Archive for March, 2007
NBC’s owned-and-operated stations division has shown interest in becoming a distribution partner for the new NBCU-News Corp. video site, a NBCU exec tells Lost Remote. As we’ve reported below, NBC and Fox affiliates currently aren’t partners in the new joint venture, but the exec said “there’s no reason why any of the affiliates can’t be distribution partners,” which would involve a revenue share of the advertising. “We want to talk to them.” So what’s this mean for NBBC? It’s a separate service that’s more of a business-to-business syndication play, and part of its technology is being licensed to create the new site. “We continue to be committed to it,” the exec said. As for the new venture, they’re may be expanded affiliate opportunities down the road. “If this model works, it would be natural to extend it to news and other local content and to give our affiliates an incredible distribution mechanism outside their markets.”
Also, the exec offered a few more details on the user-generated content component of the new venture. They expect the video uploaded by users will be mostly related to the premium content on the site — fake episodes, mockumentaries, fan clips, etc. If someone watches a spoof on a show, the theory is the user will be more inclined to watch the show itself and vice-versa. Advertisers can buy pre-roll ads on the user clips, but at a lower CPM than the premium clips. (Full disclosure: I work for KING TV, which is an NBC affiliate, but not an owned-and-operated station.)
March 22nd, 2007
I haven’t had a chance to plug it in yet, but CNET has put it through its paces, and you can watch a video demo. “Apple TV gets big points for ease of setup, its superslick on-screen interface, and its impressive features — specifically, supporting up to 720p HD video output and superfast 802.11n wireless networking,” writes CNET’s John Falcone. The downsides are the fact it only works inside the iTunes world, only connects to TVs with component or HDMI ports, and the hard drive is just 40GB. “At this early stage, the fact that Apple TV brings iPod-like convenience and ease of use to the network-streaming media market is really its trump card,” Falcone concludes.
March 22nd, 2007
MoveOn and Brave New Films are suing Viacom for issuing a takedown order to YouTube to remove a parody of The Colbert Report. The video contained clips of the actual show, but Moveon and Brave New Films argued that it’s covered under fair use provisions. “People just shoot off a takedown notice without really giving a second thought to the material being taken down and whether it’s really proper to be taken down,” said Corynne McSherry, a staff attorney with the EFF, who helped file the lawsuit. “A lot of people cave in because they don’t realize they can push back or they can’t afford to push back.” The lawsuit seeks unspecified legal costs and damages.
March 22nd, 2007
News Corp. President and COO Peter Chernin revealed on the call announcing the new NBCU-News Corp. video venture that they are in discussions with Google about distribution. “(We) had a conversation with (Google CEO) Eric Schmidt this morning and they are considering this,” said Chernin. “This is obviously not a YouTube killer…. we’re trying to be as open as possible with distribution.” Chernin also said they’re in conversations with more content companies about joining the new venture. What about affiliates? “Potentially they could be distribution partners,” NBCU CEO Jeff Zucker said. “We’ll be looking at that in coming days.” But currently, no profit sharing for affiliates. “It’s a real positive for the traditional businesses,” Chernin said, pointing out NBCU’s success with The Office in increasing on-air ratings from increased online distribution. “We do not believe this cannibalizes in any way traditional distribution,” Zucker added. Both also said they believe the new venture is a different experience than their current core sites, NBC.com and Fox.com, due in large part from value in aggregation. (The core sites will still stream the same content, and all sites will still stream shows after they air on the networks.) Most of the shows will be available for free, but they do plan to charge for some content. On the advertising front, Chernin has this quote: “On launch, we believe this will be the largest advertising platform on earth.” Zucker said five charter advertisers signed on within four hours, and two more after the announcement this morning. The ad revenue will be split between the venture, copyright holders and the distribution partners. And despite the focus on premium content, Zucker said users will be able to upload video as well.
The best question on the press call came from Bill Briggs of MSNBC.com. “Hi boss,” he said to laughs on the call, and then he asked what NBC and News Corp. plan to do with YouTube before launching the new venture. Zucker said NBCU is continuing discussions with Google-YouTube to ensure pirated content does not exist there. “We look forward to coming to a resolution before this launches.” Stay tuned…
March 22nd, 2007
After months of negotiation, today NBCU and News Corp. announced they’ve reached a deal to create a video site with thousands of hours of clips and “unprecedented reach.” MySpace, Yahoo, MSN and AOL have signed on as distribution partners, and each site will carry embedded video players customized to their look. “This is a game changer for Internet video,” said Peter Chernin, President and COO of News Corporation. “We’ll have access to just about the entire U.S. Internet audience at launch. And for the first time, consumers will get what they want — professionally produced video delivered on the sites where they live.” Content will include free, full-length, ad-supported TV shows and movies with personalized playlists and mashups. Charter advertisers include Cadbury Schweppes, Cisco, Esurance, Intel Corporation and General Motors. No name has been announced for the new site as of yet, but NBCU and News Corp. say they’re committing significant resources to promote its summer launch. The site was born out of frustration that YouTube and other video sites were stealing the spotlight as well as revenue. Initially, Viacom was part of the conversations, but it pulled out. This is a very aggressive play by NBCU and News Corp., and its wide distribution should tap into new audiences that don’t normally watch their content on NBC.com or Fox.com.
Read the full post March 22nd, 2007
There are a few more details on ABC’s plans to try to seamlessly integrate commercials into programming to help counter DVR-skipping. In one example that ABC is considering, viewers watching According to Jim would see a commercial playing in a TV in the living room of the set. Then the commercial would pop full-screen. The same idea would be applied to computer screens, cell phones and even magazines integrated into various ABC shows. Because you love pop ups on the web.
Adds Rocker in comments: “It’s not a totally bad concept but I suspect that the truly organic opportunities to do it without being too intrusive/offensive will be quite limited. It’s going to be hard for them to resist the temptation to start forcing it more to ‘expand the inventory,’ which will not only make it a bad advertising idea, it also has the potential to negatively impact the viewing experience… and probably creative processes… of the shows themselves.”
March 22nd, 2007
When it comes to web ads, the “play” button is a great call to action. ClickZ has the results of a new DoubleClick report that demonstrates how much more effective video ads are compared to their display counterparts. There is a lot of good information in the article. Some of the highlights: Clickthrough rates for videos range from 0.4% to 0.74%, compared to the 0.1% - 0.2% for static ads; viewers stick with the ads for two-thirds of their duration - so get your message in early; and the size of the video ad didn’t seem to play much of a role in its effectiveness. The sample for this study: 2.7 billion ad impressions.
March 22nd, 2007
The following is the text of a letter my daughter has handwritten to Fox. She is “very annoyed” (her words) that the network is running the fairly gruesome “Bones” at 8 p.m. and not the American Idol results show, which is on at 9. (Idol is on at 8 on Tuesdays.) LR Daughter is sending her letter to Fox, and has given me permission to reprint it here. Read her first Lost Remote column, after the jump…
Read the full post March 21st, 2007
It’s not very often an ad buy gives more time back to news. From B&C:
Beginning Monday April 2, ABC’s World News With Charles Gibson will air a month-long weekly series with a single commercial sponsors. The series, “Key to the World,” will be reported by Good Morning America weekend host Bill Weir from locations around the world including the island nation of Kiribati and Zamibia. The sponsorships will add approximately five minutes of editorial content to the broadcast thanks to reduced commercial interruptions.
March 21st, 2007
Yahoo CEO Terry Semel said he has plans to expand user-created video sharing throughout the site. The details are a little unclear since Yahoo already has Video.Yahoo.com and You Witness News, but Semel offers a little insight:
“I don’t see the future of user-generated content as just clips. There are opportunities to do other things than a version of America’s Funniest Home Videos. I also see user-generated content becoming more targeted. It will definitely get better in terms of tapping people’s creativity.
People keep pitching online video as if they were pitching TV shows. That’s really what they were thinking: TV, not online, not interactive. This is not TV and you can’t think that way. It has to fit and use all the capabilities of the medium.”
Semel nearly quoted the Lost Remote mantra, “the web is not TV.”
March 21st, 2007
Columbus, OH
Read the full post March 21st, 2007
Tennessee
Read the full post March 21st, 2007
Evanston, IL
Read the full post March 21st, 2007
Videoblogger Amanda Congdon has done an intriguing videoblogging ad deal with Dupont to promote its bullet-proof Kevlar material with “Dupont Science Stories.” The clips are produced with a mini-documentary style and run about two-minutes in length (see below). Selected blogs are paid to host the clips — just like ads — which are distributed by Brightcove and Federated Media. Other blogs can post the clips if they like, like we’ve done below, but we don’t get paid. The clips are cross-posted on YouTube and hosted on a Dupont microsite, stories.dupont.com. All in all, this is a very innovative way for Dupont to use the viral nature of video to achieve broad distribution with a new audience. Smart, and I bet there’s a new ad model emerging here. Meanwhile, some folks have brought up the potential conflict of interest issue here, since Amanda hosts a videoblog for ABCNews.com. But hey, is she really a journalist? “ABC and HBO both approved the DuPont spots,” Amanda explains. “And under the ‘blogger’ title, which is what I am, hello? I am not subject to the ‘rules’ traditional journalists have to follow.”
March 21st, 2007
Google’s search engine continues to grow in share in the U.S. Comscore stats:
| |
February |
January |
| Google |
48.1% |
47.5 |
| Yahoo |
28.1 |
28.1 |
| MSN |
10.5 |
10.6 |
| Ask |
5.0 |
5.2 |
| AOL |
4.9 |
5.0 |
| |
|
|
Adds RG in comments: “Bit of a misleading article. Year-over-year yes, but month-over-month you’d have to say it’s flat. Comscore and Nielsen simply are not precise enough – the margins of error too high.”
March 21st, 2007
PaidContent reports that NBCU and News Corp. may firm up an online video partnership as early as this week, but there’s still the possibility that it all falls apart in negotiations. As we’ve reported, both companies (and Viacom, earlier) are discussing a joint venture to create a YouTube alternative of sorts. They’re talking to potential distribution partners — such as Yahoo and MSN — but nothing is set in stone. Stay tuned…
March 21st, 2007
In the last year alone, due to iTunes and other digital music stores, reports the WSJ. “Sales are so down and so off that, as a manager, I look at a CD as part of the marketing of an artist, more than as an income stream,” says Jeff Rabhan, who manages several artists. “It’s the vehicle that drives the tour, the merchandise, building the brand, and that’s it. There’s no money.” Here’s an easy Lost Remote prediction: the same will happen to DVDs in the next 2-3 years (although you could argue that high-definition video may delay the inevitable a bit longer. But not by much.)
Adds Michael in comments: “Personally, I think years of overpriced CDs are driving this as much as anything else. Is it me, or do DVD prices go down much faster much quicker? It’s nothing for me to see a 2-year-old movie for under $7 at Target. No such luck with CDs. Considering the DVD starting price is usually higher ($12, $14, $18), that seems odd. Maybe it’s just me.”
March 20th, 2007
With Nielsen moving toward commercial ratings, broadcasting and cable networks are working on ways to try to get DVR-enabled TV viewers to watch the ads. Viacom’s VH1 has “showstoppers.” The CW has “content wraps.” And now ABC is working on several ideas to hold viewers through commercial pods.
March 20th, 2007
What happens when a prominent law professor posts a clip of the NFL’s copyright message (”this telecast is sponsored by the NFL for the private use of our audience”) from the Super Bowl on YouTube? As a lesson in fair use for her students? Well, as Fark would say, hilarity ensues. (Thanks for the tip, Allen!)
March 20th, 2007
Google is now offering advertisers the option to pay only when someone takes action after clicking through an AdWords link. Google launched Pay-Per-Action keywords in Beta on Tuesday. The concept: Pay-Per-Click advertising has led to an unacceptable amount of click fraud. Pay-Per-Click would help ensure advertisers they are only paying for people who buy their products, sign up for their newsletters, or take some other action upon visting their site.
Adds Joe in comments: “…the hell with click fraud, I want to see Google taking care of advertiser fraud. Heck, I see a few scam sites in the Google ads on this very page. These things have become total junk mail.”
The man’s right. The permalink page with our story has Google ads that have keyworded “Click Fraud” and have AdSense ads for sites that offer, shall we say, seemingly shady deals. Good point.
March 20th, 2007
An excellent essay over at Consumerist by Jerrett, one of the site’s readers: “How I Became A Music Pirate.” It’s the harrowing tale of how DRM can actually drive honest people with the best of intentions to a life of piracy. The poor writer chooses a paid download over a free pirated copy, only to find out getting DRM-protected music to play nice with your given hardware configuration is enough to make you want to take a walk off the plank. Wonders Jerrett:
I mean, could you imagine the consumer response if Coke could only be consumed from specific Coke-approved equipment, and then only in the specific ways that the folks at Coke wanted the product to be consumed. “drinking Coke with fast food is no problem, but we must warn you that your license forbids the mixing of Coke with any alcoholic beverages…”
March 20th, 2007
Web 2.0 companies put up the strangest messages when they’re doing site maintenance. YouTube put this up a few months ago. And now Twitter has this one…
Read the full post March 20th, 2007
First CNN launched I-Report. Then MSNBC debuted First Person. And now FoxNews.com has UReport, an upload feature for citizen journalism photos and video. “You can now report for Fox News,” Shep Smith said on the air. “We’ve been working on this project for some time now.” The technology is powered by NeighborhoodAmerica.
March 20th, 2007
High school sports is red hot right now, and CBS has acquired one of the leaders in the field. MaxPreps will become part of CBS-owned College Sports Television (CSTV) and its network of websites. “The company is a terrific complement to CSTV’s local and regional assets. At the same time, its content will help make CBS’s local television stations and web sites the ‘go-to’ place for local sports content in communities across the country,” said Brian Bedol, President and CEO of CSTV Networks. MaxPreps.com has over a million high school athletes registered in its database. Press release with more details follows below, and thanks Cameron for the tip!
Read the full post March 20th, 2007
Next Entries
Previous Entries
