Technology360

TiVo Users Soon Can Search for Ads

Brian Steinberg and Nick Wingfield write:  "The same device that helps TV viewers skip commercials will now be prodding them to search for ads.  ¶  TiVo Inc. is partnering with several big ad firms to offer its users a system that lets them search for commercials centered around a specific topic. Expected to launch next spring, the feature comes as Madison Avenue is contemplating a number of ways to reach consumers who use technology to avoid traditional advertising. ...¶... TiVo users will be able to set up a profile of products on their television screens by clicking on categories such as automotive or travel or typing in keywords such as "BMW" or "cruises." On a regular basis, TiVo will then download relevant commercials to TiVo recorders over the Internet or, for those users who don't have broadband, send the video via traditional broadcast signals. The commercials will appear on-screen in a folder next to the list of television shows TiVo users record.  ¶  Advertisers, in turn, will be able to select the keywords and categories with which they wish to be associated for their ads. TiVo is in discussions with advertising agencies about the best way to price such advertising, but one option is to let advertisers bid on keywords as they do when buying ads on Internet search engines. ... "  Link:  Wall Street Journal.

Here's the first part of TiVo's press release:  "TiVo ... today [11/28] announced that it plans to offer the first television-based advertising search solution in Spring 2006. Leveraging TiVo's television search capabilities that enhance the TV viewing experience, the new product will deliver relevant, targeted advertising to subscribers that want to view particular advertising categories.  ¶  Leading media and advertising agencies including Interpublic Media, OMD, Starcom Mediavest Group and The Richards Group, as well as Comcast Spotlight, the advertising sales division of Comcast Cable, have worked with TiVo to provide their expertise in the development of this revolutionary product. Agency research and development techniques will contribute in determining relevant categories of interest, such as automotive, travel, telecommunications, and consumer packaged goods, as well as determine relevant pricing models.  ¶  Today television advertising is almost entirely delivered when adjacent to mass programming. For the first time, advertisers will have the ability to deliver television advertising, on demand and targeted to consumers, without the limitations of traditional television media placement. Advertisers will be able to reach viewers in the market for a certain product or service. Ads will be delivered to subscribers who can conduct a search for a product by category or associated with keywords, utilizing the same revolutionary keyword search techniques offered with Internet advertising, resulting in increased relevancy for the consumer, as well as efficient, measurable results for the advertiser.  ¶  This new advertising approach presents an opportunity for TiVo® service subscribers to search for relevant information on products or services that match their needs. The heightened viewer experience that the new offering is intended to provide will deliver non-intrusive, relevant, interactive advertising, on a opt-in basis. TiVo subscribers, if they choose to use the search capability, will retain control over their viewing experience through the creation of a viewer contributed profile via the set-top box that will enable them to receive advertisements based on their interests. ..."  TiVo press release.  Thanks to Mark Schubin's "Monday" Memo, the latest issue of which (11/29) is now at digitaltelevision.com.

There is lots of interest in this story in the "blogosphere" today, of which Craig Barnes' post, TiVo needs attention, not searchable ads, is representative.  Link:  Craig's Lemonade (Barns is president and founder of Attensa).  --Dennis

Will NPR's podcasts birth a new business model for public radio?

Mark Glaser writes:  "Last summer, the folks running National Public Radio started to get a clear message from their listeners and member stations: Give us podcasts! They received e-mail requests from listeners for months, and the term "podcast" was one of the most searched terms on NPR.org. The public spoke, and NPR listened, launching podcasts on Aug. 31.  ¶  Talk about pent-up demand. According to Maria Thomas, vice president and general manager of NPR Online, it took only six days after launch for NPR's 'Story of the Day' podcast to reach the coveted No. 1 spot on iTunes for most downloaded podcast. On Nov. 21, NPR's podcasts held down 11 spots on the iTunes Top 100, more than any other media outlet. ..."  Link:  Online Journalism Review.  Nice overview.  I've been part of this project and have been very impressed with not only how quickly this has caught on with listeners but also with how quickly NPR was able to successfully mount this effort under Maria's leadership.  --Dennis

Trusting the Audience and the Readers

It's always a good week when Terry Heaton posts a new essay. Here's his description of his latest:  "Here is the latest essay in the ongoing series "TV News in a Postmodern World." The relationship between media source and reader/listener/viewer in the new media world is one of the most difficult concepts for contemporary media people to understand. That's because it's counterintuitive. In our one-way world, the audience is passive, while it is active and involved in the world of media 2.0. To be successful, therefore, we're going to need to find a way to trust those we've not had to trust in the past, and that won't be easy. That's because the roots of our lack of trust run very deep, and that's what this essay discusses. ..." Link: The POMO Blog.

Sky readies broadband movie & sports video-downloads

"Satellite broadcaster Sky is getting ready to introduce a broadband movie and sports video-download service - Sky by broadband - for its premium subscribers in the UK and Republic of Ireland.  ¶ Like AOL's free-to-all, high-quality download service In2TV – now on open trial (see our hands-on report) - Sky's offering requires Windows XP and uses the "secure" peer-to-peer manager Kontiki. It should also provide reasonable quality but perhaps not to the high standard of AOL's Hi-Q Video footage.  ¶ Movie downloads will be free to Sky digital customers with Sky Movies 1 and 2 subscriptions. Sports videos will be free to customers with Sky Sports 1 and 2 subscriptions. As yet, there looks to be no plans to offer downloads as separate chargeable services to non-premium subscribers. Indeed, judging from the Sky by broadband site, the idea is to entice new customers to Sky's premium services. ..."  Link:  Hexus.lifestyle.  This is an interesting model for pubcasters to consider -- free downloads if you're a member of your local station.  It's one that the Public Service Publisher group, which I chair, has included in its assumptions about future revenue streams.  The PSP is collaborating with Open Media Network, also powered by Kontiki, and now in public beta for Internet Explorer and Firefox browsers -- soon for the Mac as well.  --Dennis

The Coming Golden Age of Television

Mark Cuban writes:  "... Technology marches on.  BusinessWeek proclaimed this week ”The End of TV (As you know it).”  My perception of the article is that they wanted to drive home the point that technology is expanding how viewers receive content and the number of content choices will result in ongoing decline in audience sizes. The drop could, in turn could destablize the TV business as we know it.  ¶  I think they are wrong.  They are leaving out two key technological issues that will completely change the dynamics of TV, but for the better….for those that recognize what is happening. ...¶... There are going to be fewer networks being broadcast in the future. Not more. That should lead to ratings expansion, not contraction as some would have you believe.  ¶  But wait, there’s more. In an HD universe, not only will there be  fewer channels to compete with in the long term, but because the adoption of HD will happen faster than most people realize, the ratings for those networks that do broadcast in HD will EXPLODE in the next two to three years. The next few years will still have a limited number of HD channels available to viewers while conversion and bandwidth issues are worked out. Which means in HD households, rather than a 150 channel universe, there may only be a 30 channel HD universe. Thats a goldmine for those networks in HD.  ¶  Not only that, but the HD universe has several advantages for advertisers over the standard def world, which of course is money in the bank for networks and their distributors. ..."  Link:  Blog Maverick.

Media Giants Cling To 'Growth' Label Even As Their Core Businesses Plateau

Robert Marich writes:  "What happens when self proclaimed "growth stocks" no longer show impressive growth? That appears to be the case for share prices of traditional media giants. Over the past five years, Disney, Comcast, News Corp., Time Warner, Viacom and other big names have underperformed the broad stock market, and their organic revenue gains are nothing special.  ¶  Growth stocks reflect companies with above-average prospects. Typically, these companies – as in the technology sector – don't pay cash dividends, but instead re-invest profits (if any) and cash in their businesses where they say returns for their investors will be high.

Internet media is a growth sector these days, but traditional media companies are mostly anchored in adjacent media sectors with only moderate prospects. According to soon-to-be-published Kagan Research databook "Media Trends 2006" (12th Edition), traditional media companies have a few hot businesses in their portfolios – particularly basic cable TV networks. But the 1% compound annual growth rate from 2005-2015 forecast for daily newspapers is anemic, and the 2% for premium pay TV channels and 3.9% for movies are lackluster, notes Kagan newsletter "Kagan Media Money."  ¶  Would traditional media companies be better served by simply acknowledging they are middle-of-the-pack performers? It's not necessarily bad being relatively mature. ..."  Link:  Kagan Insights.

Feed for Thought: How feeds will change the way content is distributed, valued, and consumed

Feedburner CEO Dick Costolo writes:  "Back in October of 2003, when we first started building FeedBurner with hammer and chisel, RSS was, for many people, synonymous with blogs. Now that it’s almost 2006, RSS is, for many people, synonymous with blogs. We still see quotes in major media that conflate blogs and RSS as if they were inextricably bound together. A, therefore B. Blogs, therefore RSS. In early 2003, it was probably accurate to say that almost all blogs had feeds and almost all feeds were derived from a blog. Today, however, while almost all blogs still have feeds, there are innumerable feeds that are unrelated to blogs. Commercial publishers have embraced feeds wholeheartedly; most web services and many search engines now provide subscribed results; and podcasts and videocasts are entirely feed-based while not necessarily tied to blogs. ..."

Link:  Burning Questions.  Thanks to Read/Write Web for the tip.  --Dennis

Clear Channel Radio Expands HD Reach

"Clear Channel Radio has made a commitment to digital radio, announcing that 200 of its radio stations will be airing HD digital radio broadcasts by the end of the month. Earlier this year, Clear Channel Radio announced that its roll out of HD digital radio included broadcasts on 65 of its stations. The company is now on track to air HD digital radio broadcasts on 95 percent of its stations in the Top 100 markets by the end of 2007. ..."  Link:  FMQB.

BitTorrent creator, MPAA strike deal

Eric Bangeman writes:  "Bram Cohen, creator of the widely used BitTorrent software, hasinked an agreement with the Motion Picture Association of America under which links to torrents of copyrighted movies would be removed from BitTorrent.com's search engine.  ¶ Users searching for copies of movies via BitTorrent.com's search engine will begin to come up empty-handed as links to files pegged as infringing by the MPAA are purged from the index. However, the agreement does nothing to keep copyrighted material from being torrented; it just will make some torrents more difficult to find. Private tracker sites that manage to elude the legal machinations of the MPAA will remain online, and there are always trackerless. However, the pact may make life tougher for some torrent sites as they require a critical mass of users in order to effectively distribute content. ..."  Link:  ars technica.

See also Xeni Jardin's A Torrent or a Trickle?  Link:  Wired.  And see BitTorrent, MPAA team up.  Link:  Hollywood Reporter.  --Dennis

Net TV start-up lands $16 million in funding

"Brightcove, an Internet television start-up that helps programmers syndicate shows across the Web and collect money from it, plans to announce on Tuesday that it has attracted new high-profile investors, including America Online and InterActiveCorp, and a distribution pact with AOL.  ¶  Analysts said the deal for the company, which has generated Google-like buzz even before its service becomes officially available next year, could inch it closer to breaking 'TV's exclusive lock' on how viewers watch TV, Forrester Research analyst Josh Bernoff said.  ¶  Bightcove has developed Web tools to get video distributed on any number of sites and collect fees or ad revenue. ..."  Link:  Reuters via CNET News.com.