The Entertainment Development & Programming Weekly - February 3rd Edition

Here are the most interesting articles that came across this week…

TNS Aims to Take Bite Out of Nielsen

"I think this is the year to really improve TV's accountability," says Tracey Scheppach, senior vice president and video innovations director at Publicis Groupe's Starcom Worldwide, a media firm. "We shouldn't continue to justify doing $70 billion of business off of 12,000 homes when the data exist. So let's explore it," she adds.

Starcom is looking at how it can use the nationwide second-by-second data to land future ad deals.

Unlike Nielsen, which requires its audience panels to use a measurement device, TNS will be tapping into viewers' set-top boxes for its second-by-second data about which TV programs and commercials they saw live or through digital video recording. (Nielsen's data are minute by minute.) Supporters say set-top box data are more useful to marketers -- and less burdensome to participants. They also point to a 2009 deadline for eliminating over-the-air analog transmission that they say will likely increase the number of set-top boxes, which are already in more than 50% of U.S. households.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120174340644030665.html

WGA, AMPTP May Clear Internet Hurdle

Both the New York Times and Associated Press are reporting that the Writers Guild of America (WGA) and Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP) have reached tentative agreement on Internet distribution (or “electronic sell-through”) terms, based on information from unidentified sources.

Since online distribution was the major sticking point in negotiations, this could be the breakthrough in talks Hollywood has been waiting for. A formal deal, subject to WGA member vote, could be announced within days — but as United Hollywood points out, going from informal talks to formal legalese might not be so easy, citing its own anonymous sources who say no draft language exists yet.

http://newteevee.com/2008/02/02/wga-amptp-maybe-clear-of-internet-hurdle/

Is the Tipping Point Toast?

Yet, if you believe Watts, all that money and effort is being wasted. Because according to him, Influentials have no such effect. Indeed, they have no special role in trends at all.

In the past few years, Watts--a network-theory scientist who recently took a sabbatical from Columbia University and is now working for Yahoo (NASDAQ:YHOO) --has performed a series of controversial, barn-burning experiments challenging the whole Influentials thesis. He has analyzed email patterns and found that highly connected people are not, in fact, crucial social hubs. He has written computer models of rumor spreading and found that your average slob is just as likely as a well-connected person to start a huge new trend. And last year, Watts demonstrated that even the breakout success of a hot new pop band might be nearly random. Any attempt to engineer success through Influentials, he argues, is almost certainly doomed to failure.

"It just doesn't work," Watts says, when I meet him at his gray cubicle at Yahoo Research in midtown Manhattan, which is unadorned except for a whiteboard crammed with equations. "A rare bunch of cool people just don't have that power. And when you test the way marketers say the world works, it falls apart. There's no there there."

http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/122/is-the-tipping-point-toast.html

Open is King - The Future of Media beyond Control

On the top layer, Open Systems win, all around

• In the networked economy, visibility, transparency and compatibility are becoming a must-have standard
• Often, profits are generated more indirectly than before (i.e. the tollbooth may have been moved), and therefore the ‘Measuring-Success’ - Metrics must be adapted, too
• Much success will continue to come from disrupting existing products with commoditized open standards
• Openness is a risk that -if balanced carefully- is well worth taking

http://www.mediafuturist.com/files/gerd_leonhard_experience_economy_event_amsterdam_open_is_king_web.pdf

What Would a Combined Microsoft-Yahoo Look Like?

The real impact to Microsoft, though, is not visible in these numbers because Yahoo represents a new growth opportunity for Microsoft in advertising revenues and online services. During the last four quarters, Microsoft’s revenues for its online services (MSN, Windows Live, aQuantive, etc.) were $2.8 billion and it lost $949 million. So just combining Yahoo with that business, you get revenues of $9.8 billion, but Microsoft would still be showing a net loss for that business of $289 million.

But this is an advertising play for Microsoft. It wants to combine the scale of its recently acquired advertising networks with that of Yahoo’s, along with Yahoo’s vast consumer reach (which is appealing to advertisers, who see all those eyeballs as valuable inventory).

http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/02/01/what-would-a-combined-microsoft-yahoo-look-like/

Big won't win

Yahoo, I've long argued, is the last old media company, for it operates on the old-media model: it owns or controls content, markets to bring audience in, then bombards us with ads until we leave. Contrast that with Google, which comes to us with its ads and content and tools, all of which I can distribute on my blog. Yahoo, like media before it, is centralised. Google is distributed.

It's appropriate, then, that Yahoo is being bought by what one could say is the last old technology company, Microsoft. For Microsoft still operates on a model of control: closed in an open era. They will get along well together.

This is not a deal about content. At an entrepreneurial conference in New York this week, OnMedia, a venture capitalist said that the "perceived value of content is approaching zero". That's a kick in the kidneys to us content people.

No, this is a deal about audience and advertising. After the big guys consolidated all the ad networks they could - aQuantive to Microsoft, Tacoda to AOL, Doubleclick to Google (the EU willing) - next they're buying up audience in bulk. That's what Yahoo is, really. They call it a firehose: people in bulk, us as masses.

http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/jeff_jarvis/2008/02/microsoftyahoo_young_dinos_mat.html

From Ads to Value Add

It’s the time of year when pundits make predictions. One that caught my eye comes from Geoff Ramsey, CEO of eMarketer. He sees the interruption-disruption ad model, where consumers accept advertising as a necessary evil in exchange for free content, dying off because of the Internet, social media and the DVR.

The prediction isn’t particularly surprising: almost everyone agrees this is the way we’re trending. What’s intriguing is his suggestion that marketers must turn advertising into content, something so compelling and entertaining that people will seek it out. I agree, but don’t think he goes far enough.

Marketers must shift their mindset and seek ways to engage, offer value-added services, and experiences that make consumers want to interact with and buy the brand. Widgets, those rapidly proliferating online applications, are a good metaphor. Unlike a traditional ad, which at best can only communicate and entertain, a widget like Forbes’ “Top Lists” directly engages a consumer and provides a value-added service.

http://backpocket.prophet.com/post/1462/from-ads-to-value-add

No breaking for commercials

These ideas all emerged lately from the workshops of MTV Networks, which, like most of its entertainment-industry rivals, is increasingly trying to help its advertisers find fresh ways to keep viewers engaged during the commercial "pods" between its shows and, through so-called integrated marketing, within the shows themselves. They also frequently involve shows, movies or games developed at other divisions of MTV parent Viacom Inc.
"The 30-second commercial is not dead, but it's dying a slow death," said Frank Zazza, head of consultancy iTVX and the marketer who famously placed Reese's Pieces candy in the path of Steven Spielberg's lovable alien, E.T.
Integrated marketing is a high enough priority at Viacom for Chief Executive Philippe P. Dauman to have mentioned it more than once in recent talks with Wall Street analysts as an important source of revenue growth.
All audiences are getting used to consuming media in new ways -- on computers and cellphones and via video-on-demand, for example -- but it's particularly true of people in the 12 to 24 age group, said John Shea, executive vice president for integrated marketing at MTVN Music & Logo Group, which, besides MTV and VH1, includes the country music channel CMT and the gay-themed channel Logo.

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-mtvads28jan28,0,7444663.story

Branded Entertainment is Upon Us

This new reality is a direct result of the audience-fractured, advertising-averse world in which we now live. Ms. Lazarus believes that for agencies, "the challenge as stewards of brands is to help them tell a better story." In fact, telling a better story (the traditional agency imperative, I would argue) is no longer sufficient, as Ms. Lazarus continued: "Now brands need to be a part of the content story."

As such, she envisions far tighter links between ad agencies and the Hollywood creative community. Drawing a meaningful distinction about these industries' respective roles, she explained to the audience of content types: "We need all of you desperately...we can come up with a brand idea, but we can't do programming."

http://www.videonuze.com/blogs/details.php?id=341

This Should Be Your Mantra: Be Everywhere

What newspaper people now need to understand is that not only are they publishing content to all the relevant platforms under their own brands, but they also need to adapt to publishing everywhere that they can under others' brands: blogs, social networks, news aggregators, map mashup sites, community sites, business' websites, personal websites, etc.
They have to embrace a profound change in media. What they produce can no longer exist as an island online, where they use marketing and hope to get people to come view the content that they produce, or sign up for e-mail, phone or RSS delivery. News organizations must develop strategies that pump out their content -- in bits and pieces -- to anyone who's willing to run it.

http://www.mediainfo.com/eandp/columns/stopthepresses_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003703433

The buzz on 'Gossip Girl'

The show's young fans have shown a similar affinity for new media, helping to consistently make "Gossip Girl" the most downloaded television program on iTunes. But despite the program's online popularity, the network hasn't been able to translate the Web buzz into substantial TV ratings. Even after a marketing push, just 2.6 million viewers on average tuned in to watch the show's first 13 episodes -- about 500,000 of them teens, its target demographic.

"It's sort of become the first show that has managed to achieve some level of cultural permeation and success in the new world order where ratings don't really seem to apply," said executive producer Josh Schwartz.

For the young network, however, which made "Gossip Girl" the centerpiece of its sophomore season, ratings very much matter.

When viewers watch on different platforms, "we don't make the kind of money we make when it's on the air," said Dawn Ostroff, the CW's president of entertainment. "That's something still being figured out: How can we take advantage of viewership shifting to different places?"

http://www.calendarlive.com/tv/cl-ca-gossip27jan27,0,4600940.story

Facebook Apps On Any Website: Clever Move

Facebook announced Friday a new JavaScript client library that will allow Facebook apps to be displayed on any website.

The client library allows users to make Facebook API calls from any web site and create Ajax Facebook applications on that website.

Wei Zhu from Facebook explains the benefits:

Since the library does not require any server-side code on your server, you can now create a Facebook application that can be hosted on any web site that serves static HTML. An application that uses this client library should be registered as an iframe type. This applies to either iframe Facebook apps that users access through the Facebook web site or apps that users access directly on the app’s own web sites. Almost all Facebook APIs are supported.

http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/01/26/facebook-apps-on-any-website-clever-move/

MySpace Will Open Site To Outside Developers

The online community MySpace is introducing tools for developing games, media-sharing features and other programs that better integrate with the Internet's leading social-networking site.

Wednesday's announcement follows a May decision by its smaller rival, Facebook, to open its platform to developers, a move that has proven to be a boon for music-sharing startup iLike.com, photo-sharing service Slide Inc. and countless other companies.

Those applications, in turn, have helped make Facebook even more popular, although it still ranks as the second most trafficked social network behind News Corp.'s MySpace. (News Corp. owns Dow Jones & Co., which publishes The Wall Street Journal.)

MySpace will formally launch the MySpace Developer Platform next Tuesday with a kickoff event and workshop at its new San Francisco office. Although developers will have all the tools they need to create and test programs, they won't be able to integrate them right away. MySpace has yet to announce a start date for that.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120166655575528043.html?mod=mm_media_marketing_hs_left