I’ve been preaching this idea for a while now…that everyone and every brand has the opportunity to become their own “broadcast network” to create content that is not just a “one off”, a spot or infomercial, but regularly planned and scheduled editorial and advertorial content related to their personal or company brand. The idea is finally sinking into the collective conscience. I’m always interested to talk with individuals and companies who are interested in creating their own video programming but don’t quite no how to get it off the ground.

- Brian

We Are a World of Fledgling TV Stations

November 15, 2011 12 Comments and 0 Reactions

In the old Weird Al Yankovic movie, UHF (amazon affiliate link), the loose premise of the movie is that Al inherits a UHF tv channel that’s failing, and has to turn the ratings around to save the station. Soon, all kinds of strange shows come into existence, such as “Wheel of Fish,” a game show where you compete to win various fish (red snapper. Very tasty!). Their winning hit is a children’s show run by Stanley Spudowski, the station’s janitor (played by a pre-racist Michael Richards), with bits like letting kids drink from a fire hose.

It dawns on me that we are a world of fledgling tv stations.

Programmer’s Guides

People don’t exactly know what to share on Twitter, Facebook, Google+, but we know we’re supposed to share something, because that’s what everyone else is doing. The last five posts I put up on Google+ at the time this article was written were:

1. A reshare of an interview on how to use Google+ for business.
2. A post about which video equipment I use to shoot my videos.
3. A movie trailer for the upcoming Hunger Games movie.
4. An announcement of doing 30 Days of Paleo with my girlfriend, Jacqueline Carly.
5. A link to my blog post from yesterday.

Look at this, it’s almost thematic, except for the movie trailer. But that’s not typical for me. I’m just as willing to share a bunch of funny things or some comic book stories, or whatever else catches my fancy, because I, like several others, are still experimenting with what will make my TV station work.

Are You a Show or a Station?

When we think about programming our fledgling TV stations, I believe there are some differences from how the mainstream has done it for so many years, but also some similarities. First, and I suppose this should be answered before you go much further, are you a station or are you just one show? If you’re one show, then you should consider keeping your programming much tighter. You should consider making only content that appeals to the kinds of people who will watch that kind of show. If you’re a show about cooking, then post cooking content and pretty much only cooking content.

If you’re a station, then you have some flexibility. But even then, you might think about how this all lines up, but be just as wary as mainstream TV stations have become about boxing yourself in. There are several programs on the History Channel that don’t smack to me of history. AMC runs two or more original shows that aren’t American Movie Classics. So, be wary of getting too stuck in the premise of what your station airs.

The Goal of Your Station or Show

At the base of it all, what’s the goal of your station or your show? What are you trying to accomplish? Guy Kawasaki describes his method of populating his tweets and Google+ posting as being part NPR and part QVC. In recent months, he’s said more that he’s NPR, but with pledge drives. And this fits brilliantly with what his goals are for his business.

If I answered this question myself, my goals are what they’ve always been in this space: find useful/helpful material and share it with people, while also making myself available for further business opportunities. As a professional speaker and educator, a good part of my business comes from showing people that I have some unique perspectives for their business, and that I can help them attain business value from what I know how to do. To demonstrate that on social channels, I share some of my own information, but also points of interest with others. That’s not always how I use Google+ right now, but that’s because I’m still testing out the medium so that I can better inform others how it works.

Build Your Own Station

With that in mind, how do you view your own media making? Do you worry that you should be more buttoned up and stuck on one topic? (Hint: you don’t have to be – the new world likes humans more than shows, as my friend Steve Garfield says quite famously: “I subscribe to people.”) And what do you think your show should do for your audience, and ultimately, for you?

I’m tuned in for your answers.

Disney and News Corp. say they will hold on to the pioneering streaming-media company as an effort to find a buyer abruptly ends.

Hulu’s months-long effort to find a buyer has been unsuccessful.

our editor recommends

Yahoo Withdraws Hulu Bid (Report)

Owners of the popular company that lets users watch TV shows on-demand and online said late Thursday they have “terminated the sale process.”

News Corp., Disney and Providence Equity Partners., along with Hulu senior management, issued a joint statement saying, in part, “Our focus now rests solely on ensuring that our efforts as owners contribute in a meaningful way to the exciting future that lies ahead for Hulu.”

NBCUniversal, also a partner, was not mentioned in the statement, probably because it relinquished any management responsibilities it may have had as one of the conditions for governmental merger approval with Comcast.

Hulu announced a couple of months ago that it was initiating a bidding process and analysts had speculated the company might fetch from $2.5 billion-$3 billion, though Thursday’s acknowledgment that the effort has been abandoned suggests that would-be buyers weren’t willing to spend quite that much money.

“Since Hulu holds a unique and compelling strategic value to each of its owners, we have terminated the sale process and look forward to working together to continue mapping out its path to even greater success,” the companies said in their joint statement Thursday.

<< Back to MediaPost

VidBlog

AOL Video Keeps Hangin’ On, Producing 15+ Original Web Series

Gavin O’Malley, Oct 03, 2011 01:52 PM

Last we checked, AOL was still hanging its hat on the whole “content company” thing. (Never mind that it’s producing no notable fare — of the genius or blockbuster variety; its largest acquisition to date is more aggregator than creator; and, with the flip of a switch, Facebook just established a far bigger reach for premium media.) Forging ahead, AOL just debuted a new slate of original programming spanning more than 15 Web series — from Heidi Klum’s guide to fabulous living to Mark Burnett’s abridged takes on literary classics — each of which will be programmed and distributed across AOL Huffington Post Media Group sites. To more effectively monetize the lot, AOL has also tied up with Publicis Groupe’s VivaKi to explore new and improved ad models. Per the new partnership, AOL plans to dive even deeper into VivaKi’s ongoing research effort, The Pool, which conducts research and testing in the online video space. In its first three waves of research, or “lanes,” the ASq — which lets viewers choose the ad they want to watch — was selected as the most superior online video ad model, even out-performing pre-roll ads. By VivaKi’s count, ASq has so far certified 15 publishers, including AOL; has supported more than 150 client campaigns across 35 advertisers; and garnered more than 400 million impressions. Going further, VivaKi and AOL hope to identify other formats that provide more personalization and social components within the online video user experience. AOL Video has established itself as one of the top-10 video platforms online with 43.9 million unique viewers and 403.6 million U.S. streams per month, according to AOL, citing comScore data. Unfortunately, AOL’s track record with innovative ad models is spotty at best. Take Project Devil, a large-ad format with interactive panels that dominate a Web page, and one of CEO Tim Armstrong’s greatest gambles. Despite his best efforts, Reuters recently reported that publishers have been slow to adopt the format. According to Tracey Scheppach, VivaKi’s EVP, Innovations Director and co-founder of The Pool, the first model that will go into field trial testing consists of a pre-roll overlay within a video player. It gives the viewer an option to click and expand the ad into a branded toolbar, which provides viewers with multiple ways to interact with the brand. The second model is a slate ad format, which asks whether the viewer would like to watch a full :30 ad or a :15 ad, and then answer a question immediately following the ad. The third and final model is a pre-roll overlay that provides buttons for Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and other social platforms. To reinforce the sharing option, this model will also include a billboard at the end of the pre-roll or at the end of the content. This lane is expected to kick off in November, and will be open to all VivaKi clients. According to Scheppach, results are expected by early 2012, while official names will be given to the three models during process.

HealthiNation Lands on Roku; Now #3 in Health Vertical Due To Syndication Strategy

---

Tuesday, September 27, 2011, 10:15 AM ET
posted by: Will Richmond

Health and lifestyle video creator HealthiNation is announcing its availability on Roku devices this morning. The move extends HealthiNation’s content syndication approach which helped place it third in comScore’s Video Metrix ranking of health-related sites last month. HealthiNation racked up 3.1 million unique visitors, putting it ahead of WebMD and Everyday Health, and trailing only 5Min and HealthGuru. As Raj Amin, HealthiNation’s CEO told me last week, the company gains the bulk of its traffic through its third-party syndication network of approximately 25 partners.

HealthiNation is another example of succeeding in the “syndicated video economy,” where content providers are more focused on deep content integrations with relevant sites than on driving traffic to their own destination. Doing this right isn’t trivial though; as Raj pointed out, it’s not enough to just hand off content to a partner and expect results. HealthiNation has created systems and tactics to pursue syndication from its inception, customizing for each partner where necessary. For example, for health videos that carry pharmaceutical ads, it uses a pop-up player so that the ad is a adjacent only to HealthiNation content that the brand has deemed as safe.

Confirming what I’ve heard from others that have done Roku integrations, Raj reported that it was a relatively smooth process. One big benefit is that HealthiNation can serve ads directly into its programs viewed on Roku as opposed to needing to hard-code the ads into the content which increases work and reduces flexibility. As Roku and other connected devices gain more access to high-quality content like HealthiNation’s videos, they’ll continue fragmenting traditional TV audiences.

Exclusive: Tremor Video’s “Video Hub” Analytics Platform Now Available for 3rd Party Use

---

Monday, October 3, 2011, 09:46 AM ET
posted by: Will Richmond

Tremor Video is announcing later this morning that its Video Hub in-stream video ad analytics platform is now available for brands and agencies to license for use with any 3rd party ad server, ad network or publisher. Tremor unveiled Video Hub in May and since then over 200 brands and agencies have used it with Tremor’s own ad server on its ad network as the company finished up development. Anthony Risicato, Tremor’s GM for Video Hub told me last week that reactions from these early users have been positive and they’ve been eager to expand their use of Video Hub to also track and measure the effectiveness of non-Tremor elements of their video ad campaigns.

Video Hub allows brands and agencies to gain greater insight into their campaigns’ performance by tracking a variety of “signals” or variables and then reporting on how each one is impacting specific brand goals. This broadens brands’/agencies’ focus beyond the traditional content provider/publisher environment. Video Hub still tracks the impact of where video ads run, but other signals as well such as content category, geo, time of day, day of week, video view history, frequency, demo, browser type and operating system.

Video Hub then scores how each of these signals impacts campaign goals including reach, frequency, time spent, brand lift, engagement, click-throughs and conversion along with an overall view of the campaign’s performance, all in real-time. With the data in hand, brands and agencies can re-allocate campaign spending to optimize the specific goals they’re pursuing. Anthony said sophisticated brands and agencies have been startled by the level of detail the Video Hub dashboard contains, which they can now leverage across all of their video buys.

Video Hub was set up as a separate division of Tremor Video last February to ensure data privacy.  Video Hub is yet another example of how the online video ad industry is continuing to mature, offering buyers better tools to gauge their spending effectiveness and improve accountability. These are the kinds of optimization building blocks necessary to expand the market and lure over more traditional TV dollars.

In addition to Video Hub’s wider availability, Tremor is also announcing Video Hub Marketplace today, which is a self-service platform for earlier-stage and regional video advertisers to buy inventory on Tremor’s network and others. It includes a set of baseline reporting capabilities available in the full Video Hub platform.

Continuing the process of cleaning up its brand image since the Deepwater Horizon oil spill last year, BP is producing a new short video series on YouTube, according to a reported by ClickZ. The eight videos that have been released to-date have portrayed Gulf Coast lifestyles in the on-going effort to revitalize Gulf Coast tourism. The “My Gulf” initiative will total 28 episodes and also includes display ads on YouTube, 60 second TV spots and TV ads.

Universal Cable Productions is a growing part of the NBC Universal family best known for creating popular shows for Syfy and USA Network (including Battlestar Galactica, Eureka, Psych, Royal Pains, Law & Order: Criminal Intent, and more). This particular arm of NBCU is looking to expand into short-form content in the near future. More specifically, Universal Cable Productions is launching a digital studio which will create both original web series and digital content derivative of its pre-existing TV properties.

A television network/studio entering the digital marketplace isn’t anything new, but Comcast shuttered the NBC Universal Digital Studio (which was behind online originals like FCU: Fact Checkers Unit and CTRL) earlier this year. That makes this story particularly interesting.

In an Ad Age article from last July, an NBC Universal spokeswoman explained Comcast’s decision to close the digital studio in the following terms: “Going forward we plan to focus our digital efforts and investment on content that’s supportive of our on-air programs, providing our audience with additional content that further engages them in our shows.”

The forthcoming UCP Digital Studio will create derivative content, but according to this job posting, the new entity will also create original web series, which appears to go against the rationale for shutting down the original NBC Universal Digital Studio in the first place.

So, what gives? I’m not sure. But, given the NBC powers that be want to focus more on derivative programming, it is possible they simply tapped a division within the company with a good track record in the genre (after all, UCP was responsible for the Streamy Award-winning series Battlestar Galactica: The Face of the Enemy and has a history of creating programming with a cult following) and the development of original web series will be far less of a focus. It’s also possible NBC Universal wants to give the whole digital studio business another go with a brand new team.

Regardless of the reasoning, details are scarce. It will be interesting to see how Universal Cable Productions moves forward. Will the derivative content be used to keep audiences interested between hiatuses and help create a flow of constant content? Will they be as good as The Office‘s companion web series? Will original series be used as backdoor pilots? Stay tuned.

eBay Motors Launches Web-Based Show

Sep 23, 2011 05:44 PM

eBay is launching “World’s Fastest Car Show” — an original video series for the eBay Motors site and mobile application. The show — the first originally produced media content for eBay Motors — is also the first to be featured in any of eBay’s mobile applications, according to the company. The series is hosted by former 24 Hours of Le Mans winner and FIA GT2 World Champion Justin Bell. Steve Yankovich, vice president of mobile at eBay, says the goal is to “interact with these enthusiasts on an even deeper level by providing compelling, meaningful content within the app itself, and also through the eBay Motors Web site.” There will be two versions of each weekly episode — one produced for the eBay Motors mobile app, the other for the site. –Karl Greenberg