Archive for December, 2009

The New Year is coming and that means new technology. Next week is the Consumer Electronics Show and as expected 3D HD technology will be one of the big topics. In a press release today, DirecTV has announced that in 2010 they will be launching the USA’s first 3D HD broadcast channel. The official announcement will be made next week at the CES show, but the company plans to launch a new satellite into orbit tonight, which will bring several HD channels as well as the new 3D channel. The satellite will be fully operational in March and will begin broadcasting shortly after. The new channel will have an assortment of movies, sports, and other programs in 3D. The company also claims that all broadcasting is with in the 3D standard that was released a few weeks ago. The good news is that current subscribers who have DirecTV’s HDTV box will receive free upgrades to display the 3D channel. The bad news is that in order to watch the 3D HD channel, customers will have to go purchase one of the new 3D HDTVs that are also expected to launch at CES. This is what makes a lot of people concerned, especially since their were record sales this holiday season for HDTV purchases.

Apple is eliciting tentative interest from some networks in its proposal to offer a TV subscription package via the Internet.

Theoretically, customers would be able to tune in online, allowing them to cancel their cable or satellite subscriptions.

ABC and CBS are among the networks that are considering joining the Apple venture, people close to the talks said Monday night. The people requested anonymity because they were not authorized by their companies to comment on confidential talks. They said that the talks were at a very early stage.

ABC is a unit of the Walt Disney Company, which could also make two of its cable channels, ABC Family and the Disney Channel, available through the proposed service. The CBS Corporation owns half of the CW network, a smaller broadcaster that could also join. Spokesmen for CBS and Disney declined to comment.

The Wall Street Journal reported Monday night that some other major TV companies, including the News Corporation, which owns Fox, and Turner Broadcasting, which owns CNN and TNT, were more wary of Apple’s initial overtures.

Broadband Internet subscriptions to TV networks could potentially destabilize the bedrock of the television business, which relies on subscribers paying for dozens of bundled channels.

The blog All Things D reported last month that Apple was proposing a $30-a-month supplement to its iTunes service to the networks. The networks would receive monthly payments from Apple.

Disney is seen as a possible partner because Apple’s chief, Steven P. Jobs, is a board member and because it was the first company to sell single TV episodes on iTunes four years ago.

The major broadcasters, and some cable channels, now sell episodes for $1.99 or $2.99 on iTunes. Among the most often purchased shows this year on iTunes were “Gossip Girl,” on the CW network; “NCIS,” on CBS; and “FlashForward” and “Grey’s Anatomy,” both on ABC.

Subway and MTV Networks have forged a partnership to bring emerging artists, comedians and musicians to a wider audience through a digital marketing program being promoted as “Subway Fresh Buzz.”

A story in Marketing Daily reveals the program, which will feature profiles, performances and exclusive content from 20 performers, will be anchored by SubwayFreshBuzz.com and MTVIggy.com, and will be promoted through the MTV Network of Web sites and digital properties, including social media platforms.

From Market Daily:

“This taps into our consumers’ passion points of music and entertainment,” Karie Ford, vice president of marketing for Subway Franchise Advertising Fund Trust, tells Marketing Daily. “Social media is a great outlet for us to push our message out, and we’re excited to use it.”

A video on the site introduces several of the artists who will be profiled through the three-month program. Split in two halves, the video shows the artists working and conversing about their craft. The site has launched with profiles of Keiji Ando, a sneaker painter; Jennifer Chung, an online singing sensation; indie rock band Xylos, pop trio Pow Wow!; and online comedy team The Fine Brothers. Two new profiles will be added each week through February.

YouTube-backed video site Vevo is now live after a star-studded launch eventin New York City.

Celebrities like Lady Gaga, Adam Lambert, Bono, Pete Wentz, and Mariah Carey joined Google CEO Eric Schmidt in Manhattan to launch the new music video Web site.

Vevo.com currently has 14,675 videos from 5,191 artists in more than 20 categories: alternative, blues, children’s music, Christian and gospel, classical, comedy/humor, country, easy listening, electronic/dance, holiday, jazz, Latino, pop, R&B/soul, rap/hip-hop, reggae, rock, soundtrack, spoken word, world, and other.

Users have the option to create playlists with up to 75 videos. Almost 800 playlists have already been created.

Plans for Vevo were first announced in April with YouTube and Universal Music Group as the founding partners. YouTube described Vevo as a “premium online music video hub” that will be powered by YouTube’s video technology. Users can access the content via Vevo.com or through a new Vevo YouTube channel, which will include a Vevo-branded embedded player.

Sony Music Entertainment joined the venture in June, and AT&T signed on in October. Abu Dhabi Media Company also joined as a founding shareholder that same month, contributing a reported $300 million.

Earlier this month, Vevo announced a content deal with CBS Interactive Music Group, which will provide users with access to CBS properties like Last.fm and more than 90 CBS Radio music stations beginning next year.

On Monday, EMI Music said it would share content from its labels like Astralwerks, Blue Note, Capitol and Virgin, as well as the independent artists and labels represented by EMI Label Services and EMI’s Caroline Distribution unit.

Is behavioral targeting the answer?

Consumers worldwide surveyed for Synovate’s “IN:FACT global study on media and advertising” were not very ad-friendly. Two-thirds thought there were too many ads on TV, and 39% said the same of the Internet.

North American respondents were trying harder to get away from advertising, rather than looking at ads as interesting items to share or discuss with friends. More than four in 10 US consumers said they were skipping ads on TV and the radio as well as avoiding Websites with intrusive ads more in 2009 than they were the year before.

When asked about positive ad-related activities, such as searching for advertisements online, sharing and discussing ads with friends, or following brands on Facebook and Twitter, responses were in the single digits. Most consumers reported never doing any such activities.

Behavioral targeting, because of its ability to improve ad relevance, is billed as a way to combat such ad fatigue. As eMarketer senior analyst David Hallerman notes, the technology will only come under further scrutiny due to privacy concerns, which make consumers resistant and will require transparency from marketers.

When Synovate surveyed consumers worldwide about targeted television and Internet advertisements, explaining that behavioral targeting would increase ad relevance, 42% of those polled responded positively.

“This form of behavioural targeting is something that many media owners and advertisers would like to be able to implement and our survey indicates that a substantial proportion of people would be willing to accept it,” said Philip Shaw, Synovate director, in a statement.

But the majority of those who were up for receiving behaviorially targeted ads insisted that the information collected not be personally identifying. Respondents in the US and Canada were among those most concerned about privacy issues, and most likely to reject behavioral targeting on that basis.

The Web is changing before our eyes. Traffic to almost every major media and portal site has been in a free-fall since September 2008, according to Nicholas Moerman, a planning intern with Proximity in London. This begs the question: If we are spending more time on the Web, not less, just where did our attention go? The answer is, unsurprisingly, social networking sites. According to Moerman’s analysis, they buck the trend.

Social networking is on a tear. Other than Google, few sites loom larger today in brokering traffic and attention flows than Twitter and Facebook. The New York Times reported recently that Twitter will soon become one of its top 10 traffic drivers. Facebook alone grabs 25% of the entire Web’s page views, according to an analysis by Perry Drake of Drake Direct.

To date, however, social networking has largely remained a two-foot experience. We engage using our PCs or, increasingly, via mobile devices. This, as a result, means that social networking has largely siphoned time and attention away from other online media, while leaving TV relatively unscathed. That’s all about to change.

A race is underway to turn social networking into an engaging 10-foot experience–one that we interact with via TVs. The technology has been in place for years. However, the price of Internet-connected HDTVs was, until recently, out of reach for most. No longer. High-definition TVs were among the top sellers on Black Friday, according to ShopperTrak RCT Corp. And just in time, the major social networks are racing to make the entire experience more interactive via number of channels–not just cable TV, but gaming consoles too.

Television inherently has been a social experience for decades, dominating water cooler conversations worldwide. But as social networking enters the living room via embedded Twitter and Facebook streams and more, some observers see it changing the live experience, which has largely remained passive. This potentially could shake up the millions of dollars spent on TV advertising, while ushering in new ways to reach both women and men.

Robert Tercek, president of digital media for OWN: The Oprah Winfrey Network, a joint venture between Discovery Communications and Oprah Winfrey launching January 2011, sees social networking immediately adding value to the traditional viewing experience–with women leading the way. He believes that now is the time to act, with a flood of applications and widgets that connect directly to the Web from TVs.