Cory Bergman
The Wall Street Journal has a great overview (free link) of the technology companies that are powering advertorial video for small and medium businesses: Mixpo, PixelFish, Jivox and TurnHere. Here’s an example of an advertorial clip created through TurnHere (sorry, you’ll have to sit through a Wall Street Journal pre-roll ad first):
While a TurnHere photographer shot and edited this clip, other services, like Mixpo, allow advertisers to create their own video ads by uploading and editing their own photos and video — and using stock footage and music available on the site. Then advertisers can embed the clips wherever they’d like — or distribute the video as part of a rich media ad campaign (medium rectangle ads that convert into players when clicked, for example) — and then track views and click-thru’s through a back-end interface.
As we’ve written before, the challenge for TV stations is finding a place to put advertorial videos. While they can be trafficked as ads, advertorial clips have the most impact when they’re discovered by people searching for related products or services. Like equipment rentals, for example. That’s why we’re seeing a very aggressive move by city guides, yellow pages and other directories to add video to their search-based advertising products.
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August 11th, 2008
Cory Bergman
We’re trying to cut back on blogging about the downward spiral of newspapers, but two Lost Remote readers sent us this story — and it’s simply unbelievable. McClatchy owns 49.5 percent of the Seattle Times, and the Blethen family owns the rest. Less than two years ago, McClatchy valued its stake at $102.2 million. Today, it values the same stake at $9.9 million. (Not a typo). McClatchy has also reduced the value of its stake in Classified Ventures. (Thanks Pam and Dan for the link!)
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August 11th, 2008
Cory Bergman
Broadcasting & Cable reports this morning that many NBC affiliates have fallen short of their sales goals for Olympics advertising on TV.
Gannett Broadcasting, Hearst-Argyle Television and Belo told Wall Street in recent days that their NBC-affiliated stations were struggling to reach their goals for local Olympics ad sales.
The story makes no mention of the online side of things, however. This year, NBCOlympics.com offered more online inventory for TV stations than any Olympics year in the past. If you work at an NBC station, please let us know below how your online Olympics sales are going…
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August 11th, 2008
Cory Bergman
Sirius XM chief Mel Karmazin is bullish on the satellite radio company’s prospects. “We’re going to be the most successful company in radio,” Karmazin said. “We’re going to be bigger than Clear Channel because we’re growing and they’re going the other way.” Sirius XM’s stock has lost 20 percent of its value since the merger’s closing, and the company has yet to turn a profit. His growth strategy? “We think that as we roll out more subscribers in [cars], they are going to want to have a second radio and they are going to want to have it in other places like their home, on their boat, perhaps a wearable product,” he said.
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August 11th, 2008
Cory Bergman
With auto sales now at their lowest since 1993, local media companies are seeing their bread-and-butter automotive spending continue to fall to painful levels. “You’re talking about cars sitting on lots for 90 days,” said Mort Goldstrom, VP for advertising at the Newspaper Association of America. “The dealers are saying, ‘I have cars that won’t move. And I can’t advertise.’ It’s because of cash flow.” In the first quarter alone, the auto industry slashed its ad spending by $414 million, and it shows no signs of letting up. Auto advertising typically makes up the biggest chunk of local TV revenue — for example, 15 percent at Fox stations and 12 percent at CBS.
Also: Rates for political spots are off as much as 15-20 percent
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August 11th, 2008
Cory Bergman
NBCU says the early indications are that its online viewing is reinforcing television, not cannibalizing it. From the Wall Street Journal today:
In the first two days of the games, 90% of viewers watched the Games on TV alone, with nearly 10% watching on TV and online, according to Alan Wurtzel, NBC’s president of research. Only 0.2% watched on the Internet alone, Mr. Wurtzel said.
Traffic to NBCOlympics.com keeps accelerating, climbing from 2,664,000 uniques on Friday to 4,008,000 on Saturday, reports Nielsen-Netratings. Yahoo’s Olympics section is not too far behind, with 1,447,000 on Friday and 3,324,000 on Saturday. (See the full chart here in .pdf format).
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August 11th, 2008
Cory Bergman
Cablevision recently completed its acquisition of Newsday, and now Long Island digital cable customers can subscribe to the newspaper via “Newsday TV.” Here’s a TV screen grab of the landing page…
“With an on-screen subscription form that is pre-populated for each customer by virtue of our ongoing relationship, our customers can complete a transaction and subscribe to Newsday’s award-winning coverage with just a few clicks of the television remote control,” explains John Trierweiler, Cablevision’s SVP of product management. The interface also features some of the newspapers long-form videos, but it’s largely designed to drive print subscriptions. More info in the press release below…
Read more...
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August 11th, 2008
Cory Bergman
Updated: When Lost Remote began 9 years ago this month, its slogan was, “The TV Revolution is Coming. Are You Ready?” We wrote about the early days of TiVo, praising the revolutionary potential of the device. We wrote about Craigslist before it expanded beyond San Francisco, advising TV stations to copy the idea. And, of course, we’ve been urging media companies to embrace online video for years.
We were the first site dedicated to how technology was changing TV, but times have changed. There are dozens, even hundreds of sites covering different niches: DVRs, HDTV, IPTV, VOD, just to name a few. And there are thousands of sites covering online media. The space has simply exploded.
So we decided it’s time to return to our roots: local TV and the battle for the web. After all, I started Lost Remote partly out of frustration that the corporate parent of the TV station where I worked was convinced that promotion, not content should dominate the home page of our website.
Today, there’s a new battle. Many TV stations understand the importance of the web, but the competition is fierce. Literally hundreds of technology companies are investing in new local online and mobile products that are designed to do one thing: capture local advertising dollars that were once invested in TV stations, newspapers and other traditional local media. As you’ve seen from reports from Borrell Associates, the news so far isn’t good: pure plays are dominating local media companies in share of local online ad dollars. And they continue to grow stronger.
So we’re dedicating Lost Remote to this battle over the local web. We’ll provide news, analysis, best practices and competitive intelligence on the race to capture local eyeballs and ad dollars, but from the perspective of local TV stations (and newspapers, too). And we’ll continue to cover national media sites when there may be some local interest.
It’s a broader approach to local — a redefinition of competitors that spans local search, city guides, yellow pages, classifieds, hyperlocal and more. Because for local TV stations, making the shift to local information companies may be a matter of long-term survival.
We’d love to hear from you below…
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August 10th, 2008
Cory Bergman
As a special offer this month, CitySearch is offering its new clients a free 60-90 second video profile of their business. The clip can also be embedded on the business owner’s site. “Citysearch has found that local advertisers experience a high click through rate on their videos, demonstrating increased user engagement,” said Jay Herratti, CEO of Citysearch. (You can see an example here.) In May of last year, CitySearch teamed with TurnHere’s network of videographers to produce its advertorial videos. As you might imagine, TurnHere can produce the clips at a much lower cost than broadcast TV, in part because TV stations employ higher-paid photographers with high-end gear. This has been a big obstacle for local TV to get into the advertorial video business — a natural extension for stations to attract new revenue, especially with small and medium businesses.
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August 9th, 2008
Cory Bergman
The first day stats from NBCOlympics.com:
- NBCOlympics.com garnered 70 million page views on 8/8/08, an increase of 900 percent and 10 times more than the opening day of the Athens Games in 2004 (7 million).
- The 70 million page views are nearly 50 million more page views than the peak day in Athens (Day 4, 20.6 million).
- NBCOlympics.com’s 4.2 million unique users show an increase of 496% over the unique users for the opening day of the Athens Games in 2004 (705,000).
- Since August 1, 2008, NBCOlympics.com has accumulated more than 127 million page views, nearly half the TOTAL for the entire Athens Games.
(Full disclosure: I work for msnbc.com, a JV of NBCU and Microsoft.)
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August 9th, 2008
Cory Bergman
Nielsen Mobile reports that nearly 45% of U.S. mobile video users and 31% of those in the U.K. will be part of the mobile audience for the Olympics. “In general, the event-driven and around-the-clock nature of the Olympics make the next few weeks a really important testing ground for the state of mobile media,” said Nicholas Covey, director of insights for Nielsen Mobile.
Also: Google brings Olympics updates to mobile search
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August 8th, 2008
Cory Bergman
That’s right, the Inquirer has sent out a memo to its staff requiring reporters and editors to hold non-breaking stories for the newspaper. “Beginning today, we are adopting an Inquirer first policy for our signature investigative reporting, enterprise, trend stories, news features, and reviews of all sorts,” explains managing editor Mike Leary. “What that means is that we won’t post those stories online until they’re in print.” Leary says that breaking stories will remain first on the web. Earlier this week, there was this story in Editor & Publisher:
“The owner of The Philadelphia Inquirer and Philadelphia Daily News is facing more debt troubles, according to a Standard & Poors report that says the company has received a forbearance agreement from creditors through Sept. 10.”
Sounds like a big opportunity for the Philly TV stations.
Says Jeff Jarvis: “What the hell are they thinking in Philadelphia?”
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August 7th, 2008
Michael Gay
With the Olympic games just hours away, we’re looking to find the best coverage you see from a local station traveling to Beijing. Post your tips in the comments, and we’ll add them to this list.
What else are you seeing that you like?
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August 7th, 2008
Cory Bergman
There are four finalists for a 2008 Knight-Batten Award for Innovation:
1. Ushahidi.com - A handful of Kenyan techies launched a site for bloggers and citizen journalists to report, document and map incidents of political violence following an apparently stolen presidential election.
2. Wired.com’s Wikiscanner - WIRED magazine’s blog, called “Threat Level,” made clever use of a brilliant new technology in the service of the public’s right-to-know, engaging readers in a crowd-sourced expose of corporate whitewashing of Wikipedia entries not favorable to a company’s reputation.
3. JDLand.com - A one-woman citizen media project to document and inform a local community about real estate development issues.
4. PolitiFact - Reporters and researchers from the St. Petersburg Times have partnered with Congressional Quarterly to create a “bold” resource for the 2008 election.
More information on the judges’ picks here.
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August 6th, 2008
Cory Bergman
From The Onion, via Fimoculous…
“After clicking the ’submit’ button, I will immediately refresh the page so that I can view my own comment. I will then notice that my comment has not appeared because the server has not yet processed my request, become angry and confused, and re-post the same comment with unintentional variations on the original wording and misspellings, creating two slightly different yet equally moronic comments,” he said. “It is my hope that this will illustrate both my childlike level of impatience and my inability to replicate a simple string of letters and symbols 30 seconds after having composed it.”
So true…
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August 6th, 2008
Cory Bergman
The snazzy “Decision ‘08 Dashboard” features extensive politics coverage, live votes, interactive data maps, the latest FirstRead blog posts and embedded NBC News video, all in one place. More details in the release below. (Full disclosure: I work for msnbc.com.)
Read more...
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August 6th, 2008
Cory Bergman
CNN.com has hired Brian Ellis Martin as its new executive creative director. Martin will provide “strategic visual, technical and conceptual guidance to CNN’s digital properties as he leads the design and user-experience team.” Most recently, Martin was principal and executive creative director for “the4″ creative network in New York.
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August 6th, 2008
Cory Bergman
With newspapers in a serious decline, Tribune is “aggressively expanding local news programming in 15 markets,” reports MediaPost. Could be a smart play, depending on where and how they focus their resources.
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August 6th, 2008
Cory Bergman
On a few embedded YouTube clips now, there are not one, but two ads: one as a lower-third overlay and another built into the player. You can see an example on this blog (scroll down a ways.) Writes NYT blogger Saul Hansell, “What jumped out at me is how the advertising on the player makes the experience look closer to the gaudiness of MySpace than the sterility of Google.”
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August 6th, 2008
Cory Bergman
I wrote this back in May:
“I don’t understand why newspapers haven’t split off half their reporters to neighborhoods (requiring them to live there) and launching a network of hyperlocal news sites that all seamlessly feed back to their core site with an integrated CMS. (Beat reporters, meanwhile, would categorize their stories across relevant neighborhoods.) Having a neighborhood reporter is a powerful idea, especially when that reporter covers the small stuff in short form. This forms a relationship and an online community that generates more tips and a larger aggregate audience.”
And now the former managing editor of the Denver Post wrote this:
“Instead of spending time bemoaning how my owners are going to kill my paper, I’d make real sure that the people on my staff were covering news relevant to the communities where subscribers live. I’d fire a third of the editors and convert another third of them to being reporters and give them a laptop. I’d send all my reporters home with a laptop. I would tell each of them his beat is now a circle with a radius of 12 blocks and the center of the circle is his house. I want to know everything that happens within those 12 blocks.”
Similar idea, different perspective (although he suggests a minimum of one story per day, and I would take the blog approach, with a minimum of 3-4 shorter posts.) Regardless, I think there’s real merit with the idea of a neighborhood reporter — someone who people know who becomes the community “moderator.” I’ll have much more on this in the next few weeks when I reveal a project that I’ve been working on recently.
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August 6th, 2008
Cory Bergman
Today Google launched “Insights for Search,” a free tool that allows you to estimate search volume on various keywords — more specific data than Google Trends. But before you get too excited, it doesn’t return the actual number of searches for keywords you provide, but a number between 0-100 that represents popularity over time. But the real payoff here is comparing search terms (separate them with a comma), and even breaking them down by region and category. Good information to help improve SEO and SEM.
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August 6th, 2008
Cory Bergman
The Online News Association has released its finalists for the 2008 Online Journalism Awards. For general excellence, large site, the finalists are CNN.com, NYTimes.com, HuffingtonPost.com, Politico.com and Reuters.com. In the medium site category, the finalists are WRAL.com (congrats!), LasVegasSun.com, MinnesotaPublicRadio.com and Truthdig.
See the rest of the list here.
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August 5th, 2008
Cory Bergman
Wow. The shopping email newsletter company Daily Candy has been acquired by Comcast for $125 million. Daily Candy boasts 2.5 million subscribers, many of them young women with discretionary income. Its locally-focused newsletters are segmented by 12 cities with both local and national advertisers. Comcast says it will aggressively promote Daily Candy as well as integrate it with its entertainment TV properties, like E! Entertainment.
I find it interesting that Comcast, a cable company, has purchased a local niche content company. It’s also worth noting that many newspapers and plenty of TV stations have had shopping/style email newsletters over the years, but none of them (as far as I know) invested the money to expand them across the nation’s largest markets and make a go of it.
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August 5th, 2008
Michael Gay
This is a unique way to answer a problem you may have experienced: supporting promotional efforts to introduce a new anchor team. Often promotions wants you to post the anchor pics, and that’s it. Or you might be asked to upload all of the new image promos. But neither of those ideas will create an experience users will actually interact with, and be viral. Well, WBBM decided to bring the viewer right into the effort by using a quiz to determine which anchor the viewer is most similar to. “We are giving users a fun way to connect with our news team on a personal level,” Digital Media Executive Producer John Dodge told LostRemote. Plus, you can embed a results badge into a blog, which of course I will do here. This is a very cool idea, and effective.
(Disclaimer: I managed cbs2chicago.com and know the Web team well.)
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August 5th, 2008
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