While you can watch streaming video via Silverlight on NBCOlympics.com, Microsoft Vista Media Center users can tap into a new service called “NBC Olympics On The Go” that lets you download and watch “up to HD quality” Olympic videos. “Once events have downloaded, they’ll be there to view anytime, anywhere — online or off,” explains the blog post on TVTonic, which powers the service. (Full disclosure: I work for msnbc.com, a joint venture of NBCU and Microsoft.)
CNN.com says it’s the top “gateway” to news with its home page generating 60 percent more unique visitors than those of its competitors in June, according to Nielsen/Netratings. CNN.com’s Political Ticker blog attracted more than 4 million unique visitors and 12.3 million page views in June, making it the number one political news blog, CNN.com says. On the video front, CNN.com served 108 million video streams, a 70 percent increase over last year, which includes nearly 4 million live streams served by CNN.com Live. The new user-generated content site iReport.com reached 4 million streams in June with more than 2.5 million unique users and 9.5 million views. Press release with more data below…
Starting August 11th, ESPN will dunk the SportsCenter repeats in the morning and start new live shows. The new news wheel will run from 9am to 3pm weekdays. An increased focus on interactivity is planned - with more use of ESPN.com and ESPN Radio assets. A new SportsCenter.com site will also launch on the 11th.
On this morning’s CBS earnings call, paidContent reports that CEO Les Moonves praised the purchase of CNET. Moonves then went on to say, “The stated goal is to reach $1 billion in revenue in the next three years, from the mid-$600 million this year.” Also mentioned in the call was the deal between AOL and CBS Radio to merge their radio streaming efforts. According to Moonves, the deal has doubled radio streams. Personally, my favorite new app on my iPod Touch is the CBS/AOL radio live streaming. (Disclaimer: I worked at CBS for four years.)
Google’s going to open a new venture capital unit to help seed smaller start-up companies, according to the Wall Street Journal.
The search engine giant is starting to reveal when search results are custom-tailored. A new “Search results customized for…” tag-line will start to appear on results, according to the NYT. This will give end-users a better idea of how the results are customized to them.
File this one under ironic: CEO Eric Schmidt says he’s worried about declining investigative journalism, something that’s been slumping along with the newspaper industry. AdAge has the video interview.
Borrell Associates’ latest report contains some valuable insight for local TV stations and newspapers on how the yellow pages companies are quickly figuring out how to transition online, especially in sales. As you can see in the graph, yellow pages have substantial local sales teams.
“Of all local media companies, yellow pages publishers have been the most successful in moving toward digital sales, averaging about 14 percent of their gross revenues from online sales this year. By contrast, the online contribution for most local newspaper, radio, cable and TV competitors is less than 5 percent of gross revenues,” reads the report. “Yellow pages publishers have spent the past three years transforming their massive on-the-ground sales forces into marketing consultants who can meet their customers’ demands both in print and online.”
So what’s working for them? First, they’re more accustomed to selling at a lower price point and to small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs). As you can imagine, commissions play a big role in this. (The age old question for newspapers and broadcasters is how to incentivize your sales team to sell a much less expensive product than print ads and TV spots. Usually, commissions are tied with minimum online sales goals which ensure continued employment at the company.) But the biggest advantage is yellow pages and local directories facilitate purchase decisions — they’re where you go to research something to buy. Newspapers used to fill this role, and TV sites have never filled this role. As a result, as a SMB, buying a “paid placement” type text ad associated with a user search makes much more sense than buying an aimless banner on a newspaper or TV site. It provides context, a word I’ve written about frequently here on Lost Remote. And for advertisers, better return for the money. Finally, another advantage for yellow pages and directories is they’re not afraid to forge reselling agreements with companies that traditionally may be considered their competitors — something that newspapers and TV stations are hesitant to do.
The takeaway for newspapers and local TV stations? Create innovative products that help people make better local purchase decisions. Build audiences around these products using your traditional promotional platforms. Leverage your sales relationships and feet on the street to sell them. Partner where you’re weak. And add self-serve advertising into the mix to help lower your cost of sales. Of course, the trick is identifying and executing on an “innovative product” that fills a unique local need.
The Wall Street Journal has a good story on the Borrell report, and PaidContent has a summary for those of you without a WSJ subscription.
It’s becoming a dirty little secret in the cubicles occupied by web producers and managers all over the country. Get a story on CNN.com and see your traffic explode.
The mega-news site is now linking to stories done by affiliates of its CNN Newsource service. CNN doesn’t ask for anything in return, but in my experience they will ask for a few minor story adjustments (neutral time references and a dateline, mostly). A CNN.com story brings a big traffic windfall, and sometimes leads to a series of secondary referrals from other sites that notice the story. The same phenomena happens with Digg or Drudge or Fark - but getting a story on CNN.com is considerably easier. Really it just has to be “good” and somewhat unique and you’re there.
A bunch of links can wreak havoc on your metrics. Pageviews and uniques go way up, but average time spent and PVs/user counts can plunge. Overall the stats can be impressive, but how well does this serve your advertiser base if their ads we’re seen far from your local market? Thoughts?
A “cute animal” piece on a penguin capped off a recent weekend edition of NBC Nightly News with Lester Holt. The story was produced, shot and edited by an NN producer for use on Nightly.MSNBC.com - and later made the leap to TV. Tim Peek with NBC’s Peacock Productions unit describes how the “for web” story became “for TV” - and how the platform lines are continuing to become nearly non-existent.
I’ll admit, when I heard the idea of the Huffington Post, I thought that ‘just’ a liberal Drudge Report didn’t make a ton of sense. Now HuffPo might be the best example of an online news/opinion site online. It’s both deep and wide - with tons of topics and lots of stories. Poynter has a quick interview with Arianna Huffington on her unusual creation - and has an interesting thought on the future of ‘traditional’ journalism: “I believe in a hybrid journalistic future where traditional newspapers adopt the best elements of online journalism, and new media sites continue to do more and more of the kinds of investigative reporting usually associated only with traditional media outlets.”
Approximately 20 percent of TV show viewing now occurs on the web, reveals a new study by Integrated Media Measurement (.pdf download) that had participants track their media consumption habits via their cell phones. Of that number, 50 percent of the online viewing is a replacement to TV viewing, 31.3 percent is catch-up viewing and 18.7 percent is fill-in viewing. From the report: “In May, for the first time, data show that a significant portion of the online audience for primetime episodic content is NOT also watching some portion of the show on television…. Strikingly, there is no real demographic difference between online viewers who have given up television and those who are still using the Internet as a way to fill-in for lost viewing or even grab additional views of the content seen on TV. This suggests that the migration of consumption from one platform to another is only a matter of time for all of the online ’snackers.’” The IMMI study also said the web is beginning to challenge DVRs for watching primetime TV programming.
Some may question that this study is overstating the effect, especially since the panel focused on larger cities. But I’ll remind everyone that few broadcasters accurately anticipated the rapid adoption of DVRs. Similarly, I think watching TV shows online will catch on with a similar rapid rate. The question, of course, is what NBCU’s Jeff Zucker warned a few months ago for broadcasters to be careful to avoid trading “analog dollars for digital pennies.” Now that it looks like not all online viewing is additive, it will be interesting to see how this evolves.
Also, as I wrote last week, as online video becomes nearly as big as a platform as DVRs for watching TV programming on demand, it’s time for DVRs to step up and become more like the web. I think DVRs with their old-fashioned, clunky interfaces — and the fact you have to anticipate everything you want to watch and record it ahead of time — is accelerating the shift from DVRs to the web. Image quality isn’t as big of a deal as many people in the TV industry believe it is. In the end, convenience rules.
At NAB earlier this year, we reported that Gannett had inked a white-label deal with Mogulus to provide live streaming for a few newspaper sites. Now there’s news Gannett has invested “around $10 million” in the company to power live streaming for the rest of its newspaper and TV sites. So what’s so unique about Mogulus? It’s really a live television studio in a single application: you can broadcast live, scheduled live, or on-demand with real-time graphics. You can stream live from a laptop with a wireless card. And it’s in an embeddable player. So you can do some rather interesting things, such as create a 24/7 live streaming channel that combines live newscasts, recorded newscasts and live chopper feeds. Lots of potential here for sure, now let’s see where Gannett takes it.
Broadcasting & Cable has a fascinating cover story on WMBF in Myrtle Beach, a brand new 100% digital TV station that’s being built from the ground up. The Raycom NBC affiliate will go live on 8-8-2008, the same day as the Olympics begins. Watch some of the behind-the-scenes work below…
The NFL is very controlling and “analog” when it comes to digital distribution, but now there’s word it will stream Sunday night games — a simulcast of NBC’s coverage — on NBCSports.com and NFL.com. “We are taking a big leap here,” said Steve Bornstein, chief executive of the NFL Network. “We are looking at this as a learning opportunity to see what applications work online.” In the one year “experiment,” NBC will sell the advertising and split the revenue with the NFL. (Full disclosure: I work for msnbc.com, which powers NBCSports.com.)
TechCrunch is reporting that Google has decided not to acquire Digg (in the $200 million range) just when the discussions were moving into their final stages. How many is this now for Digg?
AP has participated in a $3 million round of financing in Verve, a mobile news services company that’s powering AP’s recently announced Mobile News Network. “Verve Wireless’s mission is to save the local paper by making it mobile,” writes Claire Cain Miller in the New York Times. As Rafat points out on PaidContent, this is a rare strategic investment for the Associated Press.
Correction: I updated the post to reflect that AP participated in a $3 million round of financing instead of investing $3 million.
Yes, I’m in full snark mode (and I’m not even being kept up by a baby). But the AP has a glowing write-up on the New Jersey Star-Ledger’s new webcast, set to launch Monday. Some of the practice runs are already posted… and here’s a shock… they’re boring. The print journo/anchor recapped the headline from the morning’s paper, told some strange story about hot-air ballooning… and then I fell asleep. There are a few nicely shot video packages - but no one wants to sit through a boring webcast filled with a reporter’s phone ringing to get to them. As my old boss used to say… “that’ll hold ‘em!”
There are ways for print sites to get in the video game… but this isn’t it.
The brand new CBS HD Gallery features full-length shows like CSI, Survivor and Big Brother in 720p, sponsored exclusively by Intel. “We’re focused on providing the highest-quality audio and video that technology allows, and we’re working with leaders across the industry, and clients like Intel, to make that objective a reality,” said CBS Interactive SVP/GM Anthony Soohoo.
Lin TV has announced that it has the number one TV sites in 15 of its 17 markets and the number one media site in “visit time” in all but two of its markets. While I’m sure Lin sites do very well in their markets, the data source is Hitwise for a single month — not always a reliable metric.
I apologize in advance for my snarky blogging today, as I’m running on very little sleep with a new baby. And just a few minutes ago, a DISH Network telemarketer called my wife’s hospital room where she was asleep for one of the first times since undergoing a C-section. It started with a canned announcement, and then when prompted I hit “1″ to talk to the telemarketer . When I told him where he had called (whispering) and told him to put the number on his do not call list, he didn’t even apologize. Instead, he said in a mocking fashion, “Oh, oh, thank you sir,” and hung up on me. DISH, are you really THAT desperate for business?
I thought it was interesting that a blogger for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer here in Seattle made fun of KING-TV’s “pull the plug” digital TV test. You know, the test that dozens of stations around the country are doing — switching to digital for a few seconds to alert analog viewers that they need to upgrade before February. “Skip the fuss, avoid calling KING-5’s ‘experts’; and just go to the store and get a converter box or buy a new TV. It’ll take you five minutes,” writes Moises Mendoza. Clearly Moises hasn’t bought a digital television recently — a buying decision nearly as complex as buying a new car, which can take hours of online research and/or endless wandering through the halls of Best Buy. And for older folks who watch tons of TV, it’s rocket science. Perhaps the promotion for these “pull the plug” tests can get a little too dramatic, but I think they’re very effective. And for local TV, that’s important going into the switchover. (Moises also got the facts wrong in his blog post. KING’s test is 20 seconds long, not five minutes. Full disclosure: I used to work for KING-TV and can’t stand uninformed newspaper people making fun of TV.)
Update: Well, the downside to doing these live tests is you really can’t test it first. KING’s DTV test today also happened to interrupt many cable and satellite subscribers.
Several WorldNow sites I frequent have a neat new Flash-based video player. Kudos!
But I doubt the player is getting embedded a whole lot… the video plays on load. Not when you click play - but as soon as it loads. There’s actually been two occasions in the past month where I’ve wanted to embed a video on my other blog - but it’s a no go because I don’t want to BLAST audio on my users.
Borrell Associates’ 