http://www.crainsnewyork.com/article/20120429/MEDIA_ENTERTAINMENT/304299979
Dancing cats never got a reception like this.
On Wednesday evening at the Beacon Theater, a thousand advertising and marketing executives will gather for what looks to be a watershed event: the coming-out party for YouTube’s 90 or so new channels a year after the world’s largest video platform announced it would spend $100 million on original content.
Collectively, the channels represent the Google division’s challenge to cable and broadcast’s reign over the television kingdom, and it doesn’t matter that the world at large may never have heard of CafeMom or The Nerdist Channel. A change is taking place in Web television, and for New York producers, who are working territory more commonly associated with San Francisco or Los Angeles, the channels have opened a new frontier.
Wednesday’s event will be the culmination of a first-time, two-week event called the Digital Content NewFronts—a digital version of the upfront presentations television networks have long held for advertisers every spring. Six Web giants, including Hulu, AOL and Google, have been the hosts.
Web video has a long way to go before it’s even approaching the $60 billion in advertising that mainstream television attracts annually. Research firm eMarketer is forecasting 40% growth in online video ad spending in 2012, to $3.1 billion. But some in the industry now see the kind of opportunities that led to the launches of MTV and USA Network in New York three decades ago.