Adweek : Video

Will Video Hub Be Just a Blip on the Stream?

Mike Shields — Tue, 15 May 2012 10:26:05 +0000

When Blip came on the scene in 2005, the pioneering startup was ahead of its time, building a network and set of tools designed to help the nascent community of independent Web series. And when Blip unveiled a Hulu-esque consumer -acing hub last year, the timing seeming ideal, as interest in original video content was swelling.

But that was $100 million in YouTube seed money, and roughly 100 million Web series ago. With 18 different companies hosting digital upfront events in the past month, one might wonder, is Blip still relevant? Or will talent and advertisers start bypassing the company in search of fortune and glory on the YouTubes, Hulus and Yahoos of the world?

“The YouTube channels will likely pull advertisers from Blip given advertisers desire to be associated with the YouTube brand and its large and well connected salesforce.” said Adam Kasper, evp partnerships and investments, Havas Digital. “And the new YouTube channels are very high quality.”

But not everyone agrees. “While Blip may not have huge scale, they can really blow things out for your brand,” said Pohmedia digital strategist Jordan Bratter. "My experience has been tremendous."

Blip continues to be popular in the indy creative world. In fact, according to Blip CEO Kelly Day—who joined the company in March after the departures of co-founders Mike Hudak and Dina Kaplan—more than 17,000 creators uploaded shows in the past 90 days. And per comScore, though Blip’s audience declined 11 percent in the past year to 5.1 million uniques in March, views have curiously surged by 131 percent. “We’ve have extremely high user engagement,” Day said. "I don't see the mission changing."

However, Day confirmed that Blip is now planning to both curate more content and co-develop Web series.

One thing Blip may be doing less of is selling and distributing other companies’ content. According to sources, Blip has struggled to deliver on that front.

Last year the company held a press event touting a deal with The Collective, the production company behind YouTube stars Fred and The Annoying Orange. The deal quietly expired recently. “That was a tough deal for both companies,” said Day.

Original Content: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

Emma Bazilian — Mon, 14 May 2012 04:03:44 +0000

Digs, Meredith Video Studios

DIY-centric programs like Ready, Set, Celebrate (instructions for throwing offbeat soirees like a “We Hate the Kardashians Party”), Craft and Burn (a sort-of-scripted series about a destructive crafting habit) and Extreme Craft Challenge (ever wondered how to make a macaroni portrait of Stephen Colbert?) may look like they were made by an intern with an iPhone, but their very likable stars and unserious vibe make them highly watchable. Call it deranged HGTV for the ADHD set.

Hello Style, Hearst Magazines

Hearst’s stable of fashion titles is impressive, but their brand power doesn’t carry over to this throwaway channel. Series like Fashion Mission and Beauty Smarties Showdown are lacking in spark—think Style network, circa 2001—while Visible Panty Lines is so snarky as to be borderline offensive. Who really wants to watch adults trash the wardrobe of a preteen starlet?

The Intelligent Channel, Intelligent Television

Ever thought that watching YouTube could make you feel smart? Neither did we. But compelling shows like Richard Belzer’s Conversation, in which the actor gets all James Lipton on everyone from his SVU co-star Ice-T to documentary filmmaker Alex Gibney, let you zone out on the video channel without feeling like you’re wasting time.

American Hipster, Seedwell

Yep, this exists. Imagine a bunch of middle-aged men trying to come up with stuff hipsters like. Here’s what you get: Max Movie Reviews, starring a German baby with ironic glasses; Hipster Grandmas, in which two actors dress up like clueless oldsters; and American Hipster Presents, which delves into hipster-approved subjects like humane bison farming. It’s so bad that it’s almost good.

Of Course You Can Trust Us— We’re Google!

Sam Thielman — Mon, 14 May 2012 04:03:03 +0000

What, exactly, is YouTube selling?

That’s the question on every buyer’s mind in the wake of the company’s “brandcast” presentation in New York a few weeks ago. It wants advertisers to commit to yearlong, all-inclusive sponsorships of its fledgling channels for prices in the $5 million range, as well as a high $20 cost per thousand viewers for pre-roll. But it’s using proprietary numbers from parent company Google to guarantee audiences, and some buyers are balking.

The entire proposition behind the digital NewFronts was that ad buyers could confidently move TV dollars to digital, where they would find similar or greater penetration for less money while associating with top-tier content. There are even rumors that YouTube has a subscription-based service like Hulu in the works. But measurement is a sticking point. Imperfect as Nielsen is (and complaining about measurement is a team sport in the TV world), it provides a universal currency in a way that isn’t yet duplicated in the online world.

ComScore and Nielsen’s Online Campaign Ratings (OCR) and Cross-Platform Campaign Ratings (XCR) are still duking it out for supremacy in that marketplace, and while buyers have expressed reservations about those systems, they’re even less enthusiastic about buying YouTube audience guarantees measured by the company selling the ads. “It’s too early to tell the quality of that offering,” said one digital buyer at a large agency who asked not to be named. “The guarantee products from Nielsen and comScore are the ones we’re putting more weight and priority in, given that they are third parties, and Google is a proprietary source.” There’s also YouTube’s pledge of $200 million in promotion and marketing for its new 100-channel lineup. “There is a question about how YouTube will promote the programming beyond Google Network. And how do they determine certain programming to be ‘winners’ or ‘hits’?” the source asked. “That is still not clear as well.”

These frustrations may in part be a function of the ad industry running up against Google’s rule-the-world ambitions; the tech company, much like Apple, wants to be in command no matter where it is. In advertising—particularly TV advertising, where networks provide solid guarantees—third-party measurements are essential proof of your business model’s viability.

Buyers also worried that YouTube could spread itself too thin with 100 channels. The mantra at the NewFronts has been “If you build it, they will come,” said GroupM’s Tom Dempsey. “But will they return?”

YouTube contends that spread across 100 channels its 25 hours per day of new programming should satisfy anyone. “We have plenty of content for advertisers to buy across demos,” said a spokeswoman. “We’ve been conservative in our forecasting, and we’re completely comfortable that we can deliver the inventory that we have sold to advertisers.” Sources close to the company point out that comScore measures the same data Google is selling. The real test will come if there’s a discrepancy between the two.

More generally, there’s a feeling among digital advertisers that the NewFronts may be barking up the wrong tree by going after TV. “There’s this assumption that all this online advertising is going to be paid with television advertising dollars,” said Jason Krebs of Tremor Video. “Television has continued to grow. Would it have grown more if there hadn’t been that increase in digital? Well, who knows? We don’t just speak to television advertisers. We don’t care where the money comes from. If newspapers aren’t effective, we go to the newspaper budgets.”

Television’s Big, Gay Weddings

Anthony Crupi — Mon, 14 May 2012 04:02:08 +0000

Michelle Obama’s favorite TV show is ABC’s Modern Family, and while her husband enjoys knottier fare (Boardwalk Empire, Homeland), the First Family’s media preferences are in line with the zeitgeist. Still, it’s odd that the president waited so long to assert his support of same sex marriage—after all, television has for more than 20 years.

Roc (Fox) 1991
Uncle Russell comes out; he and his partner marry in this Very Special Episode.

Northern Exposure (CBS) 1994
Maurice crabs his way through the wedding of Ron and Erick, proprietors of The Sourdough Inn.

Roseanne (ABC) 1995
Flinty Republican Leon ties the knot with life partner Scott in a raucous ceremony.

Friends (NBC) 1996
Two NBC affils refused to air episode, in which Ross’ ex-wife Carol marries Susan. 31.6 million viewers tune in.

Queer As Folk (Showtime) 2002
Lindsay & Mel say “I do”—the first same-sex wedding on cable TV.

The Simpsons (Fox) 2005
Mayor Quimby legalizes same-sex marriage. Sadly, Lenny & Carl do not exchange vows.

Six Feet Under (HBO) 2005
Revelations abound in the finale—David and Keith marry; everybody dies.

All My Children (ABC) 2009
Bianca makes an honest woman of Reese in daytime television’s first lesbian wedding.

Grey’s Anatomy (ABC) 2011
The big day is nearly ruined by Callie’s mom, whose piety masks her intolerance.

Conan (TBS) 2011
Returning to his old N.Y. stomping grounds, Conan O’Brien offi ciates the wedding of his costume designer.

Modern Family (ABC) 2012
Sure, Mitchell isn’t a fan of the grand gesture, but fans think a Tucker-Pritchett union is in the stars.

Break Media Debuts Comic Talk Show Speakeasy

Charlie Warzel — Wed, 09 May 2012 16:12:06 +0000

The rash of digital NewFront presentations over the past few weeks seems to indicate that there's money in Web video, there's serious money in TV and everybody in digital media wants more. Companies like YouTube and Hulu not only have the visitors, but also the cash to attract top talent and the desire to compete in the entertainment sphere.

Break Media’s Speakeasy, which launched this week, looks to do the same thing on perhaps a smaller scale. The show, which is hosted by comedian Paul F. Tompkins and features Hangover star Zach Galifianakis, is an example of an internally developed, cost-controlled Web foray. Speakeasy features Tompkins enjoying a drink with a single guest, such as Galifianakis or Modern Family's Ty Burrell. The show is tailored to Break Media’s MadeMan audience, focusing on highbrow male culture and making mixology and upscale bar culture a hallmark of the series.

Just days into the show's launch, creator Mitch Rotter (Break's svp of content and former Universal Music Group exec) contends that audience feedback has been solid, though he acknowledges that this sort of content is unchartered territory. “It’s not Field of Dreams,” Rotter said. “Just because we build it doesn’t mean they’ll come, but we have a huge online audience and the expertise in building quality online content.”

Speakeasy has experienced surprisingly few barriers to entry in the marketplace. The show was only conceived in early January and already has 13 episodes completed and an eight-week sponsorship with Bacardi. Each episode cost roughly $5,000 to produce.

While the numbers won’t tell the story on Speakeasy’s success for a few weeks, Rotter hopes more major studios will continue to experiment with original content. “I think studios look at the gamble that they make creating new content and hoping there is an audience. It makes a lot of sense to experiment and introduce concepts in a digital space as costs are lower, feedback is quick and you can get it out in front of a lot of people very fast,” he said.

Political TV Ad Rates Complicate Election Season

Katy Bachman — Wed, 09 May 2012 15:31:51 +0000

Along with the headache of making sure TV ads that get bumped by politicals are quickly rescheduled, advertising agencies also will have to cope with the Federal Communications Commission’s controversial new rule requiring TV stations to post online the rates charged for each political ad.

“Rates for the political season could show up in databases and on buyers’ desktops, and other buys would be measured by this,” said John Shelton, the CEO of Strata, a provider of software-based buying tools. “This is more likely to impact the business outside politics rather than the business inside politics.”

Broadcasters warned that having ad-rate data readily available online would put stations at a marked disadvantage as they compete with other local media outlets. It was a concern FCC commissioner Mignon Clyburn, a former newspaper publisher, acknowledged even as she voted for the rule.

The move could leave both buyer and seller with a lot to explain during the hectic advertising season. The concern is that advertisers would demand the same ad rate as others without regard to the specific factors that drove their campaign. “I don’t want this to create more questions about local markets in our clients’ minds that might discourage them not to buy local,” said Maribeth Papuga, an evp and director of local investment for MediaVest.

However, Tony Sweeney, svp, media director at Philadelphia-based LevLane, said there may be an upside in terms of transparency, noting “that level of detail doesn’t typically get discussed.”

O'Reilly and Hannity, Live on Your iPad

Mike Shields — Tue, 08 May 2012 04:07:38 +0000

While dozens of digital media companies spent the past few weeks rolling out new Web series in search of television dollars, Fox News believes it’s got something far more valuable: actual TV.

The network has quietly begun enabling customers of AT&T U-Verse, DirecTV and several other small cable systems to stream its linear network live on their tablets or smartphones (though not via desktops and laptops yet) provided they prove they’re paying subscribers. As of now, Fox News strips out TV spots on these platforms, but plans are in the works to start selling video ads during the livestreams.

“There’s a big opportunity to explore dynamic live commercial insertion,” said Jeremy Steinberg, Fox News vp of digital sales and business development. “Authenticated TV is the direction we’re going as a business.”

Steinberg argues that until recently, because cable has held back much of its content from the Internet to protect its MSO relationships, it’s been missing out on the Web video ad boom. But as authentication becomes more prevalent, he said, it should attract more brand dollars. “[Our TV shows] are quality content people have no access to yet online. It’s not user-generated, you know where it runs, you know it’s quality. Given the volume, this could be a big deal.”

Volume will be a bit of a question early on, or at least until bigger cable companies are on board. Plus, Fox isn’t the only cable network available online. CNN lets users stream the linear network, complete with TV ads; ESPN is planning to follow Fox’s lead and start selling video ads, said a rep.

The Web video push isn’t the only digital plan on Fox’s horizon. The network, never the biggest Web player despite its TV dominance (its digital properties reached around 30 million unique users, versus close to 60 million each for CNN and MSNBC), is a big proponent of tech-driven ad selling.

Recently, Fox began using Collective Media’s Amp platform to help the publisher discover untapped audiences on its site as part of a new initiative dubbed Fox News Plus. With Plus, Steinberg will try to unearth audience segments that are responsive to a particular brand’s message. A tech advertiser could target an alternative demo on Foxnews.com, for example. “What’s been lacking for many publishers are audience analytics and insights that ad networks have,” Steinberg said. “Now, I can go to an advertiser and say, ‘We can do exactly what these other guys do, and we have trusted content and highly engaged users.’”

On that note, Fox is also making a move away from using ad networks entirely as it embraces real-time bidding in a big way—a tactic it increasingly finds more profitable than outsourcing its sales, Steinberg said. For years, Fox has used the supply-side sales platform Admeld (owned by Google) to sell some of its tier-two inventory. Now, the network is planning to initiate direct, data-driven ad buys with clients—an alternative to private exchanges, which don’t work, Steinberg said. The company is even selling advertisers the option to purchase complete audience takeovers on the site—the ad tech version of a homepage takeover.

“We’re a big supporter of second-channel, automated buying,” Steinberg said. “We’ve just had so much success with it.”

Sounds great, but Fox News will face some doubters. “They’re one of the more forward publishers when it comes to using exchanges, ad tech,” Adnetik CEO Ed Montes said. “But most sophisticated buyers are going to be using a similar tool. I don’t feel like this is earth-shattering. Now, moving away from ad networks, that makes sense to me.”

Said Steinberg: "We're going to be able to find out things about our audience that no one knows."

First Mover: Tom Cibrowski

Sam Thielman — Mon, 07 May 2012 04:06:43 +0000

So what’s it like to finally beat the Today show in total viewers for the first time in 16 years?
These are really exciting times for everybody here. The whole team has worked so hard. It’s emotional, it’s exciting, and it’s totally fulfilling for so many people. We won yesterday, but they won the day before. We’re going to be trading days here for a long time, so the goal here is to maintain the lead.

You’re an old ABC hand. Is it just a natural progression up the ladder, or is there a big difference when you reach the top?
You know that something has changed. You’re responsible for more people and you’re ultimately responsible for every decision the staff makes. But I know what the strengths and weaknesses of the staff are, and there’s no learning curve. It’s more about maximizing the strengths of the people you know well.

Morning TV is a famously difficult grind. What keeps you doing it?
It’s my second family. There’s no better place to work than in morning television. It’s the daily charge of being shot out of a cannon before the sun rises. To do that every single morning is a really exciting thing.

When you say, “before the sun rises … ”
I wake up at 4, 4:02 a.m. —every minute counts at that point. I get out the door at about 4:30, and I’m at work by 4:40. Much better to have a five-minute commute at 4 o’clock in the morning than anytime else.

Good God.
It’s a 24-hour cycle. After we end the show at 9, a new plan starts to get put together for the next day. It’s three shifts of people all through the day and night. But by the next day when I walk in at 4:40, you hope the show is three-fourths of the way baked, and then you have to add some sprinkles. We’re always on the watch for breaking news. The news cycle is so fast right now. We will shift the show right up to airtime. Or right up through when we’re on the air, depending on when it works. It’s a constant chess game.

When was the last time you had to rework something while the show was running?
Actually, it was just the other day. We had a couple of breaking stories right before air—there were tornadoes that had done some damage right before airtime. Then there were the school shootings, and we scrambled a reporter in London and had him go on the air with less than half an hour of notice.

You must just run on coffee.
Believe it or not, I don’t drink coffee. I drink iced tea. I don’t drink caffeine before 9 o’clock in the morning. I have a routine of a small breakfast and then I have a snack of peanut butter in the morning, which pretty much everyone knows. The only way to survive these hours is to train to do a normal schedule. If you go off the schedule, you really feel it. I do have to sneak through my apartment on tiptoe in the morning, though.

What’s going to change now that you’re in charge?
We don’t want to make too many changes. We want to make sure we have time to allow [the team] to engage with the viewers. GMA has a youth presence on Yahoo; they’re often reading and responding to comments and tweets on YouTube, Yahoo and Twitter. We’re able even to editorially make split-second decisions because we’ve got people who can extend a segment that’s working well longer than planned.

So if Brad Pitt really has the audience in the palm of his hand, you can keep him around longer than scheduled?
Absolutely. [pauses] Brad Pitt might be a little hard.

A+E Networks to Hit Market With Updated Lifetime

Sam Thielman — Mon, 07 May 2012 04:04:52 +0000

Mel Berning was carefully rearranging his silverware on the table at a French restaurant in midtown Manhattan last week when he deliberately and specifically broke down the various factors at play in the looming upfront. “This is the problem this year,” he said. “We’re sort of a year ahead of ourselves because there isn’t measurement yet to draw equivalencies between online and linear.”

Rumors have been going around that this upfront season will be leaner than last year’s—buyers spent big in the spring and the scatter market that followed was soft. In the meantime, digital companies like AOL, Yahoo and YouTube are holding upfront-style presentations in an attempt to woo TV dollars away from cable and broadcast. “Do you think that’s a bargaining chip [for the buyers]?” Berning wondered aloud.

Berning, who on May 4 was promoted to president from evp of ad sales for A+E Networks, is dealing with a rebrand at Lifetime and a slew of new programming at all the networks—History, notably, will have a “dramatic retelling” of the story of Bonnie & Clyde in Q1 next year with Sony Pictures Television. He thinks price gains will be in “high single digits,” which is lower than 2011, but still an increase.

Barclays Capital analyst Anthony DiClemente said those estimates check out. “The market is very healthy,” he said. “The upfront typically keys off of scatter pricing, and those prices have been pretty firm. The year-over-year comparison gets tougher because last year was a healthy year and 2010 was not as healthy, but that’s just math.”

As for its position in the market, A+E Networks is a comparatively compact outfit in terms of its holdings: 10 cable networks, three of them fully distributed major players (A&E, Lifetime, History), and sundry digital and international outliers. It is projected to pull in, according to sources including SNL Kagan, $3.1 billion this year. Berning holds a key role in maintaining and growing those revenue figures. An industry source put ad revenue for A+E Networks this coming year at $1.9 billion; in 2004, it was roughly a quarter of that. “He very much sets strategy in terms of our selling proposition, how we’re going to go after strategic partnerships in the business,” said A+E Networks president and CEO Abbe Raven.

A handful of programming franchises on the A+E Networks properties are solid performers. Shows like History’s Pawn Stars and Swamp People and A&E’s Storage Wars steadily rank in the top 10 on cable among 18-49 year olds.

With the A+E Networks upfront presentation set for this week and the deal making soon to follow, it’s vital for someone like Berning to be able to predict performance. If you’re overconfident, you can end up having to give away inventory to make up for promising too much; if you’re too conservative, you can get stuck with a low CPM for years, and it won’t matter how good your ratings are. Unscripted programming has a lot of advantages for advertisers—it’s much easier to work L’Oréal into Project Runway than it is to put Dodge into upcoming crime drama Longmire. Berning and his team have done both.

A+E Networks' next challenge will be the Lifetime rebrand. The women’s network is its most recent acquisition and is now under the leadership of Nancy Dubuc, who forever rid History of its “Hitler network” trappings (most of the military history material has been moved to its smaller sister channels) and catapulted it into the top tier of networks in the 18-49 “dollar demo.” Dubuc has her work cut out for her with Lifetime, which is just now turning around a ratings slump. In first quarter, viewers were up 28 percent among women 18-49 in prime time. In fourth-quarter 2011, they were down 7 percent and in third quarter slid 19 percent.

But under her helm the network is reprogramming. Steel Magnolias is getting a remake with Queen Latifah starring, and one of Dubuc’s first big series, The Client List, has maintained solid ratings in its first few episodes. For 2013, there’s also Parallel Lives in the works, starring Mary J. Blige, about Coretta Scott King and Dr. Betty Shabazz, widows of Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X, respectively. “I think that after a couple of years it’s going to be a very different network,” said Berning. One goal is to get the median age of its audience (presently about 49) down. Berning sees the network’s big unscripted success story, Dance Moms, as an indicator of how to do that (the show skews as young as 26 some nights).

Meanwhile, Berning is still considering the best tactical approach to digital. While principal competitor Discovery continues to move content onto Netflix, Berning remains bullish on the TV Everywhere model. “We’ll work with the MSOs,” he said. “I think that’s the place for us to focus.”

DiClemente agreed. “As long as you’ve got that dual-revenue stream and you’re investing wisely, I think A+E [Networks] will continue to grow.”

First Mover: David Kenny

Mike Shields — Fri, 04 May 2012 09:21:18 +0000

Specs
Age 50
New gig Chairman and CEO.
Old gig President and director, Akamai Technologies

You’ve had sort of an interesting couple of years, moving from an agency trading desk, VivaKi, to a tech company, Akamai, to a traditional media company.
Well, the Weather Channel’s not so traditional. It’s very much a digital company and a cable company. We have the second-most downloaded app on the iPad; 68 million people use it just on mobile. People want this information at all times. This move is a very natural follow-on. My long-term love has always been audience and people who need information and people who use new technology. This was a great chance to get back to that.

What did you learn at Akamai that most digital media folks might not know?
I learned how the Internet works, which is why I was well-suited to the Weather Channel. There are 12,000 cable and phone companies that connect around the world. Akamai builds the software that connects them. Weather is unique in that it’s the only cable channel that broadcasts locally. We need a higher level of technology. Our boxes actually live within the whole cable system. So it’s great to understand both the science and content.

What’s your take on the agency business these days? It’s perennially described as flawed or in transition.
There’s more than one kind of agency. Creative agencies continue to use every possible interaction with a person to move a brand. On the media agency side, it is becoming more technical and tool driven and less clout based. It used to be about buying in bulk. Now that the market is getting more complicated, you actually have to be a lot more sophisticated in how the market works. The challenge is, the margins are thin, and it’s hard to invest in this technology.

Weather’s digital properties are like page-view machines where people are constantly checking forecasts. Is your biggest challenge engagement, i.e., getting people to stick around?
I’m focused on delivering value to people. Why do people check the weather? To plan their day. In the morning, they’re figuring out what to wear, whether to take an umbrella, whether they’ll have a traffic delay. Later in the day, people begin to plan their weekend. People come to us and they might need to buy a movie ticket or go to Open Table to make a restaurant reservation, decide if they want to go shopping this weekend. Work indoors or outdoors around the house. And people plan vacations and look around the world for locations. So we’re the starting point, in a way, for planning your life. We need to figure out how to bring content to you that helps you go further in your planning and directs you to other sites that can help you. We’re also inherently local. People start with their ZIP code. Local content is very important to us as well.

Your company’s been famously anti-ad network. A few years ago you guys rolled out a private exchange. Has that worked?
I don’t think we’re really running a private exchange in the way I think of it. They are part of the fabric. My focus is increasingly our audience and our share. To do that, you have to work with the market in many different ways. Ad networks are important. Sometimes you work with the marketing in a premium way, sometimes you work in a non-premium way.

How are you liking Atlanta?
I’m liking Atlanta, for what time I’m there. I’m in New York, West Coast. I continue to sit in seat 12B. That’s my office.