Pressed to start making real money, Hulu -- the big premium TV program Web site -- is finally launching its subscription fee service, called Hulu Plus. But advertising still remains a key piece of its financial puzzle. Hulu senior executives maintain that the service, which will be offered at $9.95 a month, is not a replacement for the free, advertising-supported Hulu service. In fact, Hulu Plus will also include advertising. Jason Kilar, chief executive officer of Hulu, said in his blog that the move will "allow us to keep our Hulu Plus price low." He added: "We offer one of the world's most effective advertising platforms, with the ability to speak effectively to users across a variety of devices, anywhere they happen to be." The difference with Hulu Plus is that for a fee, users can pull up a deeper array of episodes from TV shows on or off the air and several years in the past. As a Hulu Plus subscriber, for example, a user can get all nine seasons of "The X-Files," or all three seasons of "Arrested Development," or all seven seasons of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer." The free part of Hulu will continue to provide TV shows -- but only the most recent episodes. Executives of Hulu's three partners -- Walt Disney Co., NBC Universal and News Corp. -- have been hinting that Hulu would adopt some sort of subscription business over the past year. Hulu has been pulling in some $100 million in advertising revenue a year, according to executives, but has yet to be profitable. Hulu Plus subscribers who own a Samsung Internet-connected TV set or Blu-ray players can download a Hulu Plus application from the Samsung app store and start streaming Hulu Plus directly. Owners of iPads and iPhones will be able to do the same thing. Hulu's Jason Kilar says Hulu Plus will allow users to move more freely from device to device, room to room. "You can start watching a show on your HDTV one night, pick up where you left off on your laptop at lunch, watch another chunk on the bus ride home on your iPhone, and finish watching in bed on your iPad."
A growing digital entertainment business publisher just got a bit more investment help. HitFix received another round of financing -- some $1.6 million -- from Tech Coast Angels, which calls itself the nation's largest angel investment network. HitFix, which claims 1 million monthly unique visitors, started a year and a half ago. Unlike other entertainment publishers, the company says there is almost no celebrity news and gossip. It offers an inside look at movies, television and music. The company's prime target is 18- to-34-year-old users. Although most entertainment sites attract primarily women, HitFix says it pulls in an equal amount of males and females. The ad-supported site also gets revenue through syndicating its content. The site includes consumer entertainment writers, such as Alan Sepinwall, Drew McWeeny, Daniel Fienberg ("The Fien Print) and Melinda Newman, former West Coast bureau chief for Billboard covering all aspects of show business. Lead Tech Coast Angels investor, Yuri Pikover, stated: "HitFix has such a compelling mix of authoritative and original journalistic content, audience reach and technology, it perfectly matched our TCA investment sweet spot."
National CineMedia, one of the leading cinema advertising companies, has added another affiliate to its network -- Great Escape Theatres, a chain based in Indiana with locations in the Midwest, Southeast and Mid-Atlantic regions. The 26 Great Escape venues consist of a total 307 screens. The deal will bring NCM's "FirstLook" pre-show ad package to Great Escape Theatres, some of which will also present NCM's "Fathom" product, consisting of live and pre-recorded in-theater entertainment and events. Theatre Web sites will also link to the NCM Interactive Network. Altogether, these venues (which are concentrated in mid-sized markets) reach about 7 million consumers per year. The deal was enabled by the chain's recent deployment of digital projection and 3D technology. As part of the larger wave of digital out-of-home video advertising, cinema advertising has enjoyed a surge in reach and revenue over the last few years. According to the Cinema Advertising Council, total cinema ad revenues grew 2% from $571.5 million in 2008 to $584 million in 2009 -- a modest gain, but impressive compared to steep drops in print and broadcast last year. Furthermore, cinema ad revenues are trending up by double-digit percentages in the first half of 2010. Separately, NCM said total revenues increased 3% from $370 million in 2008 to $381 million in 2009; revenues then jumped 15.1% from $73.5 million in the first quarter of 2009 to $84.6 million in the first quarter of 2010. In general, growth has been led by categories including auto, apparel, entertainment, retail, consumer packaged-goods, travel and wireless.
April may not have been the cruelest month, but it wasn't particularly good for business-to-business publications, according to the latest data from American Business Media's Business Information Network. It has total ad pages falling 4.7% from 51,010 in April 2009 to 48,609 in April 2010, while total revenues fell 4% to $606 million. These modest drops suggest the rate of decline is moderating somewhat, but clearly B2B titles aren't experiencing any uptick. Among the B2B ad categories experiencing the biggest drops were transportation and logistics; pages fell 35% in April; computing, software and telecom, down 25%; building, engineering, and construction, down 22%; movies, radio, TV and video, down 19%; and travel, business conventions, and meetings, down 17%. As noted, the overall decline was noticeably smaller than in previous months. A disastrous 2009 saw ad pages tumble 28% compared to 2008, B2B ad pages dropped another 15.3% in January, 9.4% in February, and 5.7% in March -- holding out hope that the medium is finally bottoming out. For the year-to-date through April, total ad pages declined 8.2% from 204,741 to 187,925, while total ad revenues slipped 5.9% from $2.45 billion to $2.3 billion. The performance of B2B publications is roughly parallel to consumer magazines, where ad pages plunged 25.6% from 2008-2009, followed by a smaller decline of 9% in the first quarter of 2010 compared to the same period in 2009, according to the Publishers Information Bureau.
WPP's MediaCom Worldwide has named Dominic Guba global head of trading, a new post based in London. He is responsible for enhancing the company's buying performance across all markets. He reports to Juergen Blomenkamp, global head of GroupM trading, and is charged with developing and implementing "best in class" trading models and tools. Prior to joining Mediacom, Guba worked at Aegis Media as its head of global trading. Before that, he was vice president of investment management. "The consolidation of buying points and the proliferation of media offers are creating a vast array of new trading opportunities," stated Guba, who wants to increase "buying advantage and accountability across borders." MediaCom billings exceed $26 billion, per RECMA, with 116 offices in 89 countries worldwide. Separately, Eileen Kiernan joins MediaVest as senior vice president, group client director. She is charged with developing experiences for the agency's The Coca-Cola Company assignment, as well as driving agency-wide innovation. Based in New York, she reports to Dan Donnelly in her Coca-Cola remit and Pam Zucker in her broader agency innovation role. Previously, she was senior vice president, marketing solutions at Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia. Prior to this, she worked as associate publisher for Health and held management posts at Newsweek and Allure.
Viacom and the NFL will debut a series of animated shorts this fall, where actual players offer voiceovers in a serious game of good vs. evil. The weekly minisodes will air on the Nicktoons network throughout the 2010 season, leading up to a one-hour movie airing just before the Super Bowl. The 22-episode "Rush Zone: Guardians of the Core" will include two- to five-minute shorts, while linking with an NFL Web site for kids. Among the luminaries offering voiceovers as themselves are New York Giant quarterback Eli Manning, as well as the New Orleans Saints Coach Sean Payton. Episodes will be available after debuting on the network on Nicktoons.com and NFLRushZone.com. Perhaps breaking some ground in multiplatform distribution, the minisodes are also being produced to appear on the large Jumotrons in stadiums. Keith Dawkins, Nicktoons general manager, stated the programming "combines fantasy, sports, game play, teamwork, competition and the age old theme of good vs. evil, under one compelling new narrative." Part of the Nickelodeon family, Nicktoons -- in 57 million homes -- targets boys ranging from ages 6 to 14, among other demos. The series focuses on a 10-year-old who discovers a band of outer-space heroes has been ripped apart and dispersed into the 32 NFL stadiums. He wants to guard the "life force" from the pernicious "Sudden Death," which wants to put them back together and end humanity. To stop Sudden Death, the boy is given the physical abilities of an NFL football player, among other super powers. "Sudden Death" is the term the NFL uses for its overtime policy, where the team that scores first wins, but it has come under increased criticism since it does not require each team to have a possession.
The Oxygen network has acquired off-net rights to Fox musical hit "Glee," which will debut through a stunt on the female-targeted network in January. As part of the deal, Oxygen will also launch a reality-competition series to find the next "Glee" star. The multiyear deal is between the NBC Universal channel and syndicator Twentieth Television. Twentieth also has a separate arrangement with an NBCU network, to bring ABC's "Modern Family" comedy to USA. Both shows will become regulars on the respective networks' schedules -- through exclusive cable deals -- in 2013. Oxygen said "Glee" will debut with a cable-staple marathon of episodes from season two -- the show is entering its third -- over a weekend in January. The reality series will debut in June on the heels of the third season's conclusion on Fox. Twentieth executive Steve MacDonald referred to the syndication-plus-new series arrangement with Oxygen as a move that "extends" the brand with its loyal and growing audience. Sources say the deals were negotiated directly with the cable networks, both of whom are NBCU-owned and soon to be Comcast-owned.