A CYNOPSIS MESSAGE FROM WE tv

Cynopsis: DIGITAL

02/18/09

Good morning, it’s Wednesday, February 18, 2009, and this is your first early morning digital briefing. 

Sirius XM Radio reached an 11th hour investment agreement with John Malone’s Liberty Media Corp. to stave off bankruptcy on Tuesday – the day Sirius was due to pay back investor Charlie Ergen $175 million in notes the company did not have. The deal calls for two phases of investment totaling $530 million in loans from Liberty Media, which will get preferred stock equal to 40% of Sirius’s common equity in exchange. EchoStar Chairman Ergen began buying up Sirius debt last fall in a play to possibly take control of the company.
 

 
The NAB and SoundExchange announced a comprehensive agreement regarding internet streaming rates for local radio stations that simulcast programming over the internet or that create new stand-alone online stations. The agreement details much-needed discounts on previously-set rates for 2009 and 2010 and establishes new rates through 2015 that give more flexibility to stations for online plays. Under the agreement, rates for simulcasts or web channels operated by local radio stations are reduced in 2009 and 2010 by approximately 16% then gradually increase through 2015 – from $0.0015 per streamed sound recording in 2009 to $0.0025 per stream by 2015. 
 
In another apparent coup for Microsoft’s Silverlight platform, CBS Interactive is adding an “HD quality” player for its comprehensive ad supported streaming of 2009 NCAA March Madness on Demand on CBSSports.com next month. Microsoft’s traditional Windows Media player will continue to serve the standard 550 kb/second feed while Silverlight will power enhanced video of up to 1.5 MB/second. CBS reported a 164% year-over-year growth in total unique visitors to NCAA March Madness on Demand in 2008 with 4.8 million total unique visitors and 81% year-over-year growth in total hours of live video and audio consumed.
 
Encouraged by the steady uptick of mobile usage in the U.S. and abroad MySpace unveiled a new mobile website (m.myspace.com/wap.myspace.com) at the Mobile World Conference developed to take advantage of the social functionality of today’s smartphones. The portal is built to allow users to view and add to their profiles from all the popular smartphone platforms including the iPhone, Google Android, Sidekick, Nokia, BlackBerry and the upcoming Palm Pre.
 
Yahoo is also beta testing a new Yahoo Mobile site, adding an app for the iPhone expected to go live in March, and introducing applets optimized for Nokia, RIM, Samsung, Sony Ericsson, Motorola, and Windows Mobile-powered devices. Yahoo’s new applications and portal can access search and present news feeds, contacts and social-networking content in a format tailored for visual smartphone displays. The new Yahoo Mobile replaces the antiquated Yahoo Go application.
 
AMC and Sony are making three digital assets available online for the AMC original series Breaking Bad prior to the season 2 premiere on March 8 at 10p ET. Available now on amctv.com and Crackle are five original webisodes created by executive producer Vince Gilligan starring the Breaking Bad cast; a customizable first-person video featuring Bryan Cranston hosted at Waltswarning.com; and bite-sized episodes summarizing all of season one available on Sony’s Minisode Network via Crackle, AOL, Hulu, Sling, TV.com, etc.
 
Olympics-themed multiplatform broadcaster Universal Sports announced it has dramatically expanded distribution from under 1 million at start of June to 45 million homes. The network is now available in 8 of the top 10 DMAs via cable and carriage on NBC O&O and affiliate multicast channels.

 
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg attempted to reassure users about some recent changes the company made to its Terms of Use agreement on Monday after a Consumers Union blog entry called foul. The new terms deleted a former provision which stated that Facebook’s license over user-submitted content expired after it was removed from the site – meaning that Facebook is now reserving rights to UGC in perpetuity. Rather than promising to revise the language, Mr. Zuckerberg says the community is just going have trust him. “In reality, we wouldn’t share your information in a way you wouldn’t want,” he writes. “The trust you place in us as a safe place to share information is the most important part of what makes Facebook work.”

Dailymotion launched DM Kids as a stand-alone video web portal for kids and tweens offering a range of videos including animation, TV shows, music videos and original web series.  DM Kids, broken down into two age specific areas – one for preschoolers K3-6 and the other for kids/tweens 7-12 – includes entertainment and educational content from Nickelodeon, Warner Bros., Universal Music, Hulu, On Networks and Next New Networks at launch. The first original web series to be featured on DM Kids is Ghost Town from Sunny Boy Entertainment, which revolves around two teen ghost hunters that track down legendary ghosts.
 
Online movie streaming site Jaman reached an agreement to add the library of arthouse films from John Sloss’ Cinetic Rights Management to its offering, including such titles as Rob Epstein’s documentary The Times of Harvey Milk and Whit Stillman’s Metropolitan.
 

 
Interactive TV company Ensequence was awarded a U.S. patent for its configurable template interface that allows advertisers, programmers and distributors to create actionable overlays to TV programming. The company expects the patent to enable it to scale the technology to help bring iTV advertising and programming apps to a critical mass of homes.  
 
Online video advertising service Jivox unveiled a new metric to help advertisers gauge the effectiveness of their online video ads. The Jivox “Video Engagement Score”, introduced as part of the Jivox 4.0 product release, measures viewer interactions with an online video ad and assigns a value to the ad relative to the performance of all the ads in the Jivox Publisher Network.
 

A CYNOPSIS MESSAGE FROM HOROWITZ ASSOCIATES

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In the landmark trail against Sweden’s The Pirate Bay prosecutors were forced to drop half of the charges against the site just two days into the proceedings. Prosecutors acknowledged that the site didn’t actually copy the files being uploaded by users and thus should no longer face charges of producing copyrighted material unlawfully. Both sides claimed victory of course – the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) issued a statement explaining that scaling back the charges will only simplify the case for the prosecution.
 
Internet telephony company Skype secured a landmark deal with mobile handset maker Nokia to preload Skype software onto some of its new smartphones, beginning in Q3 of this year with Nokia’s upcoming N-97. Skype allows its 300 million users to make long-distance calls over the web to land lines or cell phones for pennies or to place calls to other Skype users for free. The eBay acquisition has just recently begun trying to piggy back on mobile devices, also signing a deal with Hutchinson Whampoa’s 3 service.
 
Here we go again; Tivo and EchoStar returned to court in Texas yesterday in a legal dispute over intellectual property rights of DVR patents, per Reuters. The court initially ruled in Tivo’s favor in 2006, ordering EchoStar to pay $104 million in damages (later upheld in various appeals,) but the company continued to sell DVRs and collect fees after replacing the recording software with a slightly modified version.
 
The NAB announced more than 70 new tech-oriented exhibitors at this year’s NAB Show including Electronic Arts, Phillips 3D Solutions and 3ality Digital as well a number of new digitally-themed attractions. For instance, the show floor will include dedicated pavilions this year (April 18-23) to showcase 3D broadcasting technologies, mobile broadcasting and content commerce applications.
 

 
Consumers are confident in the uptake of mobile TV and video during the next two years according to an independent UK study commissioned by mobile solutions provider QuickPlay Media. But a number of barriers still prevent wide-scale adoption:

• Almost half (46%) of the respondents were not aware if their mobile operator offered mobile TV or video services and 50% were discouraged by perceived costs
• 55% of customers on monthly price plans subscribed to voice and text services only, limiting access to mobile TV and video
• 78% of respondents reported they do not currently own a multimedia-enabled PDA/smartphone

 
Viewing of professionally-produced content online gained 24.3% in 2008 to 41.6 billion views, led by the streaming of prime-time shows as well as kids’ fare, according to AccuStream iMedia Research. For instance the entertainment/kids category has grown from 10% in 2001, to 30.4% in 2008. Thanks to trends such as these content category share shifts, growth of broadband accesses, more advanced syndication and branded channel offerings and improved search and indexing apps, professional online video consumption is forecast to maintain double-digit increases through 2012.
 

 
Symantec launched Norton Online Family in a free public beta, a new, web-based internet safety service designed to give parents tools to monitor their kids’ online lives by fostering communication. Rather than operate in “stealth mode,” the system’s search monitoring and reporting service facilitates feedback from and communication with the kids whose activity it is trying to monitor. The service, developed with input from a prominent council of expert advisors, is available for trial on both Macs and PCs.
 
This sounds interesting but having to buy a separate shell could be a tough sell. Canada’s kids’ broadcaster Family Channel and the Sheridan Visualization Design Institute unveiled Carnival Craze, a mini 3D game that can be played on the iPhone without glasses. It requires the 3DeeShell from Spatial View, a protective iPhone case equipped with a special 3D viewing lens. The shell is scheduled to ship in early Spring 2009.
 

 
The Sundance Film Festival has lost its chief indie film programmer and gatekeeper. Geoffrey Gilmore has joined Tribeca Enterprises as its Chief Creative Officer after 19 years at Sundance. He will be responsible for Tribeca’s global content strategy and lead creative development initiatives. Geoffrey will also join the Board of Directors of Tribeca Enterprises.
 
Cross-platform production and management company Generate added two new team members. HBO veteran Chris Gwiazda joins as CFO and former Cartoon Network and Lionsgate Television executive Tim Stephen comes aboard as EVP/Business Affairs. In addition, Generate also named founding partner Pete Aronson as President of Generate Studios, overseeing the development and production of franchise entertainment properties across film, television and digital platforms. Emmy-winning producer Michael Petok will Head up Production for all Generate projects.
 

 
After President Obama signed the massive $789 billion stimulus package into law, the White House has followed through with its promise to promote transparency and include voters in the spending process. Joining a bunch of independent efforts to monitor spending the officially sanctioned Recovery.gov is designed to track authorized expenditure from multiple agencies on transportation infrastructure, broadband deployment, science, education and targeted tax relief. “Instead of politicians doling out money behind closed doors,” the President explains in a video address, “the important decisions about where taxpayer dollars are invested will be yours to scrutinize.” It strikes us that in order for the site to fulfill its mission, its content must widely disseminated. The site’s FAQs promise data will eventually be available in an exportable format such as XML, conceivably enabling third-party developers to produce their own “mashups and gadgets.” (Not to gush here, but how cool is it to see an administration concern itself with mashups?) As funds have yet to be allocated, there’s not much to peruse here yet. But the site is already accepting user-generated content via a “Share Your Story” page.

Later — Wayne
 Wayne Karrfalt for Cynopsis: Digital
02.18.09

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