Looking to further expand its digital footprint, Discovery Communications has entered into an agreement to buy Web video programmer Revision3. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed, but previous reports put the price between $30 million and $40 million.

A top digital video production company, Revision3 boasts more than 23 million monthly unique viewers across 27 digital channels — and that’s only the beginning, according to Jean-Briac (JB) Perrette, Chief Digital Officer at Discovery Co. “We look forward to cultivating more original content,” he said.

Heading into upfront season, Discovery Co. is touting its own online video successes. With video streaming on its Web properties up 70% in 2011, Perrette said he wanted to capitalize on the growing demand for such programming. San Francisco-based Revision3 reported ad revenue growth of 53% last year.

While Revision3′s programs are hosted by “online celebrities” — including bloggers, Twitter stars and YouTube — vloggers — its content aligns well with Discovery’s key areas of interest, including technology, cooking and popular science.

The company has also grown its YouTube subscriber base to more than 4.5 million people — representing a 400% annual gain.

Along with YouTube, Revision3 maintains distribution partnerships with more than 40 other partners, including iTunes, Google, AOL, Yahoo, TiVo, Roku, Boxee, CNET and Zune.

Online ad spending grew 22% to $31.7 billion last year, according to the Interactive Advertising Bureau, with online video pushing ahead at an impressive 29% growth rate. Likely as a result, independent Web video production companies are becoming a rare breed. Before this latest deal, YouTube paid a reported $30 million to $40 million for rival video content company Next New Networks last year.

Along with investing further in Discovery.com and TLC.com, Discovery Co. has pursued growth by scooping up Petfinder.com, TreeHugger.com and HowStuffWorks.com.

To date, Revision3 has raised $10 million in two rounds from Greylock Partners, with additional funding from Marc Andreessen and Mark Cuban.

 

 

 

Internet-Video ‘NewFront’ Aims to Disrupt TV Upfront

Digitas-Led Endeavor Looks to Capture Big-Marketer Attention

Published: March 11, 2012

Web video is getting what it has always wanted, or at least what it thinks it wants: an “upfront” to rival traditional TV’s.

The Digital Content NewFronts, as the series of presentations April 19 to May 2 is being called, won’t play out like TV’s — in which most ad dollars are put down in advance of the season to follow. Instead, participants, including YouTube, Yahoo, Hulu, AOL and Microsoft, hope to get into the minds of brands and agencies when they’re opening their checkbooks for TV buys.

John McCarus, Digitas

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“It won’t be like, ‘Let us show you everything and let us sell it to you right now,’” said Adam Shlachter, managing partner of Group M’s MEC Global. Rather, he said, “portals and big publishers are trying to get people talking bigger, earlier about digital content.”

An upfront for digital video is well-timed, as traditional TV viewing fragments. While more people are watching overall, the biggest shows reach smaller audiences. Meanwhile, rising TV-ad costs have marketers looking to digital to lower media expenses.

Web companies are betting that original content will send dollars their way. AOL and Yahoo have renewed their commitments to content, Hulu is increasing its investment in original shows, and Google’s YouTube is pouring $100 million into 96 original channels just now getting off the ground. Last week, the NewFronts picked up key new partners, including Vevo, Digital Broadcast Group and NBC Universal, which wants to draw attention to iVillage, Fandango, XFinity and Daily Candy.

Stitching the confederation together required some diplomacy. Publicis Groupe’s Digitas spearheaded the NewFronts — would execs from competitive agencies attend an event co-founded by a rival? The answer appears to be yes, in part because the other founding partners reached out to holding companies to let them know that Digitas would have no bigger role than producing its own “NewFronts” event April 26. Talks are on to enlist other agencies in NewFronts planning going forward.

Then there were the disparate agendas of the participants themselves: Who gets to have an upfront of their own and who’s merely a component of another’s pitch? YouTube, for example, wants to present its partners exclusively but won’t have time to highlight its channels in its 90-minute presentation. So can individual channels hold their own events? Only if they fit the criteria for participation: having exclusive original content and a history of distributing it at scale. That rules out some high-profile production companies that might like their own showcases but won’t block participation from some indie startups such as Revision 3, Break.com or My Damn Channel. They haven’t signed on but are considering it.

The five founding partners agreed to kick in $45,000 to cover costs of promotion and the website. They also have veto power over other presenters and “market partners,” which pay $10,000 to have their events included on the official schedule and promotional materials.

All of them want to make news at their upfronts and are closely guarding what programming they plan to unveil. Some want to make overt pitches against TV. “We’re going way ahead of the broadcast upfronts and really challenging the brands to shift the dollars to where the eyeballs are today, not where they were yesterday,” said Vevo sales chief David Kohl.

Others are more focused one another. “We already produce nine of the top 10 shows on the internet,” said Mickie Rosen, Yahoo senior VP-head of content. “We have more unique views on our shows than Hulu has on its site. It’s our chance to retell that story.”

Yet the biggest question is whether web video should be emulating TV at all. The best thing Universal McCann Chief Media Officer David Cohen could say about “taking a legacy model and applying it to digital” is that it “isn’t the most depressing thing.”

The reality is that conversations about online advertising over the next year would be better in the fall, when agencies have a keener sense of their clients’ budgets and marketing priorities. Conducting talks in the spring, as traditional TV does, assumes that the seller has enough leverage to make the deals happen ahead of time. “If there is true scarcity we need to put our money down, but we want to make sure it’s real and not fictitious,” said Mr. Cohen.

Yet content providers feel the imperative to simply get in the heads of agency folk and brands before they spend $9 billion on broadcast TV. “The media and advertising community around this time of year is in a mindset of planning billions of dollars for the next 12 months,” said Hulu sales chief JP Colaco. “It’s important to all of us that we get in front of these folks in a concerted way and talk about our product.”

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LXTV Founders Snag Plum TV at Auction

Upscale network sold out of bankruptcy

By Michael Malone — Broadcasting & Cable, March 7, 2012

LXTV founders Joseph Varet and Morgan Hertzan have agreed to acquire the upscale lifestyle network Plum TV. The pair bought it out of bankruptcy auction and will serve as co-presidents.

Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Plum TV is currently distributed on cable in Miami, Aspen, Vail, Telluride, the Hamptons, Sun Valley, Nantucket and Martha’s Vineyard. It will operate as a national network.

Broadcast vet Terry Mackin was in the running for Plum, but was outbid.

“Plum offers a great opportunity to build an international lifestyle multimedia business and will provide platforms where advertisers can reach the most desirable demographic in an environment that reflects the quality and excellence of their brands,” said Hertzan. “We have many exciting programming plans for Plum which we will announce in the coming weeks and months.”

Hertzan is in New York and Varet is in Los Angeles.

“We plan to rapidly grow Plum TV’s distribution via digital, television, and out-of-home media,” said Varet, “and expand Plum TV as a national lifestyle network while retaining its resort community programming and DNA. Our vision is to bring the compelling resort lifestyle of Plum TV’s existing local programming to a national and international audience.”

Creative Artists Agency advised Hertzan and Varet on the transaction and will provide advisory services to Plum. The buyers were represented by law firm Paul Hastings LLP.

“We are excited to be in business with Joseph and Morgan,” said Tom Scott, Plum’s founder and chairman. “We love their passion and experience, and we believe in their vision for Plum.”

Lifestyle/entertainment outfit LXTV was acquired in 2008 by NBC’s owned stations. Neither Hertzan nor Varet currently still work at NBCUniversal.

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.

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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

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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

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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.