Jason Odell was named executive vice president, technology for Current TV.
TidalTV, which focuses on inserting addressable advertising in online video, has a deal to serve ads in over-the-top programming delivered by Roku boxes. The ads will run as pre-rolls in some Roku content. Roku has agreements with brands such as Crackle, GBTV (Glenn Beck's new online venture), the UFC, Netflix and Hulu Plus. It's unclear exactly what content will be open to TidalTV-served advertising. TidalTV, which has worked in the mobile space, has looked to move further into TV with its proprietary targeting and recently opened a West Coast sales office. TidalTV cited research showing that advertising spending in over-the-top video should reach $20 billion globally over the next five years. The net indicated it is working with advertisers to use its technology to run spots across multiple platforms with Roku now added to the mix. "Though the video marketplace has become increasingly complex, advertisers' ultimate goals remain unchanged -- to reach their brand's targeted consumers and achieve a given outcome," stated TidalTV Chief Product and Media Officer Brad Herman. Herman added that TidalTV is able to deliver these desired outcomes when "we break down the screen-specific silos and think in terms of optimizing reach and performance seamlessly across the entire video campaign."
Amazon Prime -- a digital premium video competitor to Netflix and others -- just added to its stable of big TV and movies -- signing an expanded deal with Fox. The deal for the instant streaming service will now have Fox-produced library shows, including "24," "Arrested Development," "The X-Files," "Ally McBeal," "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" and "The Wonder Years." Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos says in a blog on the site that Amazon Prime has now doubled the number of titles this year -- now totaling some 11,000 movies and TV shows. With the addition of Fox, Amazon now has deals with CBS, NBCUniversal, Sony, and Warner Bros. Amazon Prime is priced at $79 a year -- which comes to a little under $7 a month. This compares with Netflix's new $7.99-a-month price for streaming. ($16 for Netflix's combined DVD-mail order and streaming service). Netflix claims slightly more streaming titles -- some 15,000 or so -- than Amazon Prime's 11,000. Netflix's longtime DVD-mail order business amounts to 100,000 titles. Last week, Dish Network restarted a Blockbuster streaming service, called Blockbuster Movie Pass, for its Dish satellite subscribers. For $10 a month, there are 100,000 mail-order titles and 4,000 available titles for streaming.
ABC has gained some nice lift on the first Sunday night of the new season with "Pan Am." Other Sunday TV show regulars are performing pretty much as expected. At 10 p.m., "Pan Am" took in a healthy Nielsen preliminary 3.1 rating/ 7 share among 18-49 viewers, which was up versus a year ago when ABC's "Brothers & Sisters" premiered. But the troubling news for ABC came an hour earlier, for its venerable "Desperate Housewives," starting its last season. It hit the same 3.1 /7 as "Pan Am", but this was down around 30% versus last season's premiere of "Housewives." Earlier in the evening, two hours' worth of "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition" was down 10% to a 1.8 rating from a 2.0 a year ago. NBC's "Sunday Night Football" was the big winner for the night -- posting a healthy Nielsen preliminary 7.2/17 rating. But it didn't go away unscathed -- down over 20% versus last year's week three season game. A major change for the night was moving CBS' award-winning "The Good Wife" to Sunday from Tuesday. Putting "Wife" in the competitive 9 p.m. time slot was a tough go -- a 2.2 rating/5 share, coming in last place in the time period. The good news was that "Wife" wasn't down much, just around 10% versus its start-up last season on Tuesday. Other CBS shows had a rougher time: "60 Minutes" was off 16% to a 2.6/8; "The Amazing Race" was down 21% to 3.0/8; and "CSI: Miami" at 10 p.m. slipped over 30% to a 2.2/5. It should be noted that CBS did not have a late-afternoon Sunday game this time around, which usually gives it a nice kick for its prime-time lineup. Fox, however, did get some benefit for its late-afternoon Sunday game, helping to keep its Sunday comedy lineup relatively healthy. The season premiere of "The Simpsons" was up a few ticks to a 3.8/10 among 18-49 viewers; "The Cleveland Show" was even with a 3.1/7; the network's top Sunday show "Family Guy" was down almost 10% to a 4.1/9; and "American Dad" clocked in even with a year ago at a 3.0/7. At the end of the night, NBC on average posted the best 18-49 results with a 5.9/15. Fox earned a 4.4/11, followed by CBS with a 2.5/6, ABC at a 2.4/6, and Univision with a 1.3/3.
With a growing variety of ways to get local news, where do people turn first to find out what's going on in their community? Local TV news remains the most popular source for local information in the U.S., but adults rely on it mainly for just three subjects: weather, breaking news and traffic. Despite their problems, newspapers (both print and on the Web) are where most Americans look for a wider range of information, according to a new survey. The Internet also plays a key role. Web-only outlets are now the main source of information on key topics, such as education, local business and restaurants. That option is likely to gain ground, since for adults under 40 and the 70% of people going online, the Internet ranks as a top way to get information on most of the local subjects. The study by the Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism and the Pew Internet & American Life Project looked at 16 different topic areas to provide a more nuanced understanding of how the media ecosystem functions. The findings produced some interesting paradoxes. TV, for instance, still reigns as the broadest outlet, with 74% of Americans watching local TV newscasts or local TV Web sites at least weekly. But the focus is narrow. TV is the choice for the topics that almost everyone tends to follow, like the weather and breaking news. When it comes to newspapers, 69% of people said that if their local paper no longer existed, it would not have a major impact on their ability to keep up with information and news about their community. But the research showed newspapers play a bigger part in people's lives than they realize -- ranking first or tied for first as the most-relied-upon source in 11 of the 16 news topics. TV draws a mass audience around a few subjects, while newspapers attract a smaller share (50%) of weekly users but for a wider range of topics, such as government, taxes and zoning. Neither TV or newspaper sites by themselves have gained a strong foothold as a top options for local news, however. The Internet is a main source for information about restaurants and other local businesses, and tied with newspapers as a top source for material about housing, jobs and schools -- all areas that place a special value on consumer input. (The study defines the Internet as Web-only sources, such as search engines, specialty-topic sites and social networking sites.) The spread of smartphones and apps is elevating mobile as an option for local news and information as well. Nearly half (47%) of adults use mobile devices for that purpose, mainly for the types of information people also go to the Web for, like looking up restaurants. And 5% of survey participants said they use an app for checking the weather. The Pew study found that although social media is becoming a factor in how people learn about their local community, it is not as popular as other digital formats. In all, 17% of adults say they get local information on social networking sites like Facebook at least monthly, which may explain why it nixed Places and Deals. The emergence of new types of digital and mobile media has not crowded out time-honored ways of keeping up with events, however. More than half (55%) of us get local news from word of mouth at least once a week. Overall, a majority of Americans (64%) rely on at least three different media sources each week for local news, and 45% say they don't even have a favorite outlet. Because younger users tend to rely more on the Internet as a top source, the Web is expected to play a more influential role in the years ahead. The Internet has already turned 41% of those surveyed into what Pew calls "local news participators." These are people who share links to local stories, and comment or contribute articles and opinion pieces about their community online. The survey was conducted from January 12 to 25 among a nationally representative sample of 2,251 adults 18 and over and landline and cell phones. It has a margin of error of 2%.
CBS' revamped "Two and a Half Men" is still going strong, though Fox claimed one major credit on Tuesday. Nielsen weekly season premiere results show that Fox won its first premiere week among key 18-49 viewers, as well as its usually strong 18-34 viewers. Among 18-49 viewers, Fox earned a 3.4/9 and CBS was right behind with a 3.1/8. Farther down was ABC with a 2.8/8, followed by NBC at a 2.6/7. Among 18-34 viewers, Fox was a full rating point ahead of its nearest rivals, with a 3.2/10 versus a 2.2/7 each for ABC and NBC. For the second Monday of the new season, CBS remained in high regard among viewers. Although down over 30% from its crazy-high number of a week ago, "Men" still roared through the second Monday of the new season with a crushing Nielsen preliminary 7.2 rating/17 share among key 18-49 viewers at 9 p.m., easily the top show of the night. Earlier in the evening, at 8 p.m., Fox's big, high-cost, action adventure "Terra Nova" started off -- perhaps a bit underwhelming -- with a 3.1 rating/8 share. Much of this might have been due to CBS' strong comedies -- one mainstay show, one newcomer. "How I Met Your Mother" offered up a sturdy 4.4/12 among 18-49 viewers and 10.6 million viewers. This was followed by new show "2 Broke Girls," which retained all "Mother" viewers -- and then some, pulling with a 4.5 rating/11 share and 11.6 million viewers. The downside: "Mother" was down 6% versus its start a week before, and "Girls" was more than 30% off its start in a different time period a week ago. But there was more comedy upside for CBS: The Emmy-winning "Mike & Molly" offered up a series best 4.9/11 running after "Men" at 9:30 p.m. Some reality shows were caught in the wake of this activity: ABC's "Dancing with the Stars" was down nearly 20% from its season premiere of a week ago, with a 3.3/9 at 8 p.m. Two hours of NBC's "The Sing-Off" between 8 p.m. and 10 p.m. was only about half of the "Stars" results -- a 1.7/5, down just over 10% from the week before. All 10 p.m. Monday dramas dipped a bit from a week before, with the best results coming from CBS' "Hawaii Five-O," just slipping 3% to grab a 3.2/8. ABC's "Castle" dropped a little more at 9%, landing at a 2.9/7 and NBC's "The Playboy Club" gave up the most -- about 20%, settling at a now cancellation-watching 1.3/3. Early results for the CW did not offer up any excitement: The season premiere of "Gossip Girl" took in a 0.8/2 in the 18-49 demo, down 20% versus a year ago. New series "Hart Of Dixie" grabbed the same results. For the night as a whole, CBS, for the 18-49 crowd, had a strong 4.6/11. ABC was well behind with a 3.1/8, followed closely by Fox at a 3.0/7, Univision with a 1.7/4, NBC at a 1.5/4, and CW with a 0.8/2.
Several years after the launch of Food Network Magazine, Hearst Corp. is trying to replicate its success bringing TV brands to print with a new title targeting fans of Scripps Networks' HGTV (formerly Home and Garden TV), which specializes in all manner of real estate-related programming. The first test issue of HGTV Magazine will hit newsstands on Oct. 4, with a preliminary rate base of 350,000 and a cover price of $3.99. A second test issue, planned for February-March, is scheduled to go on sale Jan. 17, 2012. The magazine, targeting "homeowners, real-estate lovers, renovation aficionados," will focus on decorating, makeovers, and practical household advice -- all in the channel's accessible, conversational style. Sections include "Help Wanted," "Fun Decorating, "Kitchen Chronicles," "Mission Makeover," "Real Estate Spy" and "Weekending." Like its older sibling Food Network Magazine, HGTV Magazine will leverage the popularity of HGTV personalities, by regularly featuring personalities such as David Bromstad, Genevieve Gorder, Vern Yip and Sarah Richardson. HGTV Magazine is edited by Sara Peterson, formerly of Coastal Living, while Hearst Home Group Executive Director Jeanne Noonan Eckholdt is serving as acting publisher for the test issues. The new title is being promoted online, with social media components including Twitter chats, as well as on HGTV, which ran a one-hour special about the making of the magazine Sept. 24. Food Network Magazine is a worthy role model to emulate, enjoying big increases in paid circulation over the last few years. Total paid circulation increased 23% from 1,196,835 in the six-month period ending December 2009 to 1,472,607 in the six-month period ending June 2011, according to the Audit Bureau of Circulations.
New episodes of former ABC soaps "All My Children" and "One Life to Live" will return in January on broadband outlet The Online Network. The venture, which just revealed its name, is from production company Prospect Park. The company aims to offer a full multiplatform network with other first-run, long-form content. It was co-founded by Jeff Kwatinetz, former head of talent management company The Firm and an executive producer of USA's "Royal Pains," and former Disney Studios head Rich Frank. Prospect Park indicated it would engage in aggressive marketing, using traditional outlets as well as online and social media campaigns. The company, launched in 2009, reached a deal in July with the Disney /ABC syndication arm to continue offering the two soaps after they ended lengthy runs on the network. Prospect Park also operates in film and music. Prospect Park stated: "With broadband availability in 70% of U.S. households and the proliferation of Internet-enabled televisions, DVRs and wireless devices, ultimately we believe that online distribution provides the best platform to access 30- and 60-minute entertainment content."
While much has been made of the growth in the Hispanic population, the number of Asian-American homes is projected to be up nearly 10% for the 2011-12 TV season, marking a considerably higher growth rate. Asian-American homes are forecast to be up 9.6% to 5.3 million. This is the first TV season to take place after the 2010 Census results came in, and the number of Hispanic or Latino homes is expected to be up 4.6% to about 14 million. African-American homes are projected to be 14.3 million, a 1.5% increase, per Nielsen. "The rapid growth of the Hispanic market has generated a number of headlines since the Census numbers were revealed, but the increase of Asian households should not be overlooked," stated Pat McDonough, a Nielsen senior vice president. The estimates are for Jan. 1. Los Angeles continues as the largest market for both Hispanic and Asian TV homes, while New York leads among African-Americans. McDonough stated: "We're also seeing increased geographic diversity of Hispanic and Latino consumers. While Los Angeles, Miami-Fort Lauderdale and Houston remain in the top five for Hispanic TV homes, we're seeing growth in markets that defy conventional wisdom. Hartford and New Haven, Conn., Washington, D.C., Milwaukee, Raleigh and Minneapolis are all in the top 50 and saw a bump up in their rankings in the past year."
If, like me, you're old enough to have watched the premiere of "Saturday Night Live" in 1975 and grew to adulthood thinking that Lorne Michaels was the coolest guy in TV, then the start of the show's 37th season with Alex Baldwin as the guest host was cause for celebration. Sure the show has had its ups and downs over the years, and the formula hasn't changed much since Gerald Ford was president, but it remains the most consistently exciting show on TV, one that appeals to both Baby Boomers and their kids. Or maybe it just seems exciting because it is so frequently buzzed about online. For years, we've debated whether digital media would undermine or strengthen the television business. The fear has been that if viewers could see television highlights online, they wouldn't bother to watch the actual show. Or that if they recorded an episode, they would fast-forward through the commercials. But if "SNL" is any kind of test case, I would say that, for now, digital media is a net plus for television. Social media plays a critical role in "SNL"'s marketing and promotion. The cast tweets about a show before it airs, but the real power to create buzz is with the hosts and musical guests; if the guest has 11 million followers, as Lady Gaga did when she appeared last May, then the ratings can be impressive. Then there's the water-cooler effect. The rise of Facebook coincided with the resurgence and increased relevance of "SNL." Fans now post their favorite skits on their Facebook pages, amplifying in the online world the conversation that is occurring in the real world. Chances are that if your friends are talking about a show -- in the real world or over the Internet -- you'll be more likely to watch in the future. Earlier this year, Wired magazine put "SNL" star Andy Samberg on its cover with the headline "How the Internet Saved Comedy." This refers in part to the Samberg-inspired "Lazy Sunday" digital short (http://bit.ly/kNvZT), one of the first TV videos to go viral on the Internet. After "Lazy Sunday," Samberg teamed with Justin Timberlake in a more calculated effort to create an Internet sensation and came up with "D**k in a Box," (http://bit.ly/ie74XY). The unanticipated success of these two videos provided a roadmap for television marketers, who have been trying to use the Internet to generate buzz ever since. It's probably going too far to say that the Internet "saved" comedy, or even "SNL", since people are going to laugh anyway. But comedy does benefit more than any other genre from Twitter, Facebook, blogs and other Internet-based communication. Monologues, brief interviews, short sketches, all of which can be digested in three to five minutes, are eminently suited for distribution over the Internet. You can't as easily excerpt a short clip from a drama because it would make no sense out of context, but you can easily grasp a Jon Stewart rant or a Weekend Update bit. I would go further than Wired, though, and say that it wasn't the Internet alone that increased the relevance of TV comedy, it was digital media more broadly understood. In particular, I'm thinking about the DVR. To take "SNL" as an example again, in the seven days after the original airing, an average of 800,000 people (or 14% of the audience) watched "SNL" last year on DVR. Without the DVR, "SNL"'s audience would have dropped steadily over the past decade. Instead, thanks to the DVR, the average number of total viewers has held steady Many of the best comedy shows, including Letterman, Leno, Colbert, "The Daily Show," and of course "SNL," are on during the late-night period. Sad to say, there is no way that I or many of my other Baby Boomer cohorts can routinely stay awake to see any of these shows live. In the days before DVR, I had essentially given up watching "SNL." For me, the '90s were "SNL"'s lost decade, especially after my son was born and late night television fell off the to-do list. Indeed, I recently looked up a list of guest hosts from the 1990s and was astonished to learn that Nancy Kerrigan, Jerry Seinfeld, Rosie O'Donnell, and Kiefer Sutherland all hosted "SNL" at one time or another during that period. But since getting my first DVR six years ago, I haven't missed a show. I am particularly excited about the upcoming season of "SNL" because it's an election year. The last time the show was white-hot relevant was during the 2008 campaign, when Tina Fey did her Sarah Palin imitation. And sure enough, the opening sketch this season spoofed the GOP presidential debates (including an eerily dead-on Michelle Bachman parody by Kristen Wiig.) Thanks to the miracle of digital media, I watched the season premiere first thing Sunday morning, then tweeted about it and posted a clip of the debate spoof on Facebook. Without digital media, "SNL" would have been just a rumor for an aging Boomer like me -- but thanks to digital technology, it's as relevant to me now as it was when I was in college.
For years TV stations have salivated over the prospect of mobile devices running their most prized content: news. The theory? Their well-known call letter brand names would drive existing (remaining?) viewers to those mobile areas. But it appears that the same outcome might occur with those brands that happened on plain-old laptops and desktops. New digital consumers are already using new media platforms -- some local, some not -- to access information on new-found weather, traffic, and news apps. A Pew Research study says as much. More than a few local TV media and marketing executives note that just having TV call letters isn't enough on new digital platforms -- that to truly distinguish a "new" digital brand, local TV programming and marketing executives need to come up with new brand identities -- perhaps including some hint of an association with the more traditional local TV brand name. But all this should go farther. Given the rise of digital platforms, many believe hyper-local newscasts will be the real value in the future. Make that long-term future. (Hello, AOL's Patch). Money is the big reason. TV stations are already strapped in their news-making budgets. Then, how do they expand news-making operations that need even more reporters for an increasing niche audience? Does everyone get paid less? Will local news journalism become a sideline hobby for wannabe journalists? Grabbing nascent bloggers for conversion to the big time could be the way to go. Even then, where is the monetization, the advertising dollars? All to say, the business is not there yet. Stations now have big-time competition in all areas where they used to have a near monopoly with radio and newspapers. What they do have are many news-making professionals. In that same Pew study, local TV -- by way of its traditional platform -- was found to still be the place viewers go for breaking news, weather and other content. The questions are how to brand that to new information-seeking digital consumers who are convinced they can get deeper -- and maybe better -- information on new digital platforms.
Another week, another market downturn. Economic news continues to bring the doom and gloom, and so does the outlook for the ad industry overall. But even as consumers and marketers keep tightening their belts, TV ad spending remains surprisingly buoyant. You might've read the excellent piece in the Wall Street Journal last week about the TV advertising paradox. (If you didn't, do.) Fewer people are watching television, the authors pointed out, and yet brands are spending more than ever to advertise on television. As Jon Lafayette put it in Broadcasting & Cable back in July, "While some businesses adjust their marketing plans, TV appears to be something they can't live without." This sentiment was echoed by CBS's Les Moonves at an industry conference last week, where he highlighted the strength of his network's ad-revenue outlook. "We don't see a slowdown," he said, and "people who bought (ads) in the upfront are increasing their orders." So what's up? Why all the love for TV? Three reasons: 1. It's got reach. Chris Anderson's long tail might work for some folks (especially online), but there aren't too many media outlets that can deliver viewership in the millions these days. When you are looking for scale, you've got to go for the telly. 2. It's cheap. Relatively speaking, TV spots are a great value: A mere $14.50 per thousand households for network TV last season, and only $6 for cable, as reported in the WSJ. (The average cost per thousand times a display ad was served on a finance-related site during the first half of the year was $19 -- $17.50 for automotive sites, according to SQAD, Inc.) 3. It works. Leveraging data enables television ads to be delivered specifically to audiences already committed to a given brand or product category; they're primed to purchase. Paired with the enhanced brand recall that television delivers, it makes for an advertising homerun. That might explain why, despite flagging growth in ad spending overall, six of the 10 fastest-growing advertising categories - mostly in financial services - hit five-year spending highs in the first half of 2011 (in terms of percentage-gain increases on their total ad spend). But the economy's still on the brink of double-dipping into recession, and the ad pie is forecast to keep shrinking. Just look at the stock prices of the big ad conglomerates -- WPP, IPG, Omnicom. My back-of-the-napkin number-crunching shows a sector that's down 25% since August's credit crisis. Even if TV budgets stay on a relatively even keel, it's obvious we're in for rocky times ahead. Shades of 2008? I don't think so. After all, now we've got tools at our disposal that we didn't have three years ago. At the time of the last market swoon, the power of set-top box and consumer purchase data was just being unleashed. Three years later, companies like Invidi, Black Arrow, Rentrak and Simulmedia and TRA are helping advertisers and networks put that data to good use to make media budgets work harder than ever. Thanks to advanced advertising solutions that didn't exist in 2008, there's a level of accountability and confidence in television advertising that buyers and sellers didn't always have. Combine that with unduplicated reach, value, effectiveness, and programming, and you can see why there really is no business like our (TV) show business.
Have a hankering for some really high-value entertainment? Beggars can't be choosy. Then Fox Home Entertainment came out with "Star Wars: The Complete Saga" in its Blu-Ray discs -- and grabbed some $84 million dollars in a week. All good for a mid-September sale period -- right after a bunch of summer theatrical action movies, and right smack in the middle of the start of the TV season. While that was nice haul, and a record "as a catalog" title, with 1 million Blu-Ray discs sold, "Avatar" -- the biggest movie of all time -- did much better near its initial theatrical release, with 2.7 million Blu-Rays and 4 million DVDs sold for a total of $130 million. Overall, however, things aren't that good for all home entertainment -- especially when future digital entertainment consumers are still mulling the new Netflix , and perhaps the new streaming/DVD mail order service from Blockbuster by way of Dish Network. Not great, not bad -- something in between. All to say entertainment consumers can be pretty selective when it comes to all price levels of entertainment -- $10 a month streaming services and $80 special Blu-ray movie sets. (Mind you, theatrical marketing executives are still proclaiming another fantastically strong summer movie business.) Then again, Netflix did lose a few hundred thousand customers in the third quarter. No longer a steal at $10/month, it is now a whopping $16/month. Six more bucks? That's two less ice venti americanos! Cord-cutters here? Maybe. Surely those cable/satellite/telco subscribers paying $70 to $100 and more should do some better math. Adding in more Netflix actually means a total entertainment monthly rise of perhaps 6% to 9%. Not bad. You should see my annual increases for my monthly medical premiums. It comes down to priorities. I can't live without HBO's "Boardwalk Empire" or my financial services/information iPad apps. Movies from a generation ago? Hmm... maybe I'll wait for the cheaper 50th anniversary deal.