Online distribution pulls ahead of film
Digital disrupts entertainment consumption model
Variety.com Feb 09
The entertainment biz will remember 2008 as the year when
global revenues from digital media exceeded revenue generated by movie theaters
and home video combined. In its "Global Media & Entertainment Market Forecast,
2004 - 2012," London research firm Strategy Analytics reported that online and
mobile channels accounted for $90 billion in worldwide revenues; the global
filmed entertainment market generated $83.1 billion.
"We're starting to see now that digital media is becoming a
significant part of revenue for a lot of companies," says Strategy Analytics
director of digital media research Martin Olausson. "A few years back, everyone
was still discussing whether movies would be distributed online. That's not a
discussion anymore."
Broadband downloading and streaming, terrestrial and cable
video-on-demand (VOD), and mobile platforms are now all ways to watch
entertainment content, from feature films and TV shows to
made-for-Internet/mobile programming. Strategy Analytics' astonishing numbers imply that digital
distribution may have already won the day. Schaeffler says. "Technology makes digital
distribution very desirable, and the forthcoming generations will demand it."
=======================================
THIS IS A HUGE CONNECT...THE AMAZON.COM/WITHOUTABOX/IMDB.COM
CONNECT
Amazon’s IMDB Buys Indie Film Site Withoutabox
The Internet Movie Database (www.imdb.com), the Web's most comprehensive and authoritative source of information on
movies, TV, and celebrities and a subsidiary of Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN), today announced it has agreed to
acquire Without A Box, Inc.withoutabox.com), the worldwide media company dedicated to advancing independent film and connecting artists with audiences.
Co-founded in 2000 by David Straus and Joe Neulight, Withoutabox empowers all stakeholders in the independent film
arena, from aspiring and established filmmakers to film festival organizers and audiences. For independent filmmakers,
Withoutabox offers a fully integrated service for submitting films to festivals worldwide and promoting these films directly to
fans everywhere. For film festival organizers, Withoutabox provides tools to manage and promote film festivals online.
WE
HAVE MEMBERSHIP AND AFFILIATIONS WITH ALL 3 OF THESE BIGGIES...
=======================================
"TV will be
based on the Internet; it will be an utterly different thing."
Bill Gates told Capitol Hill March 13,
2008
------------------------------------------------
Newspaper revenues fell by almost one-third in the second quarter of
2009 compared to the same
period in 2008, from $10.1 billion to $6.8 billion, according to the Newspaper
Association of America.
The losses cut across every major advertising category. 8-09
=====================================
In December 2008, CBS Corp.'s chief executive, Leslie Moonves,
told an investor conference that moving the CBS network
to cable would be "a
very interesting proposition." Two days earlier, Jeff Zucker, chief executive of
General Electric Co.'s
NBC Universal, warned more broadly that the entire
broadcast-TV model must change. "Otherwise it will be like the
newspaper
business or the car business," he told investors.
----------------------------------------------------
Video Streams Enjoy Impressive Growth
Although traditional TV analysts claim that online video is still a
sliver of overall video watching, video streaming on the Internet
continues to move forward this summer. Nielsen Co.'s July 2009
VideoCensus says total video streams climbed 31.4% to 11.2 billion,
with a 14.2% increase in unique viewers to 136 million -- per
eMarketer.com.
Viewers' average usage
rose 42.2% to about three-and-a-half hours a month in July. Also,
the average number of streams per viewer witnessed a 15.1% gain, to
82.4 streams per month. Not surprisingly, YouTube continues to be a
dominant force with video streams,
now at more than 7
billion streams and 104 million unique users a month. Hulu is a
distant second, with 383 million streams and 10.3 million unique
viewers a month. Yahoo follows at 265.5 million streams.
Although Hulu has seen major growth in video streams, it still
trails other top 10 video sites when it comes to unique visitors --
Yaho (29.9 million), MSN/Bing (18.0 million), Fox (14.7 million),
and
CNN (11.7 million).
====================================
Hulu Eyes More Live Content
Dave Matthews concert to stream live on June 1
Hulu, home to a growing library of on-demand TV
programming, is seeking to add more live content to its menu.
The site, a joint venture between News Corp, NBC Universal and
Disney, will on June 1 stream a live Dave Mathews Band concert
from the Beacon Theatre in New York from 9:00 -11:30 p.m. EST.
The live-on-the-Web concert is being timed to promote the band’s
upcoming new album Big Whiskey and the GrooGrux King, which is
scheduled to be released June 2.
The live event represents something of a departure for Hulu,
which primarily offers full episodes of current and classic
network TV shows, along with full-length movies. (The site did
stream President Barack Obama’s inauguration live in January.)
Besides the concert, Hulu will begin offering various Dave
Matthews videos on May 28, as well as the documentary Scenes
from Big Whiskey, which chronicles the making of the band’s new
album. The June 1 concert will also be available to viewers on
demand following the live show.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
iTunes Sales Lift Three Acts To The
Billboard 200
February 03, 2009 -
Digital and Mobile
The first three sales weeks of January yielded a striking trend on
the Billboard 200: Each week, an emerging act's new album charted
based solely on digital sales.
Thanks to favorable home-page exposure at the iTunes Music Store,
free downloads, attractive pricing and a traditionally slow sales
period, up-and-coming acts Erin McCarley, Company of Thieves and the
Boxer Rebellion each debuted on the big chart.
============================================
Digital video and audio
cables, similar to the ones that already connect TVs to
DVD players, cable boxes and receivers,
will soon come with a new capability: connecting those devices to
the Internet.
Manufacturers said Thursday that version 1.4 of the HDMI
standard, for High-Definition Multimedia Interface, includes a data
networking feature. That means that a set-top box that connects to
the Internet could share its connection with other devices in the
entertainment center, for easier access to Web video, e-mail and
news, says Steve Venuti, president and CEO of HDMI Licensing.
Devices with HDMI 1.4 ports could show up in small numbers before
the holidays, and in larger volumes early next year, the group said.
New cables will be needed to take advantage of the networking
feature. =
-----------------------------------------------
News Corp. chairman
Rupert Murdoch said on Thursday that the future of newspapers is
digital
Murdoch, in an interview with the N ews
Corp.-owned Fox Business Network, also said that newspapers, faced
with eroding print advertising revenue and circulation, are going to
have to start charging readers on the Web. The News Corp. chief said
newspapers in the future will continue to make money "from our
readers, from our advertisers (but) the newspapers may look very
different.
"Instead of an analog paper printed on paper you may get it on a
panel which would be mobile, which will receive the whole newspaper
over the air, (and) be updated every hour or two," he said. "You'll
be able to get the guts or the main headlines and alerts and
everything on your Blackberry, on your
Palm or whatever, all day long.
--------------------------------------
RAB: Ad Revenues Fall 24% In 1Q
Total radio advertising revenue
declined 24% in the first quarter of 2009 compared to the same
period in 2008, according to the Radio Advertising Bureau, which
released the figures Thursday afternoon. Total revenues amounted to
just over $3.4 billion -- a drop of over $1 billion from the first
quarter of last year, when they amounted to about $4.5 billion.
The precipitous drop suggests that further declines are on the
way, as the radio business reels from the same recessionary trends
that are affecting most other parts of the media.
On the positive side, radio's digital revenues are still growing,
increasing 13% in the first quarter to $101 million. But clearly,
digital is still a very small part of radio's bottom line,
representing just 3% of total quarterly revenues.
-----------------------------------------------------
Limelight Networks® Acquires Mobility and
Monetization Innovator Kiptronic, Inc.
Tempe, AZ – 21 May 2009 – Limelight Networks, Inc. today
announced the acquisition of Kiptronic, Inc., a privately-held
provider of dynamic solutions for device-optimized content delivery
and monetization.
“A sweeping change in consumer behavior is driving a migration of
media consumption from the PC to a wider variety of
Internet-connected and mobile devices. Today, the distribution and
monetization of content on these devices is complex and difficult to
implement in a scalable fashion. The combination of Limelight
Networks’ distributed computing and delivery platform with
Kiptronic’s device-targeting and dynamic ad insertion technologies
will allow us to provide the world’s largest media and entertainment
companies a streamlined and scalable solution to this problem,” said
Jeff Lunsford, chairman and chief executive officer, Limelight
Networks, Inc. “We look forward to working with the talented
Kiptronic team to bring to market additional innovative solutions
for mobile and connected devices that will benefit our customers and
our ecosystem partners.”
----------------------------------------------------
I Want My Web TV, Customers Say
Internet-enabled TV may be only now coming into its own as a
technology, but customers are already showing a great deal of
interest in such products. That's the conclusion of a study released
this week by the Consumer Electronics Association.
According to the study, titled "Net-Enabled Video: Early Adopters
Only?," 14.5 million consumers are considering purchasing an
Internet-capable TV in the next 12 months. This amounts to "about
half" of the potential audience. "As we saw at the 2009
International CES, Internet-enabled devices are taking the consumer
technology experience to the next level, and nowhere is this more
pronounced than with television," CEA's economist and director of
research, Shawn DuBravac, said as part of the announcement.
"Consumers want more from their TV experience and marrying
traditional television with Internet access is providing the next
frontier of the television experience."
myCEA.CE.org
--------------------------------------------------------
Google challenged by new rival with all the answers - Wolfram Alpha
A revolutionary new search engine that computes answers rather
than pointing to websites will be launched officially today amid
heated talk that it could challenge the might of Google.
Wolfram Alpha, named after Stephen Wolfram, the British-born
computer scientist and inventor behind the project, takes a query
and uses computational power to crunch through huge databases.
The service can compute the distance between two cities, the
population of a country at a specific date and the position of the
Space Shuttle at a given moment. The user does not have to search
through links provided by the engine; the answer comes immediately
and, if appropriate, is accompanied by charts or graphs. What it
does that Google, at the moment, cannot do is provide answers to
questions that have not been answered already.
=========================================
The Sorry State Of Broadband
In 2000, the U.S. ranked 5th worldwide in broadband penetration,
with 2.5 broadband lines per 100 residents. At the time, the No. 1
country was
South Korea, with 8.4% penetration. By 2007, however,
the U.S. had slipped to 22nd place, with 21.5 broadband lines per
100 residents, lagging behind countries such as
Bermuda (36.7), South Korea (30.6) and
Japan (22.5).
Those stats were compiled by Free Press for its new 123-page
report
examining the current state of broadband in the U.S.
Not only do penetration rates lag, but service in America is also
more expensive and slower than in many other countries. The average
U.S. price is $53 per month -- more expensive than in 21 other
countries -- while average advertised download speed is 8.9 Mbps,
slower than 13 others. By comparison,
Finland offers
the cheapest service at $31 a month (with advertised
download speeds of 13 Mbps), while the fastest country is
Japan, with an average advertised downstream of 93.7 Mbps (for $34 a
month).
What accounts for this situation? Free Press says "massive policy
failures" of the last eight years are to blame.
Among others, the broadband advocacy group points to a decision by
regulators (later upheld by the
U.S. Supreme Court)
to classify broadband as an "information service" rather than a
communications service. That move meant that
ISPs no longer had to offer wholesale broadband to
competitors -- which dealt "an immediate blow to third-party ISPs
like Earthlink that relied on reasonable wholesale rates" and
"ensured that U.S. consumers would be at the mercy of a duopoly
marketplace," the report states.
------------------------------------------------------
Social Networking Generates Leads, Closes Sales for
Marketers
According to a social media study by Michael Stelzner for the
Social Media Success Summit 2009, 88% of marketers in a recent
survey say they are now using some form of social media to
market their business, though 72% of those using it say they
have only been at it a few months or less.
|
Marketer's Use of
Social Media Tools |
|
Social Media |
% Respondents Using |
|
Twitter |
86% |
|
Blogs |
79 |
|
Linkedin |
78 |
|
Facebook |
77 |
|
YouTube
or other video |
41 |
|
Social bookmark sites |
38 |
|
Forums |
38 |
|
StumbleUpon |
28 |
|
Digg,
Reddit or similar |
26 |
|
FriendFeed |
18 |
|
Source: Social
Media
Marketing Industry Report, March 2009 |
Amazon Posts Profit Gains as Offline Rivals Struggle
Amazon.com has joined Apple among the ranks of technology firms
that are still growing robustly despite a shrinking economy.
Amazon, the online retailer based in Seattle, posted
stronger-than-expected earnings during the slow winter months,
attracting cost-conscious consumers with offers of free shipping
and competitive prices for its wide variety of products.
Amazon’s net profit rose 24 percent, to $177 million, or 41
cents a share, in the quarter ending March 31, up from $143
million, or 34 cents a share, in the same quarter a year
earlier. The company’s first-quarter revenue climbed 18 percent,
to $4.89 billion, slightly surpassing Wall Street’s
expectations. Analysts polled by Thomson Reuters on average had
expected $4.76 billion in revenue.
Some analysts say Amazon has benefited from the downturn,
with struggles at the Borders book chain, the bankruptcy of
Circuit City and turbulence at a rival, eBay, all driving
traffic to Amazon.com. The company said its electronics and
general merchandise sales were up 38 percent, while media sales
rose 7 percent.
“Brick-and-mortar companies are going bankrupt and going out
of business altogether and that is helping Amazon gain market
share,” said Imran Khan, an analyst at JPMorgan.
------------------------------------------
Recession forces new focus
in e-commerce marketing
AP RETAIL WRITER
NEW YORK --
Online retailers are
shifting their marketing from traditional advertising to less
expensive tools like Facebook.com and Twitter and e-mail as they
seek market share or just work to retain customers, according to
an industry study being released Tuesday.
Conducted by
Internet analysis firm Forrester Research for Shop.org - the
online arm of the trade group National Retail Federation - the
survey found that merchants believe online business is better
suited to withstand an economic downturn than physical stores or
catalogs, though they acknowledge challenges for both. The
study involved 117 online retailers polled between Feb. 18 and
April 1.
The companies, which Shop.org didn't name, reported scaling
back hiring and their increasingly expensive search marketing
programs, which include paying for top billing in the results
consumers see for their Web searches. Online merchants whose
business is beating expectations will likely fuel much of the
e-commerce investments in the coming months, the survey found.
"Online retailers want ... to be more efficient in getting a
bigger bang for the buck," said Scott Silverman, executive
director of Shop.org. Developing social media marketing requires
some investment in personnel, he said, but many merchants see
big opportunities to spread a positive message about their brand
for relatively low cost.
-----------------------------------------
More People Are
Using PCs to Time-Shift TV, Skip Ads
Mike Vorhaus on
Digital Communications
Published: May 04, 2009
Despite the level of buzz around ad skipping, not everyone owns a
DVR. Our research shows about one-third of online households have a
DVR (or think they do). But almost everyone owns a PC, and most of
those folks are online. So, actually, they do own a DVR, as a PC
with online video serves that purpose for many people.
In our most recent Magid Media Futures online national study,
completed in April, we surveyed a national sample of U.S. consumers
and identified a sizable population that watches full-length TV
shows online.
The No. 1 reason these people watched TV shows online was to
catch up on shows and shift viewing to a more convenient time. The
only demographic groups that didn't care that much about catching
missed shows were the younger males -- all the other demographic
groups are mostly using online video to catch up or time shift.
Interestingly, another major reason consumers like watching shows
online is that there are fewer and shorter ads. We have confirmed
this in focus groups: Consumers think watching shows online is a
"good deal" in terms of fewer ads.
---------------------------------------------
Count Disney in. The
Walt Disney Co.
is joining NBC Universal, News Corp. and
Providence Equity Partners as a
joint venture
partner and equity owner of the popular online video
aggregator Hulu.
The agreement is still subject to regulatory review, but once it
closes Disney will have three seats on the Hulu board.
-------------------------------------
NEW YORK
Viewers are looking for laughs on their iPhones and
Blackberrys, according to a new study from the Nielsen Co.
Comedy is the top category in mobile video viewing, per the Mobile
Video Report, a quarterly study that measures mobile subscribers who
view TV or video clips on their cell phones, Blackberrys and other
mobile devices. Drawing from a sample of 3,348 viewers,
the report finds that after comedy, weather ranked as the second
highest video category, with sports, music and news/finance filling
out the top five.
Mobile viewing is quickly growing in popularity, with a 20
percent increase in viewership since last quarter’s study. More than
60 percent of those watching video on their mobile devices are below
the age of 35, with 70 percent within the significant 18-49
demographic.
NBC took the top spot in the brand ranking
(with a 40.1 percent share of viewers), followed by Fox (38.3
percent) and
MTV Networks (32.9 percent).
YouTube ranked
fourth in the brand rankings, but came in at the top of the channel
rankings (29.4 percent), followed by the
Weather Channel
(28.9 percent), Fox (27.2 percent) and
Comedy Central (25.8 percent).
Viewers watch mobile
videos for an average 13 sessions each month, at about 15 minutes
per session. Teens under the age of 18 watch significantly more,
averaging 20 minutes
each session for 22 mobile sessions each month.
--------------------------------------
MySpace And Fox Launch UReport
News Corp. brethren Fox News and MySpace on Monday co-launched a
citizen journalism platform named uReport through which MySpace
members can upload photos and videos to Fox News from a computer or
mobile device.
With the service, MySpace members can share content with other
members and become "uReporters" by uploading video and photos tagged
by specific categories, including news, entertainment, and politics.
The initiative is designed to create a larger and more engaged
audience for Fox and MySpace, according to Jeff Misenti, Fox News
vice president of digital. "The MySpace uReport community presents
an extraordinary opportunity to expand our network," he said.
Fox plans to feature select content in programming on Fox News
Channel and FoxNews.com, while its editors have full control of the
MySpace-uReport page.
-----------------------------------------
Online Video To Grow 32% In '09
Despite the economic downturn and its
inevitable strains on overall advertising expenditures, online video
is clearly holding up as a beacon of change and growth, according to
an online video forecast released Monday by Magna.
Magna -- a unit of Interpublic's Mediabrands division --
forecasts that the U.S. market for online video will grow by 32%
this year, rising from $531 million in 2008 to $699 million in 2009.
"While these figures represent downward revisions from our
forecast for the sector in the middle of last year -- prior to the
subsequent escalation of the recession -- these gains will likely
outpace growth rates for most other emerging media platforms," said
Brian Wieser, global director of forecasting for Magna, and author
of the report.
In total, by 2011, Magna expects online video to generate
slightly more than $1 billion in net advertising revenues for video
content. This represents a compounded annual growth rate of 36% for
each year between 2006 and 2011.
----------------------------------------
Facebook Now Twice The Size Of MySpace
Facebook is now nearly twice as big as its
closest rival, News Corp.'s MySpace, Michael Arrington reports. In
December, the social networking leader drew 222 million unique
users, according to comScore, at a 10.8% month over month gain. More
than 1 in 5 people who accessed the Internet in December went to
Facebook.
Arrington points out that Facebook now has nearly 100 million more
worldwide users than MySpace, which after adding 4 million new users
in December had 125 million members total. Facebook also had twice
the number of page views in December: 80 billion versus 43 billion
for MySpace. Arrington notes that only six months ago, the companies
were neck-in-neck.
----------------------------------- 
MySpace co-founder Chris DeWolfe will step down
as chief executive officer of the social- networking Web
site after falling behind rival Facebook Inc. A replacement
wasn’t named. DeWolfe will remain an adviser, Jonathan Miller, the
top digital officer for parent News Corp., said today in a
statement. MySpace President Tom Anderson is in talks with Miller
about a new role.
DeWolfe co-founded MySpace with Anderson in 2003 and ran the
ad-supported company for almost four years under Rupert Murdoch’s
News Corp. Former Facebook Chief Operating Officer Owen Van Natta is
likely to replace DeWolfe, the Wall Street Journal’s All Things D
Web site reported today. Facebook passed MySpace as the top
social-networking site last year.
“I don’t think advertising growth has reached their initial
expectations,” said Michael Morris, a New York-based analyst with
UBS AG. He rates News Corp. stock “neutral” and doesn’t own it. “The
initial hopes of the business probably haven’t been realized.”
April 22 (Bloomberg)
----------------------------------
NBC Universal witnessed
revenue and profitability declines in the first quarter.
Net profits sank 45% to $391 million in the first quarter ending
March 31, from $712 million in the previous period. Revenues slipped
2% to $3.52 billion, from $3.58 billion.
One bright spot: cable revenues at its networks -- USA, SyFy,
CNBC, and MSNBC -- continue to grow at a healthy rate.
"While cable continued to deliver double-digit growth, NBC
Universal had a tougher performance overall, due to a soft
advertising market and fewer major DVD releases compared to a year
ago," said chairman/ CEO Jeff Immelt of General Electric, NBC
Universal's owner, in a release.
------------------------------------
Yahoo has decided to shutter its free
GeoCities Web site hosting service later this year, the company
announced Thursday.
"We have decided to discontinue the process of allowing new
customers to sign up for GeoCities accounts as we focus on helping
our customers explore and build new relationships online in other
ways," Yahoo said in a statement posted on its help page.
The GeoCities help page advises current account users that they
can continue to use the service until the summer. "We'll provide
more details about closing GeoCities and how to save your site data
this summer, and we will update the help center with more details at
that time," the help page states. yahoo.com
Online video continues to
expand -- now up 40% versus the same levels a year ago.
Nielsen Online says March's 9.6 billion streams and 130 million
Web users are a 38.8% hike over March 2008. Total streams for
viewers during March were at an average 74.4 with the total time per
viewer, in terms of minutes, at over three hours per month -- 190.7
minutes.
Nielsen says the total time per viewer in March -- which includes
progressive downloads but excludes video advertising -- was up a big
12.6% versus February. This seems to suggest -- as other research
has found -- that users are watching longer-length videos. YouTube,
the big Internet video site, continues to dwarf the competition in
two big key areas -- 5.5 billion streams and 89.4 million unique
viewers.
Among streams, the next-biggest site after YouTube is hulu.com at
348.5 million. Yahoo comes after that at 231.8 million; Fox
Interaction Media (which includes MySpace)is 207.5 million;
Nickelodeon, 196.1 million; ABC.com, 176.9 million; MSN/Windows
Live, 168.9 million; Turner Sports/Entertainment, 137.6 million;
MTV, 123.8 million; and CNN, 103.5 million.
Among the unique viewers, Yahoo came in second at 24.8 million,
followed by Fox Interactive Media (which includes MySpace) at 14.7
million, and MSN/Windows Live at 12 million. CNN was next at 9.0
million; hulu.com, 8.9 million; ABC.com, 6.9 million; Nickelodeon,
6.4 million; MTV Networks, 6.3 million; and Turner
Sports/Entertainment at 5.8 million.
---------------------------------
HERE GOES BLOCKBUSTER...
Blockbuster Inc.'s auditors believe the Dallas-based movie
rental company might not be generating enough cash to fund its
operations, again raising the possibility Blockbuster might have to
file for bankruptcy reorganization.
In the PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP assessment released as part of
a financial filing, the auditors wrote that Blockbuster's financial
situation raises "substantial doubt about the Company's ability to
continue as a going concern" or viable business. The company had
warned investors last month that auditors were likely to raise those
concerns.
------------------------------------
Google Inc. launched free downloads of licensed
songs in China, while sharing advertising revenue with
major music labels in a market rife with online piracy.
Lee Kai-Fu, president of Google in greater China, said
one reason Google lagged in the mainland search market
was because it did not offer music downloads, the
missing
piece to its strategy in a market where it trails leader
Baidu.com Inc.
"We are offering free, high quality and legal
downloads,"
Lee told reporters. "We were missing one piece ... we
didn't
have music."
The service offers downloads of some 350,000 songs --
from Chinese and foreign artists -- a number that will
rise
to 1.1 million in the coming months, said Gary Chen,
chief
executive of Google's partner www.Top100.cn, a Chinese
music website
co-founded by basketball star Yao Ming.
|
|
-----------------------------------
Everyone On The Planet Tweeting?
Last week we noted that Twitter was going crazy and that we hadn't
even seen March's stats yet. Well now we have. Twitter more than doubled its US unique visitors in March.
That's right. Think back to four long weeks ago when you thought
that Twitter might have peaked and that everyone you knew had jumped
on the bandwagon. Well, now there are twice as many of those people.
9.3 million, in fact.
That means Twitter's growth has accelerated from 33% in January, to
55% in February and now 131% in March. At a growth rate of 131% a
month, literally every single person alive on the planet
will have a Twitter account by the end of this year.
----------------------------------
The Internet has surpassed newspapers as
the main source for national and international news for Americans, according to
a new survey. Forty percent said they get most of their news from the
Internet, up from 24 percent in September 2007, and more than the 35 percent who
cited newspapers as their main news source. AFP Dec. 2008
Online retailer
Amazon.com Inc on Friday
reported its best holiday sales season yet, even as sales and traffic at U.S.
store chains were the weakest in decades, sending its shares up nearly 4
percent. 12/27/08
Best Buy, the largest US consumer electronics retailer,
will launch an investment fund managed by former and current
News Corp internet veterans that will focus on digital media as
it seeks to expand beyond brick and mortar stores.
The
retailer, which invested $2.1bn to launch a joint venture with
the UK’s Carphone Warehouse last year, purchased the Napster
online music subscription service in 2008 for $121m and aims to
invest deeper into the music, video, games and “personal media
management” businesses. “Best Buy has connectivity to hardware
and software manufacturers, (Hollywood) studios, DVDs and cell
phones,” said Ross Levinsohn, a partner at Velocity Interactive
Group, the venture capital firm that will help manage the new
fund.“When you think about the breadth in how they touch
consumers, their interest in digital media makes sense,” Mr
Levinsohn said.
--------------------------------------
Viewers 35+ Drive Long-Form Video Streaming
According to
Nielsen Online,
YouTube
continued to rank as the No. 1 video Web brand with 5.5 billion
total streams in April. Meanwhile, Hulu continued its explosive
growth, increasing 490 percent in total streams year-over-year,
from 63.2 million in April 2008 to 373.3 million in April 2009,
making it the fastest growing brand among the top 10
Jon Gibs, vice president, media & analytics, Nielsen Online,
said "Historically short form, clip-length video has ruled
streaming on the Web... Hulu, along with pure-play providers...
have spent the past two years trying to convince consumers that
the Internet can be a good place to watch full length
programming... April's strong showings... suggest that
consumers are beginning to listen."
------------------------------------------------------
February
U.S. television stations will complete their transition to an all
digital system. And with the transition comes great potential to increase
breadth and capacity of program and service offerings. Broadcasters, advertisers and programmers across all platforms are scrambling
to figure out
how their business will change on February 17, 2009. With this the Digital
Film Festival we will take you there.
---------------------------------------------------
ONLINE ADVERTISING
AD BIZ POISED TO ENTER NEW
FRONTIER--Advertising dollars that routinely would have gone to
broadcast TV in years past
are now going to cable and interactive television, the Internet and even
non-traditional approaches
like event marketing and public relations. "Cable was just coming
out, you
didn't have the Internet--today,
it's very, very difficult because the audience is so fragmented you can't
gather a large number of
bodies easily," said Burtch Drake, president of the American Assoc. of
Advertising Agencies.
And a move towards branded entertainment and product placement is the
industry's way of finding
new approaches to reach consumers...Media Vest's Desmond seea a new
landscape beginning to take
hold within the next 18 to 36 months. "The reality is that consumers
or
strategically based planning
decisions are going to do more to change the traditional TV marketplace
than anything we've seen
in the last 20 years," she said. New technologies like the Internet,
video on
demand and digital video
recorders are changing the TV business every day.
Shoot
Magazine 10/07
Not
surprising the Internet is seen as the bright light in this ultimately
mediocre advertising forecast. While newspapers, magazines and radio
advertising are expected to lose share, "Worldwide Internet ad spending
will climb to $44.6 billion from about $36 billion, increasing its share
of the market to 9.4% from 8.1%," according to the ZenithOptimedia
report.
Dec 07
www.mediapost.com
--------------------------------------------------------------
TV stations could see tougher times
if one research company's advice is heeded. BIGresearch, a Worthington,
Ohio-based consumer research company, says top automotive advertisers are
spending too much on TV compared to the influence that TV has with its
consumers. It says 17% to 18% of consumers are influenced by TV marketing--but
in aggregate, automotive makers spend 40% of their media on TV.
For example, Ford Motor had 41% of its media budget going to TV, according to
the researcher, with 18% of its consumers influenced by TV. All other media
spending figures show that Ford under-spends, compared to their influence.
BIGresearch says 16.5% of Ford's customers are influenced by newspapers, but
that Ford only spends 5.9% of its media on newspapers. With the Internet, 8.4% of Ford's consumers are swayed by Internet sites--but
Ford only gives that media 3.9% of its media dollars. Radio brings 6.7%
influence, but 1.5% of media spend. Outdoor sits at a 12% influence rate, but
Ford only gives it 1% of budget.
===============================================
The Internet
has opened up what is being called “The Wild Wild West” of TV and movies
again. It's almost like
the old hay-day of movie studios where anything goes. For all of us who
missed our chance the first
time around, by not being financially conscious of the possibilities, the
Internet reminds all of
us that everyday there are new possibilities and new opportunities.
Simply stated,
the Internet is the biggest business in the history of the world. It's
bigger than the movie
business, television
business, and record and radio business, and it is growing faster than
any of the
above and is
creating a paradigm shift in the way that people are entertained, the way they buy their
entertainment,
and purchase goods and services. Man is experiencing a cultural and
economic para-
digm shift.
History will continue to be written for then next few years. Now
that the dust has settled
on the Internet
front, we are seeing another huge growth period, especially in the online
music, film and
the purchasing
of these mediums go to the Internet in mass with pay per view, VOD, streaming,
and more.
WITH OUR
SPONSORSHIP PROGRAM
YOU CREATE
A RELATIONSHIP ECONOMY
Social media and
online communities are transforming traditional business functions, from
marketing and human resources to technical support. Through
user-generated content tools and engaging in conversations with their
people - employees, customers, partners, and prospects - companies are
learning that they can drive innovation, build brand awareness, and
energize their audiences and ultimately improve retention, revenue, and
their bottom line.
As you will see from the websites above in the
PRDFF INTERNETWORK,
many that are the top in social networking, we have established links
and pages with these, with each week the InterNetworking will
grow and grow. You
will be connected to a virtual world through network identities, groups,
and connections
to others.
BIG
+ FOR OUR SPONSORS IS THE FACTS
REGARDING DOCUMENTARIES:
VARITY MAGAZINE SAYS: The Film Festival
Summit has seen its attendance double every year
as orgs look to cash in on the festival
craze. The stakes are high and the payoff can be big.
Toronto's
Piers Handling says, "The festival brings
the kind of spending to the city of Toronto that is only bested by
Christmas."
HOLLYWOOD
REPORTER--REPORTS "DOCUMENTARIES HOT ITEMS AT SUNDANCE"
This years documentary
slate at the Sundance Festival, was according to many veteran attendees,
on of the strongest in
recent memory...This years edition of the country's premier festival of indepen-
dent film will be
remembered for documentaries, most of which will sind up on television in the
next
12 to 18 months.
USA TODAY REPORTS-- It is clear that Docs
are big, Documentaries that came out on DVD are
beginning to show up in theaters.
Hollywood is taking notice, and studios are scouring film festivals
for documentaries with breakout potential.
"Documentaries have arrived as a potent MOVIE force.
USA TODAY--There's definitely a sea of
change afoot both in the music and film industry. there may be
two parallel phenomena, but they are working
together very well...the reason is simple, audiences are
starved for quality music...Bob Smeaton,
director of FESTIVAL EXPRESS and THE BEATLES
ANTHOLOGY, If music lovers miss a film
in the theaters, and so many don't even make it there, he
says, they can still buy the DVD and get the
full length version in surround sound on home theater unit."
MUSICAL DOCUMENTARIES: A CRESCENDO OF FILMS, DVDs
THE SURGE OF INTEREST IN
DOCUMENTARY FILMS HAS TAKEN A TUNEFUL
TWIST AS FILMS ABOUT MUSICIANS
AS DIVERSE AS JANIS JOPLIN AND JQAY
ZARRIVE ON MOVIE SCREENS
AND ON DVD TO INCREASING ATTENTION FROM
MOVIE AND MUSIC FANS ALIKE...
MARCH 2008, BILLBOARD MAGAZINE HAD
SIX MOVIE SOUNDTRACKS IN THE
TOP 30 OF THE BILLBOARD TOP 200 Retreating somewhat from
earlier optimistic predictions, newspaper publishers and analysts now
say next year will probably be just as tough for the troubled industry
as 2007. With shareholders staking their hopes on a turnaround in 2008,
this is bad news for newspaper stocks--and may also torpedo major deals
like the planned buyout of
Tribune Co. by real estate billionaire Sam Zell.
Among Teens, a Content Creation Revolution
San Francisco Chronicle
Social networking sites are inciting more teens to create content
online. According to the Pew Internet & American Life Project, nearly
two-thirds of online teens have created something, from personal Web
pages to online videos. The study credits social networks like
MySpace and
Facebook with furthering the trend. More than half of the
survey's respondents said they have a social networking profile.
More
Gray, More Affluent, More Internet Shopping
In the more than
80 metropolitan markets surveyed by Media Audit, a recent study shows
that those who are over age 50 with incomes of $50,000 or more (the
"graying and affluent") have increased from 17.0 million in 2004 to 22.3
million during the past five years. Collectively, the markets surveyed
have an adult population of approximately 142 million.
Bob Jordan, president of International Demographics, producer of The
Media Audit, said "Since 2004 the percentage of ‘graying and affluent'
households has increased from 13.1 percent to 15.7 percent of all
households in the markets (surveyed)... (and) this group is very rapidly
embracing the internet as a shopping medium."
In the prior survey, 50.2 percent had made at least one purchase on
the internet during the previous 12 months. In the latest survey, that
50.2 percent increased to 65.6 percent.
According to Jordan, "The baby-boomers, born between 1946 and 1964,
began impacting this segment of the population in 1996, and their impact
will continue to be felt through 2014."
USA Today in Feb. reported, "In tough times, nostalgia for rosier
days seems to be driving a consumer appetite for retro products and
design...Familiar is cozy, warm and enveloping. And it's working better than anything else right now."
Levi, Coca-Cola, Kodak, Volkswagen and many other brands are using nostalgia to market.
"A lot of brands are going back to their roots," says Karen Marderosian, marketing director
of Volkswagen, North America.
As we blaze at warp speed
into
The Information
Age the way that we are entertained and the way we
live and purchase goods
and services are changing right before our eyes, marketing and merchandising
can be a very exciting and
profitable game. We are actually experiencing a
paradigm
shift, while
it is
taking place, a very unique
wave to ride...edge to cut, future to create. It is what dreams are
made of,
or that spark that men like
Albert Einstein and Thomas A. Edison might have had some flash upon and
chance to ride as they created
inventions that would also change mankind before their eyes. It is
said
that there are a new breed
of producers that are right now be working in their garage and soon they
will
own and run the new entertainment
networks.
The
downside. "The retail stores and traditional distributors are on a path
to destruction," Leigh
says.
"The concept of a prepackaged CD is as dead as Gen. Custer."
LA Times reports
DVD sales can mint studios more money from a film's DVD release
than they do from the
box
office. Warner Bros. Home Video Chief, Warren Lieberfarb, says, "DVD
is the largest source of additional
revenue and profit ever created in entertainment in such a short period
of time." DVDs are
now being shipped
by studios at about twice last years pace. The
DVD explosion is so profitable it has
become one of the few
bright spots for the media industry,
and at the same time the VOD (video on demand), downloads and the
mass migration of the market to
watch movies on your computer, tv via the Internet,
And at the same time the
Internet is evolving, while it is evolving, the paradigm shift is
shifting even more and
at a faster rate than any thing
in the past years we have been seeing the Internet change the music
industry,
news papers, travel agencies,
magazine industry and now the movie and television business will never
be the same... USA Today reports,
"Emerging technology has deeply rattled lots of business models and whole indust-
ries over the
centuries. Electricity doused a booming kerosene business for lamps.
Cars overran the
buggy business.
Digital cameras is doing the same to film. Before television took
America by storm in
the 1940s, consumers
had to pay for their visual entertainment...Just like personal computers
in the
past decade,
TV sets whooshed into the market, bringing new, mind-blowing electronic
capabilities into
homes.
Before TV, people had to pay for visual entertainment. As with file
sharing and music, advert-
ising-supported
TV allowed people to suddenly see news and entertainment for free.
Weekly atten-
dance at movie
theaters dived from 80 million in 1946 to 12 million by 1972, according
to The American
Film Industry
The
number of films made dropped from 445 a year in the 1940s to 150 in the
1970s. The
studio system
fell apart. Not until the 1990s--and ironically, the boom in income
from video rentals--did
the movie industry
truly recover from the blow of massively free entertainment. In other
words, it took
Hollywood almost
50 years to figure out how to deal with TV.
Amazon.com shipped
out more than a million copies of the new Harry Potter book, making that
day
the largest
distribution day of a single item in e-commerce history. More than
760,000 advance copies
were ordered
from Amazon.com's U.S. Web site, up from 350,000 for "Goblet," and orders
on its over-
seas Web sites
brought the total to more than 1.3 million.
News reports
indicate that Federal Express is experiencing a huge rise in the value
of its company
stock as a direct
result of commerce on the Internet. Powerful corporations like AT&T,
Disney, General
Electric, Microsoft,
MCA Universal, Sony, Time Warner and IBM are investing billions of
dollars into
the Internet.
Reports indicate that there were more millionaires under thirty created
on the Internet
than through
all other areas of business combined throughout the entire economic history
of this
country.
Amazon.com has the corporate wealth of Texaco Oil Corp.
The next big
shift will occur when the vast majority of consumers no longer need computers
to go on-
line and this
is taking place now with mobile, the iphone and the Internet, of course. Barbara Walters
asked Mr. Eisner of Disney
a couple years back, "What is the
future?" Eisner said, "The Internet,
and the merging of the
computer and the television."
A shift that
we are seeing is that the Internet companies are becoming bigger and with
more capitol
than the television
and movie companies. While at the same time we are seeing the entertainment
business shift
gears and now target hundreds of millions of dollars even billions of dollars
into the
Internet.
Just because Hollywood has not figured the Internet out does not mean it
is not happening
"Bigger than
Dallas," as ole J.R. would say.
THE WRITING IS ON THE WALL...OR THE SCREEN ON THE WALL
Consumers Who Watch TV Online More Engaged
Than TV-Set Watchers, Simmons Finds
by
Mark Walsh, Monday, Dec 24, 2007 7:00 AM ET
CONSUMERS ARE
47% MORE ENGAGED in ads that run with television programs that
they view online than those watched on a TV set, according to new
research findings. A cross-media study by Simmons, a unit of Experian
Research Services, also found that viewers are 25% more engaged in the
content of TV shows that they watch online than on a TV.
Newspapers And Local Home Magazines Losing
Real Estate Advertising To Web
According to a new release from Borrell Associates, real estate
agents, who initially tried to appease home sellers by advertising more
on traditional channels, this year cut their print budgets and pushed
more money into the Web. Total ad spending on real estate has declined 3
percent this year, while spending on the online segment has grown 25.8
percent, hitting $2.6 billion. Borrell projects online
real estate advertising to grow at 12.4 percent next year while
total
real estate advertising continues to compress. In three years,
says the report, agents and brokers will be spending more ad dollars
with online media than with the newspaper.
Red Ink Forecast For Newspapers Next Year
Retreating somewhat from earlier optimistic predictions, newspaper
publishers and analysts now say next year will probably be just as tough
for the troubled industry as 2007. With shareholders staking their hopes
on a turnaround in 2008, this is bad news for newspaper stocks--and may
also torpedo major deals like the planned buyout of
Tribune Co. by real estate billionaire Sam Zell.
Our
Digital Film Festival and the Branding you will receive via the new
multiplatform
avenues of
the Internet and the Digital Age are not presented every day now...
don't miss
getting your BRAND in our Brand-Wagon...
DISNEY TAKES BIG PLUNGE INTO
ONLINE VIDEO...They are headed into the production of
shorts, VOD, and creating
short form shows for the Internet.
Los Angeles Leads Nation in HD-Capable Homes
Nielsen Co. said Tuesday that 13.7% of TV households in the U.S. are
equipped with an HDTV and HD tuner capable of receiving signals in HD,
while 11.3% are equipped with an HD television and HD tuner and receive
at least one HD network or station.
Los Angeles has the highest penetration of HD-capable homes, or
20.4%, and New York has the highest penetration of HD-receivable homes,
17.5%.
"The only
way to succeed in the burgeoning world of scripted broadband
entertainment is to
embrace a
new economic paradigm that has virtually nothing to do with the fat cat
ways of
Hollywood"...Eisner is testing the 'quality on a shoestring' model via
Vuguru...one of his
new
projects was launched on Myspace, cost $2,300 to produce each 90 seconds
episode. Michael Eisner
“We are seeing profound changes in
consumer behavior and we need to re-engineer our
business models,” he
said. “But change often needs a catalyst. Last November we got one.” Jeff Zucker
GET ON BOARD NOW AND RIDE THE INTERNETWORK OF
SITES FOR SIX MONTHS
PRE
FESTIVAL AND 3 MONTH POST FESTIVAL. MAKE NOTE OF THIS!!!!!!
YOU ARE
GETTING 9 MONTHS OF LOCAL, NATIONAL AND WORLD WIDE
ONLINE ADVERTISING...
NOT TO MENTION THE ASSOCIATION WITH SUCH A CLASSIC
AND CUTTING EDGE
EVENT, CONTENT FOR YOU SITES VISITORS.
PASO DIGITAL FILM FESTIVAL
Buffalo Benford Productions, LLC
Paso Robles and Hollywood, California
805-461-4911--------323-850-8919
prfilmfest@gmail.com
    
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