Tag Archives: abc

Online Video

What’s Driving Yahoo Growth in Online Video?

5 Comments

Yahoo showed a fairly large increase in last month’s online-video viewing. How? I’ll give you a hint: it’s news.

Since most of the monthly comScore data is predictable, the blogs have jumped on this… Search Engine Watch called it “colassel as a giant squid,” and TubeFilter called it “massive.”

While 20% growth on a low base isn’t perhaps “colossal” or “massive,” it is impressive for Yahoo. Yahoo always fancied itself as a portal, hence its loss of audience to search-engine giant Google. In early 2000s I would have expected Yahoo to be the rightful owner of the online-video battle. But it hasn’t captured online video despite many attempts.

Now Yahoo has bumped Vevo out for the #3 position last month. Sure, the audience bar chart shows a steep cliff after Google sites (YouTube). YouTube streamed about 50% of the 40 billion video views in February (and has about 3x the viewers of its nearest competitors). But Yahoo’s growth still warrants some exploration.

Abc yahoo2 200x160

So what’s going on with Yahoo? Pick below:

a. Yahoo could be doing a better job of convincing its 177 million unique monthly viewers to consume video.

b. Yahoo announced a slate of new comedy programs, and launched the Screen, although these unlikely impacted last month.

c. Yahoo and ABC News partnered in October 2011. That deal accounts for almost half of the news videos watched by U.S. Internet viewers in February… that puts the ABC/Yahoo duo above MSNBC and CNN.

(Hint: pick c, or abc).

News is the new viral, kids.

 

Online Video

Network Poaches Space-Comedy Web Series, But Changes Outfit Colors

14 Comments

The creators of ClipCritics are seeing something awfully familiar on SkyFy. The new show, “Outer Space Astronauts,” also looks so familiar to ClipCritics fans that they’ve written its creator, Chad Sahley, with congratulations.

Turns out Chad, who produced “When Standup Stood Out,” has no ties with the show. But, quite coincidentally, he and his team approached SkyFy with a show called “Webscapers, about a top-secret crew digitized into the internet to surf and protect the world wide web (think Star Trek in Cyber Space).”

ClipCritics Emergency
ClipCritics Emergency
Outer Space Astronauts Emergency
Outer Space Astronauts Emergency

“We pitched SkyFy a couple years back showing them our animation style along with our trailer,” said Chad. “They said they didn’t do comedies. Shortly after we decided to produce the show on Youtube and call it the Clip Critcs with the hopes of someday getting the money to produce the full idea of Webscapers.”

Of course, “Outer Space Astronauts” is a Star Trek spoof based on outer-space — not cyberspace. And although the animation style (see images) is unmistakably similar, SkyFy reduced its legal risk by changing the outfits from orange to blue.

This isn’t the first report that a network has poached an amateur, and a difficult thing to challenge. Remember when ABC featured promos with Lost action figures that were indisputably similar to the FineBrothers’ work?

In related news, ABC’s “Good Morning America” Host George Stephanopolous announced he’ll feature a 14-year-old sidekick who pretends to be a manic 5-year-old child that speaks in a squeaky-pitched voice. His name will be “Jed,”and he’ll have a crush on “Julie,” live with his drug-abusing mom, and scream about a bully named Levin.

Online Video

ABC Swipes Idea from Consumer-Generated Lost Parodies

8 Comments

ABC recently launched a new Lost parody using Lost action figures. To see it yourself, simply go to ABC, download its new player, sit through three commercials, search for the episodes, then connect your firewire to your television set using an ABC-converter-box, which is only $79 at ABC.com. 

Of course the FineBrothers came up with this concept in late 2007, as evidenced by their videos below on YouTube.

The FineBrothers are probably safely protected by “fair use” even if they’re monetizing the content (but my original source: Online Video Watch thinks otherwise). And certainly the Fine Brothers would be wasting their time suing ABC for ripping off an idea that they, in fact, built on the back of ABC’s intellectual property (if indeed Lost is intellectual).

The Fine Brothers action-figure series is below, and the comedic duo told NewTeeVee that they saw numerous fan and official cast websites referencing the material. So we’re quite sure that the creators of ABC’s were well aware that they were ripping the idea from the Fine Brothers.

So why didn’t ABC just hire the Fine Brothers to make the series? It would have been cheaper and funnier. My guess is that there were two problems with that. First, if ABC had approached the Fine Brothers and didn’t settled on terms (like price), then ABC would either have to ditch the idea or assume actual legal risk (the brothers would then actually have a lawsuit claiming intellectual-property theft). At the least, The Fine Brothers would reek PR havoc. Secondly, ABC probably thought it would set a bad precedent to financial reward individuals who had been using their content without permission… to make a buck on YouTube. 

The bottom line? Nobody’s in the right, or likely capable of suing. But I’d say this is a ruder move by ABC than its launching its new video player… which can also be found easily on Listserves and then run on DOS.

And hey, ABC. We’re looking forward to seeing the next promotion by the bottom-feeders that made the action figure promo for you. I’d suggest a speed painting of John Locke. It’s never been done. Seriously.

Fine Brother parodies below- advance with arrows. You’re on your own finding the ABC ones.

book, Online Video

EepyBird Creates New Genre of Hyper Syndication?

7 Comments

The EepyBird duo shows that if you have enough talent, you can move seamlessly from one major promotion to another — without anything particularly unique between. Fritz Grobe and Stephen Voltz are the mad scientists behind EepyBird, a physical theater company exploring how everyday objects can do extraordinary things. They’re the Michael Jordan and Tiger Woods of online video, only they don’t play sports. And they have apparently had 40 million views on their Coke and Mentos experiment, but fewer than 300 subscribers on YouTube (the duo used Revver initially).

Here’s the latest promotion by the performance artists in a sticky-note experiment (not Post-It, mind you). Sponsored by ABC Family, Office Max and Coca-Cola, “The Extreme Sticky Note Experiments” will appear on ABC’s Samurai, and was arranged by social marketing agency, DigiSynd.

Said a press release by DigiSynd:

By packaging EepyBird’s new experiment, social marketing agency DigiSynd has created a new genre of hyper syndication — capturing the excitement and the power of original content viral video and bringing it to mainstream entertainment marketing, while maintaining the innovation and integrity that makes a video viral.

A new genre of hyper syndication? Where do I sign up for that?

Parenthetically, I have my own story about sticky-notes. In my first marketing role ever I was asked to lead marketing for Georgetown University’s Program Board. The group brought to campus such acts as The Kinks and Adam Sandler ‘n David Spade. (As a side bar to this parenthetical comment, Spade, Sandler and I had dinner at UNOs, and Sandler leaned out of my white Honda Accord and screamed impersonations of his Cajun Man. People thought he was a cheesy fake, but it was the real cajun man. Spade was sick and a bit sarcastic, but Sandler was really cool and gave us some behind-the-scenes of SNL because they were bit characters then.

Where was I? Oh-sticky notes. I once ordered sticky notes to promote the Georgetown Program Board (GPB), and it featured the GPB Nun… (an illustration by Dave Hagen of a GU bulldog dressed as a nun… you know, the dean who is now GU’s president eventually made the group  change the mascot to the GPB Jesuit because he didn’t like the idea of a transgender bulldog). Anyway, I cheaped out with a fake version of Post-It notes to save money, and the darned things didn’t stick to anything. So that’s my point.

Hey that reminds me… I met my friend Justin because he volunteered to hand out fliers for a pig roast GPB was holding. He’d walk up to women on campus and scream, “PIG,” before handing them the invitation. Man that was funny stuff. I once convinced Justin to ride a moped naked in the rain with nothing but a batman mask on. Missy Gold went to Georgetown… I wonder if I still have some footage of her walking across campus. She and I never met, nor did I hang with Dikembe Mutombo (but I did see him a couple years ago at a reunion, and called him Patrick Ewing “by mistake.” He laughed and corrected me very gracefully).

Hey that reminds me… I did a voiceover for a film by classmate Breck Eisner (Disney CEO Michael Eisner’s son), but he stopped returning my calls long ago so don’t try to use me to get to him. Is he still making commercials and movies? I wonder if I still have a copy of that weird video he made- I always warned him I’d be pawning it to The National Enquirer when he became famous. Who’s going to clean up all the names I’ve dropped in one post?

Every once in a while you have to remind readers that this is, after all, a blog. And bloggers are entitled to off-topic memoirs.

book, Online Video

Why Squeegees Is Hysterical and ABC’s Financial Quagmire

23 Comments

The New York Times writes another “web video is a losing proposition” article, and boasts countless of examples of overbaked web series that lost their shirts. I think Squeegees is a perfect example of the problem with online video and monetization. Writes Brian Stelter:

“Squeegees,” a 10-episode series by Stage 9 (a digital subsidiary of ABC) about a merry band of high-rise window washers, illustrates the challenge. The show made its premiere in April on five Web sites. On the most prominent site, YouTube, the second episode showed 312,000 views as of Sunday, helped by prominent links on YouTube’s home page in April. By the fifth episode, the view count had dropped to 3,000.

Squeegees is absolutely hysterical (see them on YouTube). I learned of it for the first time last Friday from a friend, and we watched nearly ever episode. It’s well written, well acted, and reminds me of Stella (a short-lived modern 3 Stooges, staring the brilliant Michael Ian Black).

But it’s perhaps “too television like” for the early, habitual adopters of online video. It’s brilliant comedy but simply doesn’t currently appeal to online-video viewers that engage daily with YouTube. Will the mainstream viewers prefer Squeegees to Nalts? Absolutely. But that’s going to take time, and even Eisner can’t afford to float expensive production until a monetization model appears in the next few years (driven mostly by ads, and subsidized by pay-per-view if it’s easy enough and offers additional value).

Squeegees has about 1,500 subscribers on YouTube despite uploading 6 months ago (admitedly YouTube is not a primary channel for the content, and here are the rest of the distribution channels for the web series).

But remember that YouTube is the most popular online-video site, and the default residence for regular consumers of online video. For now (with an emphasis on NOW), I’d rather be the 80th most popular YouTuber than the King of Hulu. I’ve gained more subscribers in the past 24 hours than Squeegees has since it launched. Am I better? No. But I market myself, appeal better to current obsessive online viewers, and I probably spend less per episode than Squeegees spent to cater breakfast on a one day shoot.

squeegeesContent well produced like Squeegees will eventually leave us amateurs in the dust. But in the mean time the marketers of this content are probably beating their head against the wall and missing some things that are obvious… keep costs down, leverage existing cewebrities from YouTube, collaborate, appeal to current audiences, and evolve the style over time.

Squeegees’ producer, “Stage 9” describes itself as “seeking filmmakers who create high-quality series at a fraction of the cost of film and television.” I don’t doubt that Squeegees was produced at a fraction of a television series, but that’s still too much. I don’t yet see an advertising model that can substantiate actors, writers, directors, sets- except perhaps a single sponsor that gets more than CPM and uses the content to attract prospects to a site that converts them to customers. But if I was Stage 9 I’d start with the advertiser, and develop content that fits their goals and demo.

That said, I’m ready for a cameo, Squeegees! And that goes for any other killer content creator looking to boost its visibility on YouTube! All I ever wanted in life was to make someone famous so they can ignore my calls when they hit.

book, Making Videos, Online Video, Video Business

Exposed: Big Media’s Bias Against Online Video

21 Comments

nalts interview mediaI was interviewed Friday by a major U.S. television network on the subject of online video, and caught some footage of the reporter’s loaded questions and biased reporting. You’ll hear how he tries to shape the discussion to confirm his own belief that online video is crap, and that big media will continue its reign. See it on YouTube, where it’s titled “Big Media Lies!”

The footage was shot documentary style, so the reporter is off camera and I’m against a green screen. Be sure to watch the “debrief” video before you render judgment but after watching the first one.

P.S. Leave the shoes alone, Sukatra.