Archive for April 17th, 2007
According to a press release from the NAB, the initial headcount shows attendance at the 2007 convention was up over 2006, and there were a record number of international attendees. There was, however, a decline in the number of news media attendees. By the numbers: Overall attendees - 2007: 108,232 (2006: 105,046); International attendees - 2007: 26,824 (2006 - 25,537); News media attendees - 2007: 1,214 (2006: 1,294). These are preliminary numbers based upon pre-show and on-site registration numbers, and the NAB will release the final tally after the show.
April 17th, 2007
David Eun, who heads up content partnerships for Google, took the stage at NAB to show off some of YouTube’s successes. The room was packed — standing room only — as he ran through YouTube’s feature set. Sure, he’s talking about broadcasting’s nemesis, but Eun gave some great advice. “It’s not about holding people hostage on your website,” he said. Web 2.0 is about sharing, openness and ubiquity. “YouTube is more than a destination.” He showed a long tail graph. “It’s not a question of whether I find particular content appealing, the question is will someone else?” And he adds, “Just as there’s a long tail of content, there’s a long tail of advertisers.” (A great point that many broadcasters still don’t understand.) He said that YouTube is focused on two customer touch points — video search and upload — and user experience is key to their success. As for traffic, “YouTube is well over, WELL OVER, 100 million clips a day,” he said. “This is the first time that media has become truly democratic.” All through Eun’s presentation, as you might expect, he reached out to content providers. “We want content providers to have control,” he said. “We see the glass half full.” As Eun’s boss, Eric Schmidt, said yesterday, YouTube’s “Claim Your Content” technology is slated to launch “very soon” that would automatically block unapproved copyrighted content from appearing.
April 17th, 2007
AP rolled out a new release of its Online Video Network (OVN) here at NAB that now allows local affiliates to upload their own video. “Affiliates can now add their own content, maintaining full editorial control and more than twice the current advertising revenue share” said Robert Aitken, Product Manager, AP Broadcast. “We’re also very excited because the potential of having 1,600 affiliates contributing local news content positions us very well for syndication, another new feature which is part of our product expansion plan for this summer.” OVN averages 200 million views a month. Full release follows below…
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AOL jumped the TV upfront gun to announce a number of high profile convergence/crossover content deals with the likes of Dreamworks, Survivor producer Mark Burnett, and Ellen Degeneres as it continues moving the focus from the ISP business to free broadband content destination. “This is really AOL’s coming out party as an advertising-supported broadband online service,” said AOL Chief Executive Randy Falco. Time Warners shares have been improving since AOL’s strategy shift. Fourth-quarter ad sales rose 49 percent to nearly $2 billion. AOL claims it reaches about 89 percent of web users.
April 17th, 2007
This story in the WSJ is the fodder of many conversations here at NAB. Some senior execs inside Time Warner “wonder whether the company wouldn’t be better off if it were to get out of cable and double down on the web — where it already owns AOL — by buying another major internet company.” While getting completely out of cable is a long shot, the idea of beefing up on the web is certainly a good idea, if you ask me. (Paid sub. req.)
April 17th, 2007
Thank you all who came to the Lost Remote panel at RTNDA@NAB. I counted about 115 people in the audience. Back a few years ago when we started this deal, we had about 25 people attend. It grows every year, and so does the passion for convergence in media. We had terrific questions and people who challenged us. And, Cory was relieved to notice, I didn’t start any fights. On behalf of Cory and Stephen - Thanks, LR Faithful.
Update from Cory: And thanks to everyone who attended our meetup tonight. It was great to see all of you. Remember, keep the faith!
April 17th, 2007
On Monday with the Virginia Tech shooting, MSNBC.com says it set a new all-time record with 15.3 million unique users in a single day, a 37-percent increase over its previous record high with Katrina. The site also logged 10 million video streams — another site record. MSNBC.com says it surpassed CNN.com in streams served for the day.
Also, MSNBC.com launched a blog dedicated to covering the shooting, On The Scene. Four MSNBC.com staffers are on the ground in Blacksburg covering the story.
April 17th, 2007
The moment you start talking about VJs, you’re bound to hear some people in the audience attack. It’s expected. There’s a threat to an old model here, and those who have made their career from that model now have a bag of questions and statements to put down the new tech. That’s what happened at the panel called “The New VJs: One-Man Bands or The Future of Newsgathering?” As soon as the floor was opened for questions, the attack of the reporters came: “VJ stories suck! The lighting sucks! They’re a joke! They can’t report!” Someone jumped up and yelled “Show us examples! Why won’t you show us examples.” So they did. And the audience liked the examples.
Read the full post April 17th, 2007
Mike Sechrist, GM of WKRN in Nashville, revealed some interesting stats here at NAB-RTNDA on his station’s success with launching 23 blogs on their own domains. “Our traffic has grown phenomenally. 60 percent of our traffic is WKRN and 40 percent is the blogs,” he said. NashvilleisTalking — which aggregates content from 435 local blogs — averages 5,000 unique visitors a day (yesterday the number hit 9,000 due to the Virginia shooting). And what about revenue? “We’re making more money this year than we’ve ever made,” Sechrist said. “And it’s from the pre-rolls on the videos.” He said WKRN is averaging 600,000 videos played a month, and much of that success is due to video’s exposure on the blogs (although he admits a reluctance to push too many ads to the blogs themselves.) But beyond money, Sechrist says “a lot of (our users) are never going to watch us on TV, but they’ll come to us on the web when something big happens. We have a relationship now.”
April 17th, 2007
Arguably the most compelling clip of video so far in the Virginia Tech shootings was captured by Jamal Albarghouti, a student who held up his Nokia cell phone while he was crouched on the ground to capture the sounds of 27 gunshots. He sent the clip to CNN.com’s I-Report, and within minutes CNN contacted him to lock in an exclusive contract. By evening, the video has been viewed 1.8 million times on CNN.com and countless times on the air. All in all, I-Report received submissions — nearly all of them photos — from 100 people, many of them students. So how did Albarghouti know to send it to CNN.com? He frequently visits CNN.com and knew about its I-Report feature.
April 17th, 2007
We have a busy day ahead of us. I’m attending two very promising sessions — one on citizen media and another on online video — before our Lost Remote panel at 2 p.m. Then we’ll hold our Lost Remote meetup from 4-6 p.m. at the small bar in the walkway between the RTNDA sessions and the Hilton casino floor. Blogging will be in bursts, depending on WiFi availability and the spotty internet access.
April 17th, 2007
Microsoft has teamed up with the New York Television Festival to give aspiring television producers the chance to win an opportunity to produce the first original programming for Xbox Live. The winner will get a 6 episode commitment and a $100,000 budget. Xbox LIVE already has 1,500 hours of movies and television shows, but this will be the first addition of user-generated content to the online network.
April 17th, 2007
