The idea seems like such a natural that I’m amazed it has taken this long to become reality: C-SPAN, in conjunction with Congressional Quarterly, is launching a web site devoted to the current elections. Called CampaignNetwork.org, the site is a pretty good-looking and sophisticated portal to all kinds of campaign related news and items, particularly video content. The video content pops up in an unobtrusive small, but still-viewable, RealPlayer in a way that I haven’t seen before.
CampaignNetwork.org has TV ads, C-SPAN event coverage, election scorecards, debates, news from the campaign trail, analysis from CQ’s reporters and an election forecast map (which, unless I’m reading it wrong, is forecasting that the Republicans maintain their majorities in both the House and Senate, an assessment that runs counter to much of what I read.)
Posted by Cynthia Brumfield at 12:51 PM | Print | Comments (0)
Nary a week goes by without some kind of major announcement in the online music sector, with web music options proliferating at a heated pace. Business Week’s Catherine Holahan has a good round-up of the recent spate of “iPod wannabes,” from MySpace to AOL to Samsung to SpiralFrog.com.
Despite the explosion of choices, don’t expect the undisputed leader in online music, Apple Computer, to feel much pain any time soon. Why? Because Apple has the iPod, the must-have iconic device for music fans and it will work, for the most part, only with iTunes.
A big reason for bullishness on Apple’s prospects: the iPod. Apple not only dominates legal music downloads, but also the handheld devices on which they’re played. The company has sold more than 50 million iPods around the world and except in the case of MySpace, songs downloaded through non-iTunes players won’t work on the iPod. Until a new player compatible with these services gains popularity, it is unlikely that massive numbers will switch their music buying habits, says Mulligan.
Apple’s genius is to have created the ultimate razor, which works only with its razor blades. If you want one, you have to get the other, and vice versa. That’s why the issue of Apple’s proprietary DRM is such a flash-point in Europe — consumer groups there want to bust up this cozy and profitable relationship.
Posted by Cynthia Brumfield at 11:45 AM | Print | Comments (0)
The Wall Street Journal’s Aaron Rutkoff devotes his column today to a little-known site that’s onto a very big concept. The Internet TV Charts is the brainchild of British journalist and entrepreneur Alx Klive and its mission is to post popularity rankings for online video.
Internet TV Charts currently only monitors Google Video, Digg, VideoSift and YouTube, automatically pulling the most popular clips from those sites once a week and putting them into a simple interface with thumbnail pictures. It’s not entirely objective — Klive will weed out freakish hits (e.g. those that are the result of manipulation) and offers editorial commentary on the popularity of the videos.
The big idea that Klive is embracing is the creation of a measurement system for web video viewing. None exists in good form today and as surely as the sun rises in the east, advertisers are going to want good statistics on the videos they sponsor. Although the web is a different medium from TV in that click-through data are almost bullet-proof measures of an ad’s effectiveness, video advertising (or even .gif or text-based advertising embedded in videos) is a much more elusive form of marketing.
Sometimes video ads are “clickable” and sometimes they’re not. Even when they are easily measured by click-throughs, impressions still count, particularly where image advertising or general brand advertising is involved. Right now, it’s a stab in the dark for most advertisers, but it won’t stay that way — they will want hard data.
However rudimentary Internet TV charts is (Klive likens it to the “Billboard” of videos), it’s a tiny step toward somehow measuring the relative reach of a small group of web sites. That’s a good start on a big idea.
Posted by Cynthia Brumfield at 9:35 AM | Print | Comments (0)Ever since News Corp., headed by mogul Rupert Murdoch, snagged MySpace, the media world has privately and publicly dissed youth-oriented Viacom’s failure to grab the social networking meteor. The murmurs have only gotten louder lately given how successfully News Corp. has exploited MySpace to generate gobs and gobs of cash. (Google, for example, has agreed to spend $900 million at MySpace over the next three years.)
Viacom, headed by another media mogul, Sumner Redstone, had been in the running to buy MySpace and somehow lost out to News Corp. Redstone was personally eager to acquire MySpace, and company CEO and long-time employee Tom Freston has taken the public, and allegedly private, heat for failing to snap up the social networking jewel.
Freston’s now out of the picture, according to this bit in The Wall Street Journal. Freston has resigned as CEO of Viacom Inc. and will be replaced by board member and former executive Philippe Dauman. The company has named another board member, Thomas E. Dooley, to the new position of senior executive vice president and chief administrative officer.
Both Dauman and Dooley come from DND Capital Partners, L.L.C, a private equity firm specializing in media and telecom investments. Given their work at DND, both Dauman and Dooley are no doubt well-versed in the sweeping changes that are reshaping the media marketplace. Freston, on the other hand, made his bones in the era of cable television’s ascent, co-founding and then ultimately running MTV.
Update: Reuters has this piece on Freston’s resignation in which UBS analyst Aryeh Bourkoff is quoted as saying that running a company “in an increasingly fragmented media sector requires a new way of thinking.” Freston’s departure is clearly a sign that Viacom wants “out with the old, in with the new” in naming two investors, who no doubt have their fingers on the pulse of the marketplace, as the company’s new stewards.
Update: The WSJ has more coverage of Freston’s departure, and much of it is not pretty for Sumner Redstone, who claims that Viacom needed new management blood to get the stock prices up again. Wall Street analysts, in particular, are upset about the well-liked Freston’s shove out the door. Here’s a quote from Merrill Lynch’s Jessica Reif Cohen:
This change is unexpected and is not likely to be well-received by the Street or the creative community. Mr. Freston had spent over 25 years with MTV and was a key figure in building it into one of the premier entertainment franchises globally. Mr. Dauman and Mr. Dooley, both of whom currently serve on Viacom’s board of directors, are confidants of Viacom Chairman Sumner Redstone, but do not have significant experience in running a major entertainment company. Furthermore, they were deeply involved in Viacom’s attempts to turn around Blockbuster, which [were] not successful. We think this move is likely to be regarded as an attempt by Mr. Redstone to reassert himself in an operating role, a development that is not likely to be warmly received in the investment community, in our view.Posted by Cynthia Brumfield at 8:39 AM | Print | Comments (0)
There’s no question that the broadcast networks are the champs at experimenting with new forms of content distribution, including Internet-delivered video and mobile viewing. They’re also pushing the envelope in leveraging new media for promotional gambits.
Over at IP Media Monitor today (free registration), Paige Albiniak reports on how the newest broadcast network, The CW (a joint venture that supplants Warner Bros.’ The WB and CBS Paramount’s UPN) is taking over the home page of MySpace to promote its September 20 launch.
The CW will also create its own member profile on the hot social networking site. Drawing from the new network’s tagline, the space will be called The CW “Free to Be” Community Hub and will feature videos from The CW along with its own multi-channel player. Video available on the site will include clips from CW shows, interviews, and behind-the-scenes takes. Fans also will be able to track their favorite CW stars on the site, download instant-messaging icons and read all about the TV shows they watch.
The Hub also will serve as a home base for CW-related contests. Starting Sept. 11, musically-inclined community members will be able to compete for a chance to perform on The CW’s “Supernatural.” After they submit original songs, The CW will select the top-ten semi-finalists and post them on the site. Fans can vote for their favorite track and The CW will select the winner among the top-three acts.
The New York Times’ Stuart Elliott has a piece today about two other out-of-the-box deals that put TV broadcast programmers in uncharted marketing territory. The first is a pact between CBS and Tivo to make it easy for viewers to sample four new series premiering this fall: “The Class,” “Jericho,” “Shark” and “Smith.” In a first for the PVR giant, Tivo will give its 4.4 million subscribers access to the premiere episodes of these shows.
The second deal involves media sales company ITN Networks — media big-wigs Sony Pictures Television, Veronis Suhler Stevenson and the Zelnick Media Corporation are buying a majority stake in ITN, spending an intial $200 million. ITN forms ad hoc broadcast networks for advertisers based on their targeted audiences. With the new funding, ITN plans to branch out into cable, satellite, the Internet and video games.
Posted by Cynthia Brumfield at 8:07 AM | Print | Comments (0)
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