A CYNOPSIS MESSAGE FROM BBC.COM

Cynopsis: DIGITAL

09/23/08

Good morning, it’s Tuesday, September 23, 2008, and this is your first early morning digital briefing.

MTV continued to embrace social networking as the path to the hearts and minds of today’s youth with the outright purchase of software provider Social Project, the company that powers Viacom’s Flux social networking platform. Launched a little over a year ago, Flux provides community features across the company’s family of brands including MTV.com, Atom.com, Comedy Central.com and the newly redesigned ColbertNation.com. The benefit for users is to provide portability of data across multiple networks so you don’t have to register a bunch of times.
 

 
In another attempt to attract viable news-related user generated content CBS launched a free EyeMobile app for iPhone owners, providing an easy to use interface for submitting photos and videos to CBS’ citizen journalist site CBSEyeMobile.com. The site, powered by both savvy video bloggers and newbies, ranks submissions by most recent, most viewed, and most commented. The EyeMobile application was developed for CBS Mobile by Seattle-based Treemo Labs. 
 
Gearing up for its favorite time of year multiplatform service FEARnet announced it October programming line up fraught with chills and thrills. Highlights include:

• The first-ever 66.6 Second Film Festival featuring abbreviated versions of cult horror favorites including The Howling, Nightmare on Elm Street 2 & Friday the 13th: Jason Lives
• Original short-form series Streets of Fear profiling America’s scariest, most haunted local street names and the legends behind them
• The world TV premiere of suspense thriller Clive Barker’s The Midnight Meat Train
• FEARnet’s web-exclusive 25 Scariest Haunted Houses spotlighting Hollywood’s spookiest digs

 
American Public Media teamed with Spanish TV network V-me to adapt its Select a Candidate profiling game for Spanish language users. The questionnaire can also be embedded on third party sites using the Select a Candidate widget.
 

 
Jolly good news: David Walliams and Matt Lucas are launching a UK version of comic video site Funny or Die today with UK production company Hat Trick (Father Ted,) timed to coincide with the Sunday premiere of their HBO show Little Britain USA. The duo will provide exclusive clips and sketches for the site on a monthly basis as well as oversee a new London-based content team headed by BBC comedian James Serafinowicz. FunnyorDie.com racked up over nine million unique viewers in August 2008. It’s become so successful that co-founder Will Ferrell decided he had better catch up on some of his fan mail last week.
 
The lovely people at the UK’s Channel 4, Lupus Films and Aardman Animations launched the UGC-powered animation portal 4mations.tv containing both amateur and professionally-produced fare. In addition to offering a generous smattering of uniquely British cartoons, the site launches with twist on YouTube’s revenue sharing model; each month the top viewed shorts will receive between £50 and £250. The developer of the top played casual game each month will also receive £250.

Did last night’s premiere of Dancing with the Stars motivate you to polish up your dance moves? Check out Ballroom Dance Channel, an online academy/networking site full of step-by-step instructional videos teaching users how to Rumba, Cha Cha, Tango – you name it. Lessons start at $4.99/each. Dancing with the Stars’ own Tony Dovolani is one of the site’s chief instructors.
 
DigiMeld signed Track Entertainment (operator of ClubPlanet.com, nocheLatina.com, and Fearlessmusic.tv) as its first customer for DigiMeld TV, an online video portal allowing producers to self-publish live or on-demand streaming channels. Track will use DigiMeld TV for client launches, as well as narrowcast channels aimed at its entertainment-based clientele.  DigiMeld TV channels are delivered in high-quality video using the company’s grid streaming technology.
 

 
Will CDs be replaced by thumbnail-sized memory cards? SanDisk has developed a microSD slotMusic card that will come preloaded with DRM-free music, video and images from the four major music labels: EMI, Sony BMG, Warner Music and Universal Music. These little buggers are small – they fit 1GB of data on them – but they’re meant to be fairly ubiquitous in the gadget marketplace, fitting into many existing mobile phones, PCs & Macs (using an included adapter) and a number of (non-Apple) MP3 players. Consumers can also add their own content to a slotMusic card, creating a personal plug-and-play media library. The cards, expected to go for about $15, will become available on Best Buy and WalMart in the coming weeks preloaded with a choice of pop albums from mostly current bands.
 
Apple continues to have a rough time of it. The company announced Friday it is recalling the little power adapters that shipped with the iPhone 3G because of the risk of shock in a percentage of the adapters sold. Apple will replace it for free – click here for more info. Meanwhile reports are circulating that the new iTunes 8 release is causing some Windows computers to crash. (A Cynopsis reader alerted us to this yesterday.) Apple says it has fixed the problem with a subsequent release, asking users who downloaded the initial iTunes 8 to uninstall then re-download the app and try again. (Of course the cynics out there are saying it’s all a plot to make Windows look bad!)
 

In what could be the beginning of a wave of consolidation in the online video space technology firms Anystream and Voxant agreed to join forces. Dulles, VA-based Anystream provides software handling encoding and video management for publishers including NBC, CNN and HBO. Herdon, VA-based Voxant is an online video syndicator that distributes content across a network of more than 30,000 sites. Combining the two companies creates a one-stop shop providing programmers with a soup-to-nuts solution for internet TV services. 
 
With the Yahoo deal dead in the water Microsoft has found something to do with some of their horde of excess cash. The company’s board authorized a share repurchase program; the plan is to spend $40 billion over the next 5 years to buy back its own shares. The company also declared a higher quarterly dividend of 13 cents/share.

 
Cable TV consortium Canoe Ventures will roll out new interactive advertising technology next year enabling cable sponsors to customize local spots based on individual market demographics, reports AdAge. Write once, play on any cable system ads will also be developed that offer “telescopic” options enabling the viewer to click on a button to obtain additional product information. 
 
Online video advertising platform Adap.tv has secured $13M in Series B venture funding led by Spark Capital with contributions from previous investors Redpoint Venture and Gemini Israel Fund. As part of the investment, Spark Capital General Partner Dennis Miller will join the Adap.tv board of directors. Adap.tv says it will use the financing to accelerate the development of its OneSource offering, currently utilized by video publishers such as MetaCafe, blip.tv and DemandMedia.
 
Forbes.com became the first business/financial news site to be accredited by the Media Rating Council for compliance with the display ad measurement guidelines constructed by the IAB to set standards for counting impressions and measuring online traffic. To date 27 publishers have been accredited by the MRC for display ad compliance and a dozen more have met digital video standards.

Of the 616 scripted series regular characters announced to appear on the five broadcast networks this season, male characters will continue to outweigh female characters 57% (354) to 43% (262), according to a diversity study of the 2008-09 primetime season released yesterday by the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD). About 79% (485) of all series regular characters are white, up 2% from last year. Latino/a representation remains at 6% (34) while black representation has dropped from 12% to 11% (67). Analysts counted 19 Asian-Pacific Islander characters (3%) – one more than last season.
 

 
MTV promoted Joshua Dern from VP/Social Media Strategy to SVP & GM of Social Media, reporting to Kenny Miller, EVP and Creative Director of Global Digital Media, MTVN. Joshua will oversee newly acquired Social Media, based in Santa Monica, and continue to oversee Flux.
 
Curtis G. Viebranz, former CEO of TACODA, Inc. and President of AOL’s Platform-A, has been named to the Board of Directors of semantic online advertising firm Peer39.
 
Glam Media upped Scott Schiller to EVP/Global Marketing as part of the company’s strategic reorganization. In this newly created position, Scott will have responsibility for the Glam Media brand worldwide and will report directly to CEO Samir Arora.
 
NBA Digital named John Cook as Coordinating Producer and Mike Miller as Coordinating Director for NBA TV, both reporting to Bryan Perez, SVP and GM for NBA Digital. John will oversee all NBA TV productions, production staff and talent, and will assist in the development of the 24-hour network and its programming. Mike will be in charge of daily scheduling of directors and will coordinate logistics for NBA TV operations. Turner Sports recently struck a deal to operate the NBA Digital portfolio, which includes NBA TV, NBA.com, NBA League Pass, NBADLeague.com and WNBA.com. 
 
Former Ripe TV sales director Vincent Lambino has joined Heavy as Director of Sales, based out of Heavy’s New York office. Also, Linda Gielniak has been promoted to National Automotive Director. Linda is based out of Heavy’s Detroit office.
 
Gorilla Nation announced several new hires in its Toronto office. Carrie McKenna and Grant le Riche will join the company as Account Executives. Also joining Gorilla Nation’s Toronto office are three new online Media planners: Chris Lombardi as Sr. Media Planner; Aisha Garcia-Curry as Media Planner; and Michael Nerona as Associate Media Planner.
 
Global News Enterprises hired James Bandera to lead the venture’s sales efforts as VP/Director of Sales. James formerly served as Advertising Director for Boston Magazine.
 
Mindset Media expanded its sales team with four new hires: Stephanie Wang joins as Manager, Business Development; Liz Gruszkievicz takes the role of Senior Account Executive, Midwestern Region; Nicole Dugan was hired as Senior Account Executive, Western Region; and Chana Stern joins as Senior Account Executive.
 

 
We had a chance to check out Backchannel last night, one of latest products to come out of the MTV Flux social networking engine. It’s a very compelling little application aimed at the easily bored that combines the appeals of microblogging with Mystery Science Theater 3000. Users log on during the weekly telecasts of MTV’s The Hills to kibbitz about the show. As room members click on the best twitter-length one liners, the authors of those comments accumulate points. The Hills (as would a number of MTV reality shows, come to think of it) provides a perfect backdrop for this kind of snarky commentary. It is fascinating to watch fans use web language as fluently as if it were their mother tongue. Expect to see more of these kinds of integrations to increase loyalty and stickiness. The flux platform feeds addiction to such games by making points and street cred earned in one environment transferrable to another. 

Later — Wayne
 Wayne Karrfalt for Cynopsis: Digital
09.23.08

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JOB OPENING: AE/Fuse/NY: Sell dig media & multi-platform. Incr exst’ing clnts, gen new biz rev. Prsnt new prgmng, brand pos, mktg opps. Excl. interpers’l/org skills/MS Excel & PP. Send Rez to: [email protected] “AENY” in sub (9/30)

JOB OPENING: ACCT SERVICE REP/The CW Network/Chicago: 2+ yrs nat’l media exp a +. Provide support for Dir of Mid West Sales; Maint. accts, mng commercial inv. Exc verbal, orgnzt’l & time mngmnt skills [email protected] (9/30)

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JOB OPENING: DIRECTOR PROGRAM RESEARCH/MTV/NY: 5+ yrs Nat’l TV Research/ratings. Strong leadership sk; detail-oriented, proactive; analytical sk. Expert w/Nielsen, MRI, etc. EOE/M/F/D/AAP. Apply www.mtvncareers.com (9/30)

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JOB OPENING: PRODUCTION ACCOUNTANT/Little Airplane Productions/NYC: Oversee all aspects of finance and payroll on several broadcast productions. Must have knowledge of Vista software: [email protected] (9/26)

JOB OPENING: EDITORIAL DIR/Bravo Digital/NBCU/NY: Lead execution of editorial aspects of BravoTV.com, develop content concepts, supervise writing & editing of copy. BA & 5 yrs editorial exp. www.nbcjobs.com , job# 847495 (9/26)

JOB OPENING: VP/DIRECTOR FP& A/MTVN/Harmonix: Responsible for the FP&A, reporting and analysis for MTV’s Harmonix division. Apply: www.mtvncareers.com EOE (9/26)

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JOB OPENING: VP LAW/ RAINBOW MEDIA/NY: Negotiate agreements between networks (e.g. AMC, IFC) and affiliates  e.g. Cable/Mobile Cos. Needs JD and exp. with affiliate agreements. Resume: [email protected] (9/25)

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FALL INTERNSHIP CREDITS ONLY: INTERNS: Bright & passionate. Neal Stevens/Stevens & Assoc., prod 5 features films in past 6 yrs. Learn ropes from A-Z. Script coverage, dvlpmnt, possible assoc of credit for movies & much more.Email: [email protected] (9/30)

FALL INTERNSHIP CREDITS ONLY:PROG. PLANNING & SCHED./Oxygen/NYC: seeks students w/ great clerical & time mgmt skills to provide admin./project support to dept. Must be familiar with Excel. Resume/Cover/Avail. to: [email protected] (9/30)

FALL INTERNSHIP CREDITS ONLY: High Noon Entertainment/LA: Major TV prod. co. seeks enthusiastic students w/ passion for reality TV development. Semester-long, unpaid, for credit internship. Send resume to [email protected] (9/30)

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FALL INTERNSHIP CREDITS ONLY: TV RESEARCH INTERN /LA/MGM TV: Work in Research dept. Opp to learn about domestic & Int’l TV distrib. Strong Comm skills, comfort with Microsoft Office tools req. Approx 12 hrs/wk. Res/cover to: [email protected]  (9/27)

FALL INTERNSHIP CREDITS ONLY: AD SALES INTERN /Oxygen/NBCU:Assists ad sales dept w/researching prospective clients&sending out client materials.Great opportunity! Semester-long, unpaid, must receive credit.post [email protected] (9/26)

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SITUATION WANTED:  EXEC. IN CHARGE OF PROD: Premium Cable & Ntwrk exp, Mult Emmy’s, Exec Prod, Exec in Charge, Coord Prod, Line Prod, Prod/Dir seeking sports, ent, event prod opportunities, LA/NY. E-mail: [email protected]  (9/27)

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