spring 2013, with plans to deliver eight, six-minute episodes to CW Digital and CTV in the second quarter. Backpackers will also be broken down and re-formatted as a “choose your own adventure” story, which will be available through a downloaded Backpackers App.

Yahoo Finance and CNBC‘s digital talk series, Off the Cuff, brings in Bausch + Lomb CEO Brent Saunders for a one-on-one interview this Friday. The talk series spotlights some of the top business executives in the world to discuss the day-to-day pressures of running a business as well as how they got here and what some of their personal passions are. Saunders will discuss “why the perfect vacation includes good connectivity” and the first place he goes to when traveling on business, among other things. Other guests this week have included H&M North America President, Daniel Kulle, and Dunkin’ Brands CEO, Nigel Travis.

British broadcaster Sky’s online streaming service, Now TV, is now available on Roku devices via the Roku Channel Store. Now TV offers access to Sky Movies, and “in the next few months” will bring access to Sky Sports, which will then be followed by TV programming from Sky 1, Sky Atlantic, Sky Arts, and Sky Living. New customers can sign up for a 30-day free trial, which will be followed by a special three-month plan of 8.99 pounds per month, which will then shift to the regular 15 pounds per month price. If the Roku box is connected to the TV and the home Wi-Fi network, Now TV customers will be able to watch content on a variety of devices, from the main TV to smartphones, tablets, and laptops. Now TV is already available on PCs/Macs, iOS devices, select Android smartphones, and other connected devices.

YouTube is opening a new, 41,000-square-feet production facility in Los Angeles designed to offer creators state-of-the-art equipment and resources for creating content for the site. A former helicopter hangar in Playa Vista, the YouTube Creator Space LA features amenities such as two production stages, a recording studio, three green-screen rooms, a motion-capture studio, a screening room, a backlot equipment room with cameras, lights, mics, grip equipment, and more. The Space will also host training programs, workships, and events designed to help creators meet and collaborate with others. While the space is available for free, the ability to have access to it comes with certain requirements. According to New Media Rockstars, these are: Consistent publishing; substantial monthly views; a large, growing subscriber base; at least three prior collaborations with other YouTube channels; and “a comprehensive plan for use of the space.”

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LinkedIn is rolling out a new ads API program on the LinkedIn Ads platform, allowing developers to build custom tools and solutions to help B2B marketers reach audiences on the social network for professionals. LinkedIn says it is also making premium support available for its approved developers. This means these developers will have access to the company’s online operations and sales team and developer marketing programs, as well as “a direct line of communication with our product management team.” As for the current developers/partners of the ads API program, they include Adobe, Bizo, and Unified. Marketers can run and manage campaigns using the ad platforms from any of these companies.

Vector Media is the newest member of the Digital Place-based Advertising Association (DPAA). The out-of-home media company is also announcing that it is adding digital networks in the travel and lifestyle space to its traditional offerings.

Entertainment metadata provider TMS has launched OnConnect Managed Services, a new “Data as a Service” platform that offers a set of more than 30 data delivery API methods plus an image-hosting service called Image Cloud. TMS says OnConnect is designed to give app developers flexible and scalable delivery of the company’s On TV Entertainment metadata, which includes theatrical movie showtimes as well as linear TV schedules, online video data, and descriptive information for TV shows, movies, sports, and celebrities. The company says the data delivery APIs can be used for a wide range of use cases, while Image Cloud enables customers to incorporate rich images into UIs on entertainment apps. TMS partner Digitalsmiths, which led the development will now manage many of these data delivery APIs through its Seamless Discovery platform.

Internet Broadcasting (IB) has renewed and expanded its partnership with Post-Newsweek Stations. Under the agreement, IB will continue to serve as Post-Newsweek’s digital media partner, offering the station group a digital publishing platform, original and syndicated news and content, and digital agency solutions. In addition to this, IB has launched a bunch of mobile sites for Post-Newsweek stations. This expansion to mobile will allow the station group to manage publishing and ad operations for both the web and mobile, all through one platform.

More Cyber Monday sales data, because I know you just can’t get enough: This time it’s from comScore, which reports that Cyber Monday 2012 was the biggest US online spending day in history, with online sales jumping to $1.465 billion. This is a 17% increase versus a year ago. Yesterday, Adobe reported that Cyber Monday sales this year hit $1.98 billion, also saying that it was a 17% growth year-over-year. Some of this discrepancy can be explained by the fact that comScore’s numbers do not take sales from mobile devices into account. Adobe’s report indicated that mobile devices accounted for 22% of total online shopping on Cyber Monday this year. Moving along, comScore says the first 26 days of the November-December 2012 holiday season has generated $16.4 billion in online spending, a 16% increase over last year. Among product categories, Digital Content & Subscriptions witnessed the best year-over-year growth rate at 28%.

The US has the greatest number of active iOS and Android devices with an installed base of 181 million. The other giant in this area is China, with an active iOS and Android device installed base of 167 million. This data comes from Flurry Analytics, which tracked over 250,000 apps running on more than 750 million devices worldwide. Flurry estimates that it can reliably detect over 90% of all iOS and Android devices active in the world during a given month. While US is the current king, China is on pace to overtake it by the end of the first quarter of 2013. The US has added 55 million net active devices since October 2011. In that time span, China added 125 million. As for the rest of the top five: the UK (35 million), Japan (28 million), and South Korea (27 million).

According to the results of the Consumer Audience Survey from IDG TechNetwork, online video influences gadget purchase intent. IDG TechNetwork is a global network of 500+ niche and mainstream tech sites that in total reach 130 million monthly unique visitors. The company says 2,354 readers participated in this survey across a broad cross-section of its sites. Among the findings, nine out of 10 respondents said they watch videos about tech products they may buy. Additionally, 23% of respondents said they watch tech video content on their mobile device. What’s more, IDG TechNetwork makes the argument that advertisers looking to reach tech enthusiasts should consider original content such as product demos or video reviews to supplement their 30-second spots. Of the various video formats found on tech news sites, 90% of respondents found product demos and review videos to be the most valuable resource.

mPortal has launched ScreenBee, a new companion TV app for the iPad that wants to help users connect with friends over their favorite shows as well as help content and service providers reach and engage with those watching their TV shows. Built on top of mPortal’s Springboard Media platform, the app offers several second-screen and social TV features, including the ability for users to browse current TV programs and discover which shows their friends like, as well as note certain shows as favorites and set reminders for specific episodes. Users are also able to interact with others in real-time via Facebook and Twitter. For content providers, the app gives them the ability to offer viewers more information about TV programs, including episode and cast descriptions and photos. mPortal says it plans to roll out additional features such as specialized extras (recipes for cooking shows, team/player stats, polls, etc.) in the future.

Lenore Moritz has been promoted to VP/Communications, Digital and Integrated Media, at NBCUniversal’s Entertainment & Digital Networks and Integrated Media (E&DN/IM) division. In the expanded role, she will assume communications oversight for DailyCandy, Fandango, and Television Without Pity, while also taking the communications lead for the Integrated Media (IM) group. IM is the creative content, marketing, and research group tasked with developing custom cross-portfolio deals across NBCUniversal, and encompasses Women at NBCU, Green is Universal, Healthy at NBCU, and Hispanics at NBCU. She will report to Nick Lehman, President/Digital, NBCUniversal E&DN/IM; John Shea, EVP and CMO, NBCUniversal’s Integrated Media; and Hilary Smith, SVP/Communications, NBCUniversal E&DN/IM.

The Weather Company (TWC) has named Jeremy Steinberg as its new SVP/Digital Ad Sales. In this role, Steinberg will lead the digital sales efforts for TWC and will be responsible for revenue across weather.com, wunderground, and The Weather Channel’s mobile and tablet apps. He will also oversee the company’s programmatic and inside sales efforts. Joining the company on January 2, Steinberg will be based in New York City and will report to Curt Hecht, Chief Global Revenue Officer at The Weather Company.

Romina Rosado has been named VP/Eonline, a new position at the NBCUniversal company. She is charged with developing new revenue opportunities for Eonline through oversight of editorial, audience development, and programming. Rosado will report to John Najarian, EVP/Digital Media & Business Development for Eonline.

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CraveOnline Media is partnering with STiKS Gaming to host the “STiKS ARCADE” Charity Gaming Gala on December 6 to benefit Hurricane Sandy relief efforts. The gala will feature celebrity head-to-head gaming battles and arcade gaming, and will be hosted and DJ’d by Nick Cannon. Sponsored by Boost Mobile, the entire event including the red carpet will be streamed live on CraveOnline, beginning at 7:30pm PT on December 6. The site has already gone live and features a selection of videos and other content promoting and discussing the event next week.

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Sahil Patel, Associate Editor for Cynopsis Digital
11.29.12

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