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TV Is Just Background Noise for Women, Study Finds
For many American women, television is becoming like Muzak. It’s on a lot, but it’s mostly background noise. That’s the conclusion of a just-released report from research firm Solutions Research Group documenting the media habits of women in the United States.
While women’s time spent with TV is on the rise over last year, attention to shows is dipping, the report said. In fact, many women are often using the computer while watching TV — sometimes even to watch videos online. Compared with a year ago, about 58 percent of women say they spend more time with the Internet and 38 percent spend more time with TV, partly because they’re home more due to the recession.
But while time spent with TV is increasing, it’s harder to get women’s attention. “What women are engaging with more is the computer,” said Donna Hall, a senior director at SRG. “In the context of the upfront and new shows being announced, you have an incredibly fickle audience to impress out of the gate, and while the TV might be on, they aren’t always paying attention.”
Goodnight Burbank Spins Off to Babelgum
One of the first breakout Web stars has returned to the role that brought him to Internet fame three years ago.
Hayden Black, the creator and star of Goodnight Burbank, inked a production deal with United Kingdom-based Babelgum.com that brings the new spinoff Goodnight Burbank: Hollywood Report to the United States launch of Babelgum. The first of 20 episodes premiered the week of March 23, with new 5-minute episodes slated to roll out every week.
comScore Chairman: Down with Clicks, Up with Video
Clicks just aren’t what they used to be. In fact, they’re pretty much meaningless for the online advertising business, said Gian Fulgoni, chairman and co-founder of comScore, during a keynote speech at the OMMA Hollywood conference in Los Angeles on Monday.
In their place, advertisers and Web publishers need to focus on improved targeting, adding rich media and video to their sites and using better metrics to determine the effectiveness, return on investment and engagement, he said. “We have to get off the idea that a click is a valid metric. There are many other ways of measuring the effectiveness of ads,” he said.
But if clicks are passe, what’s a more useful measure of effectiveness for web ads? Video will be a key component in a new range of metrics that better serve advertisers and publishers because video delivers on intent to purchase, Fulgoni explained.
Cord-Cutting May Be Myth Now, But Reality in 5-10 Years
Cord-cutting enthusiasts got a sobering dose of reality the last few weeks when a number of prominent analysts and research firms published data proving that consumers are rushing toward cable rather than away from it.
The cold hard facts: the three-headed multichannel beast otherwise known as cable operators, satellite providers and telcos collectively added 441,000 multichannel video customers in the fourth quarter of 2008.
Those statistics fly in the face of the conventional wisdom that in a recession consumers would cut back on cable services to save money, and they also go against the broader newteevee belief that TV fans can survive on Hulu, YouTube and iTunes alone. Because evidently we’re quite content with our oldteevee, thank you very much.
But, let’s pause and ask ourselves if maybe there is another side of the story. Because traditional television providers and programmers would be foolish to assume that net cable adds in the fourth quarter means everything is peachy. Sure, only 3 percent of online adults would pull the plug on cable to just watch video online, according to Leichtman Research Group, and we’re also watching more traditional TV than ever, according to Nielsen.
But what are teenagers doing?
Teachers Get MySpace, Google and CNET Training
High school students are Facebooking, MySpacing and Twittering on their own time, but many public high schools have yet to fully incorporate teenagers’ native tools –- digital media -– into their classrooms. To change that, teachers from the San Francisco Unified School District are slated to meet Tuesday with representatives from Google, MySpace, CNET, YouTube and Technorati for training on how to bring blogging, podcasting, online video and social networking into their classrooms.
The event is billed as a professional development day for teachers. If successful, the model could be replicated for other cities and hosted in partnership with local technology leaders and media firms, said Brian Monahan, senior vice president, global lead for social media, at Universal McCann. He’s a board member of the Bay Area Interactive Group, which is hosting the training day at media agency McCann Worldgroup in San Francisco. The event will not be streamed live, but the Bay Area Interactive Group and the school district plan to shoot the event and are evaluating how to offer the video of the training session for those who cannot attend.
Are Consumer Electronics Makers the New Content Gatekeepers?
The new push by television set makers to introduce Internet-connected models this year could turn consumer electronics manufacturers into gatekeepers for content.
Internet-connected sets from Sony, LG and Samsung were among the most buzzworthy products showcased at the recent Consumer Electronics Show. They’ll come to market later this year with Crackle, blip.tv, the Minisode Network, YouTube, Flickr and other web services embedded into them, heralding a long-awaited step in the march toward web-to-TV convergence.
Their expanding role also raises the question of whether they might become gatekeepers for web content, much as cable and satellite operators have for decades determined which networks make the cut. Many consumer electronics makers will now also play a role in separating the wheat from the chaff by striking deals with some Internet sites and passing on others. They’ll also determine the placement for such services on the TV sets. This development can benefit content creators and consumers, because Internet-enabled TVs now represent a new distribution source for programs.
Most TV set makers declined to comment on their potential new role as gatekeepers.
Yahoo’s program to develop widgets for TV sets is open to anyone, pointed out Roger Urrabazo, product manager for the Yahoo Widget program. As part of the program, Yahoo’s consumer electronics partners have agreed to allow their consumers access to any widget in the Yahoo widget gallery, said Lucas Mast, a spokesperson for the company. That means widgets from YouTube, MySpace, Showtime, CBS and others are available on sets from Samsung, Sony, LG Electronics, VIZIO and Toshiba, Mast said.
However, Will Richmond, an analyst with VideoNuze, says the best placement on a TV set menu is likely to be awarded to the strongest brands, like Netflix, Amazon or YouTube. “These are known consumer brands, and they all have some degree of pull through the retailer,” he said.
Still, consumer electronics makers are more eager to welcome new services to the set rather than block them, Richmond said. “They are just concentrating on selling sets. The economy is hammering these guys, and they need to focus on that.”
More Internet services could be what help them move more units.
Old Trick, New Medium: Hire Stars, See If Audiences Tune In
HBO has never been known as a first mover when it comes to the web. The premium cable network was an iTunes holdout until earlier this year and still doesn’t stream its shows online. Though to be fair, HBO’s business model is subscription-based, so streaming its shows would be somewhat foolish.
Meanwhile, HBO has been a partner on YouTube since 2006. And it is perhaps that partnership that drove the programmer to finally hatch a plan for an original web series, one that’s fronted by the crème de la crème of YouTube stars.
With the 10-episode show Hooking Up, which will launch Oct. 1 on HookingupShow.com, YouTube, Metacafe and Break.com, HBO is planting a big flag in the web series world. Unlike the network’s Runaway Box, a quiet online hub for comedy videos, HBO is actually talking about this new series. “This is the first big project for HBOLabs,” the experimental arm of the network that tests content for various HBO platforms and also runs Runaway Box, General Manager Fran Shea said.
Is Fancast a Portal to Comcast’s Converged Future?
I’ve made no secret of the fact that I don’t like Comcast. Using their service, my Internet connectivity is slow, my cable is constantly on the fritz, and the interactive program guide is the definition of clunky. But Comcast — I say this through very gritted teeth, indeed — has some very promising plans for Fancast, its broadband video portal.
Because now Comcast wants to turn Fancast into the link from the Internet back into its cable programming service. If Comcast is even remotely successful with this web-to-TV convergence, then Fancast could very well represent a model for linking together new and old distribution methods.
Is LG15: The Resistance a Web Show or a TV Show?
Web video is starting to mirror traditional TV, like it or not.
Case in point: the distribution strategy and release schedule of LG15: The Resistance. EQAL, the production studio behind the show, will release new episodes just once a week, starting Sat., Sept. 20. Hmm, that sure feels a lot like how the broadcast networks dole out programming, doesn’t it?
But it makes sense. As EQAL President Greg Goodfried explained, the daily web model can be overwhelming. “The one drawback to shows with daily content is if you miss a week — or two weeks or three weeks — you have five to 10 to 20 thumbnails to click on,” he said. “Even if the video is only one minute, the mental problem is the same; it feels like you have to dedicate all your time to it. If we have a weekly video and you’re gone for three weeks, you only have to have three thumbnails to click on.”
When Web Video Beats Old Media at its Own Game
If you tuned into a recent episode of Indy Mogul last week you’d probably have seen host Erik Beck mention the show’s sponsor, Universal Studios’ Death Race. And if you tuned into a 2007 episode of Indy Mogul last week you’d also have seen Beck tout Death Race there too.
That’s because Next New Networks, which produces and distributes the do-it-yourself visual effects show, has implemented technology from both Freewheel and Castfire that lets the web studio insert fresh ads, bumpers and host shout-outs for current ad campaigns into both current and older episodes in the Next New Networks catalog, imitating a longstanding practice in the traditional TV business.
The concept of dynamic ad insertion isn’t new to TV or the web, but the Next New Networks implementation is noteworthy for a number of reasons.
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