Wouldn’t you like to bump elbows with media moguls and hear from the likes of Eric Schmidt, Biz Stone and James Murdoch? Me too! Alas, Quadrangle’s Foursquare conference is closed to the public and the press. But at least I can tell you whom you won’t be hearing from.
Would you pay $30 a month to watch TV via iTunes?
That’s the pitch Apple has been making to TV networks in recent weeks. The company is trying to round up support for a monthly subscription service that would deliver TV programs via its multimedia software, multiple sources tell me. The industry finds this idea both tempting and terrifying.
The man who helped shape CBS’s standalone Web video strategy explains himself, for the record.
Remember Microsoft’s plan to use “Family Guy,” Fox’s ribald, off-color cartoon sitcom, to promote Windows 7? No more, says Microsoft, which is pulling out of plans to sponsor a special episode of the show scheduled to run Nov. 8. What happened? Apparently, Microsoft realized that “Family Guy” is a ribald, off-color sitcom.
Is Hulu putting up a pay wall around its Web TV site? Nope.
Does Hulu want to charge people to watch Web TV? Yes.
Confused? Don’t be.
Here’s the explanation about what’s going on at the premium online video site.
Vevo, the music industry’s version of Hulu, now has its own version of Providence Equity, the outside investor that took a flyer on the Web TV and movie joint venture: Abu Dhabi Media Company has purchased a stake in the company from owners Universal Music and Sony. No financials released, though I’m told the deal values the JV at $300 million.
Is there anything you people won’t watch online? Doesn’t look like it, based on the newest Web video numbers from Nielsen. While stats show that the overall size of the Internet video audience has increased by 12 percent in the last year, the amount of video consumed has shot up 25 percent.
YouTube sneaked up on big media, then scared the hell out of them, then tried to do business with them, more or less unsuccessfully.
Now, three years after Google plunked down $1.6 billion for the video site, it seems to have figured out an approach that works for at least some big players: Hand over a chunk of the site to content creators, who get to control it, sell ads on it, program it with their stuff and share some of the ad dollars. Newest example, reportedly: Britain’s Channel 4.
Last month, Warner Music Group won the right to sell ads on its YouTube videos. Next step: Getting someone to sell ads on its YouTube videos, since the music label doesn’t have its own sales team. The plan: Hand those duties over to someone who’s already doing it for Veoh and other video outfits.
Time Inc. has spent the past few months convincing other publishers to join a new joint venture aimed at a market that doesn’t really exist yet–magazine-like publications to be delivered via e-readers like Amazon’s Kindle and Apple’s rumored tablet. Publishers like the idea. What will Apple and Amazon say?
Here’s the big media deal everyone has been waiting for. Or at least, here’s the report: Sharon Waxman of TheWrap reports that cable giant Comcast is buying all of NBC Universal from GE for $35 billion. Comcast says the report is “inaccurate.”
You already know this, but it’s always good to be reminded: In online video, there’s YouTube, and then there’s everybody else. Today’s data point: ComScore’s August video report, which shows Google’s video site generating 10 billion views and owning 39.6 percent of the market. That’s 10 billion views, and that’s just counting Web surfers from the U.S. Factor in international visitors and…it would be a lot bigger.
Warner Music and YouTube, co-owners of the one of the Web’s nastiest spats, are about to patch things up. How’d they do it? By cutting a deal that looks a lot like the one YouTube has already made with Universal Music Group.
Vevo, the music industry’s attempt to create a Hulu-like hub for its videos, is going to attract a lot of eyeballs when it launches later this year. Here’s the guy who’s supposed to attract advertisers: David Kohl, a former Nokia executive who starts work today as the site’s sales boss.
There are very good odds that there are going to be some very big deals happening in the media world in the next year or so. So this move makes a lot of sense: Former Time Warner CEO Dick Parsons is joining up with Providence Equity Partners, the private equity firm with a hankering for media investments.
Peter Kafka has been covering media and technology since 1997, when he joined the staff of Forbes magazine. Most recently, he has been the managing editor of the tech and media Web site, Silicon Alley Insider.
Here is a statement of my ethics and coverage policies. It is more than most of you want to know, but, in the age of suspicion of the media, I am laying it all out.
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