Goodbye Madison Avenue, Hello Google!

10/31/2005 - 10:18 AM >> Death of TV, Hack the Planet, The Digital Revolution

IWantMedia’s summary is about as good as it gets:

This year Google will sell more advertising than any newspaper chain, magazine publisher or television network. By next year Google is expected to have ad revenue of $9.5 billion, placing it fourth among U.S. media companies in ad sales—ahead of Time Warner and NBC Universal.

https://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/30/business/yourmoney/30google.html

https://online.wsj.com/public/article/SB113071868808083821-lHYE_q4_9IruWTJLYMwtu5MWiUs_20061031.html

That sound you just heard was the sound of Madison Avenue shitting bricks.

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Internet Deals Deadly Blows to UK TV

10/30/2005 - 03:27 PM >> Death of TV, Tech & Society, Tech Trends

It seems the island-dwellers are ahead of us in more ways than one:

The internet, on the other hand, allows advertisers to target consumers more accurately and track their responses. It has become so popular among British advertisers that the value of website advertising rose to £490.8 million in the first six months of this year, up 62 per cent on the same period last year and more than the £407.8 million spent in the whole of 2003.

For the first time, the money spent on web advertising in Britain was more than that spent on outdoor advertising and more than the money spent on radio and cinema advertising combined.

At the end of the article, the experts backtrack to say that TV is still a “powerful” medium but that the days of TV ruling the advertising roost are on the way out.

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Wal-Mart: Holding back entertainment progress?

10/27/2005 - 01:24 PM >> Convergence, Future Formats, Tech & Society

Those of you not living under rocks have probably seen one of the many Mark-Cuban-will-shatter-windows pieces that are floating around everywhere in the press these days. But over at Slate magazine, Edward Jay Epstein has an interesting take on the entire situation:

What has prevented the studios from closing the video window is simple: Wal-Mart. The company, which is the single biggest seller of DVDs, has made it clear that it does not want to compete with home delivery. Wal-Mart executives told Viacom’s home entertainment division in no uncertain terms that if any studio does away with the 45-day video window for a single title, they would risk losing access to Wal-Mart’s shelf space for all of its titles. Wal-Mart provided studios with more than one-third of their U.S. DVD revenue in 2004. In the face of Wal-Mart’s retail power, the studios have not dared (yet) to do away with the protective video window.

We here at BBB would normally give Mark a friendly slap on the back but we have some doubts. While this “Mark Cuban will save us from Big Studio Intransigence” is a catchy narrative, nothing has been said about Cuban’s own “no-window” releases. Was there an amazing financial windfall as predicted by all these breathless hucksters? We don’t think the studios would hesitate for a second to start shattering their own windows if Cuban’s experiments were going well. Curiously, everyone has been silent on the cold-hard-cash front, choosing instead to pontificate on more conceptual matters.

Wal-Mart and the big studios are easy to villify but we don’t think even the power of Wal-Mart could keep studios from chasing after bigger profits. Something in Epstein’s math just doesn’t add up.

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That Google Press Backlash Sure Didn’t Last Long

10/21/2005 - 11:33 AM >> Death of TV, Tech & Society, Tech Trends

Unsatisfied with merely conquering the Internet, Google is now considering setting its sights on TV:

(CEO Eric) Schmidt said the company also was mulling how it might extend its ad brokering system to television. “It’s certainly on the list” of projects Google is considering, he said in an interview. ..."Putting Google ads on TV is a tremendous undertaking,” he added, saying he wouldn’t speculate further on such an initiative. Such a move by Google, whose success has already instilled panic in some media companies seeing their ad revenue shrink, could incite similar fears in the TV industry.

We want to hear from you dear readers. What do you think of this move? Is it brilliant strategic thinking or has Google finally overstepped its boundaries only to be smacked down by old media?

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3 UK lets cell users make, sell videos

10/18/2005 - 08:55 AM >> Death of TV, Future Formats, Wireless

Cell phone cameras are starting to make things interesting:

The smallest of Britain’s five mobile phone network operators said on Tuesday that customers could now use their mobile phone to make a 30 second video and upload it onto a “See Me TV” channel for others to view.

Each time a clip is downloaded by one of 3 UK’s 3.2 million customers, the performer gets paid one penny.

A penny is not very much but don’t bet on the economics staying the same for long. Sure they will all be short crappy movies but that’s the most you can tolerate on a tiny two inch screen anyways. Disposable content for disposable devices, a perfect match.

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Video iPod - Union Buster?

10/17/2005 - 09:04 AM >> Broadband, Copyfight, Death of TV

Those of you who remember last Tuesday’s posting, we ended it by telling Hollywood that the ball was now in their court. We didn’t expect the reaction to come so swiftly:

If Apple’s new video iPod is as successful as expected in delivering paid programing over the Internet, Hollywood’s unions want their share and are worried about being shortchanged on residuals.

Writers Guild of America West president Patric Verrone was the latest to voice these fears, issuing a letter to members Friday that said WGAW and its sister guilds are unwilling to accept the DVD residuals formula, which takes most of the money off the table before sharing a set percentage of gross revenue.

Essentially ABC is applying the less lucrative DVD formula to the downloads but the union is arguing that this is more like TV (which is a more lucrative set of residuals). This is hilarious only because this is neither TV or DVD…

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How Bob Iger Saved Network TV

10/14/2005 - 01:08 PM >> Broadband, Death of TV, Future Formats

Good ol’ Mark Cuban is often a subtle fellow:

Bob Iger has gone contrary to what every current and previous TV network head has and would have done had Bob not turned the industry on its head with his announcement with Apple yesterday. Bob Iger has saved Network TV.

How ?

By completely changing the economic model.

But how do you really feel about this Mark? Stop hiding behind all those fancy words.

Seriously, we agree with you on Bob Iger but this won’t save network television. This is just the biggest nail in the coffin so far. At only $2 a pop, how can Bob compete with smaller production companies with lower overhead?

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It’s All About the Public Relations

10/13/2005 - 08:58 AM >> Death of TV, Tech & Society, Tech Trends

Every once in a while, for our own amusement, we cruise the shady back alleys of the media insiders world. A world where content makers, advertisers and public relations lackeys engage in all sorts of unspeakable acts. We hit the streets so that we can bring you, dear reader, the latest on the seamy underbelly of the media world. You know things are getting weird when media-porn outlets like PR Week say the following:

It is no secret that traditional media have suffered in credibility and reputation over the past few years. While promises by public editors and apologies by editors-in chief for publications’ transgressions have become far too common, some outlets are now considering other ways to regain readers’ trust.

Kerins says media companies are more likely to utilize outside PR firms than in previous years.

“You’re seeing a much greater convergence of public relations in the news media,” he says.

For many media organizations, transparency is a growing trend, says Sam Whitmore, editor of Sam Whitmore’s Media Survey, a website that offers analysis of the industry.

“I think media are trying to figure out a good way to involve readers and listeners in their processes without necessarily handing over the keys,” he says.

To give you some context, this quote was pulled from an article on “PR Trends” where their greatest minds mull over the near future of the PR industry. We find it endlessly amusing that the news industry’s response to the massive drop in quality journalism is to employ PR flacks to “improve their image.”

Most interestingly though is involving the audience “in their processes without necessarily handing over the keys.” This is exactly the dilemma faced by old media as new media begins to rise, there really isn’t a way to imitate the interactivity of the net with one-to-many media like television, newspapers and magazines.

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Video and Podcast Search Engines

10/12/2005 - 02:20 PM >> Broadband, Death of TV, Tech & Society

Search Engine Watch has a great article on the burgeoning field of Video/Audio search:

“Video search is still difficult to use right now,” said Peter Chane, Senior Business Product Manager at Google. “You often can’ t find the video you want. Playing back videos can be a little weird—you can have problems hearing audio with video. And many files might not be Mac-compatible.”

Still, many search engines offer video searching capabilities, including Google Video, Yahoo Video, Singingfish and Blinkx.

The number of places allowing you to upload audio/video has exploded and now the problem is finding the content that you want. [via Smart Mobs]

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New Video iPod: There goes the motherf@#king neighborhood

10/12/2005 - 10:13 AM >> Death of TV, Future Formats, Hack the Planet, The Digital Revolution

In case you live under a rock:

The new iPod is has 16x9 screen, 320x340 pixels and 260,000 colors and does realtime decoding of MPEG4 and H.264 at 30fps. It has video out. The 30GB for $299 and 60GB for $399 will be out next week. The 60GB model is thinner than the current 20GB. The 30GB holds 75 hours of video. They come in white and black. They go on sale late next week—the new tagline is “watch your music.” The new ad has Eminem in silhouette campaign.

Very cute. About the same size and resolution as the new Sony PSPs, good choice. Now let’s hope the screen is as bright and clear. But really, the video iPod isn’t the biggest story here:

iTunes 6. Hey, didn’t they just do 5 like, last month? Video podcasting is here, now. The iTunes store will have 2,000 music video. $1.99 each. Six Pixar short films will be available as well, for $1.99. Each video is the size of six songs.

You can buy TV shows through the iTunes store. Desperate housewives and Lost from ABC—which is owned by Disney. “I know those guys,” says Jobs. Going to offer 5 shows on itunes—Lost, Desperate Housewives, Night Stalker and two Disney Channel shows. You can buy current episodes the day after they are broadcast on the air. Shows are downloaded commercial free, no ads! About a 10-to 20-minute download for one episode. $1.99 per episode of for current and previous season tv shows. Watch them on your computer or iPod.

That’s right. Apple has just brought friggin’ Vodcasting into the mainstream. Hollywood, Apple just invaded your turf. The ball is in your court.

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