Author: Ellen

Food’s New Ratings Recipe

Ellen

Courting younger demographic after cutting back on Emeril

2/8/2008   Broadcasting & Cable

Much like one who tires of eating broiled chicken for dinner too many Friday nights, Food Network has lately felt the need to mix things up a bit. The big question: Would a tweaked recipe bring more revenue and prime viewers to the table?

The network began asking the question last July in the wake of sagging ratings for its anchor show Emeril Live, which it then moved from 8 p.m. to 7 p.m. When the network ceased production of new episodes as of Dec. 11, the move led some to question whether Food could continue reaching the masses by relying on newly built stars.

But by making this transition, Food has become more palatable to viewers and advertisers alike. In addition to retaining some established stars and marketing new ones, the network has continued to develop non-instructional reality shows for prime. Now Food is adding new advertisers to its already-loyal partners. A subsequent increase in revenue, paired with an investment in consumer products lines and online partnerships, like a recent Food store powered by Cooking.com, point to healthy profits.

With renewed commitments from fan favorites Rachael Ray and Alton Brown, Food’s talent pool—including tattoo-plastered, spiky-haired Guy Fieri and ice hockey player/model-cum TV chef Danny Boome—skews younger, and the network has broken new advertiser categories such as electronics. In January 2008, its median age in prime was 45.6; in 2003, it was 50.3, according to Nielsen.

The addition of more reality fare, like the Fieri/Marc Summers-hosted Ultimate Recipe Showdown at night, has allowed for brand integrations that weren’t possible previously. (The Scripps-owned network, to some advertisers’ chagrin, remains continually steadfast in not showing product branding labels in its instructional cooking shows.)

“New talent is part of what makes the network exciting,” says General Manager Sergei Kuharsky. A former marketer for Johnson & Johnson, Kuharsky has helped spearhead an expanding line of Food Network products at Kohl’s, the partnership with Cooking.com and cookbook deals for new talent like Ellie Krieger. “Emeril had an incredible run like Friends, Frasier and Seinfeld. We celebrate that success—and we look forward to the new.”

The network is projected to grow ad revenue by 7.4% in 2008 and 9.4% in 2009 to $446 million, according to SNL Kagan research. Operating revenue is projected to grow 8.1% in 2008 and 9.4% in 2009 to $567.6 million. While the network’s total day viewing dipped 5% in 2007 to an average 556,000 total viewers, it was up 3% in prime to 799,000 viewers, according to Nielsen Media Research.

Food plans to premiere one new show a month for the next year, its most ambitious slate ever. In January, it debuted Ray’s new travel series Rachael’s Vacation, and Jamie At Home, a daytime cooking series that saw the return of Naked Chef Jamie Oliver to the network.

This month brings Ultimate Recipe Showdown and Down Home with the Neelys, in which an African-American couple of restaurateurs cook BBQ comfort food. The latter premiered as the network’s most-watched series in the five years of its In the Kitchen weekend block, with some 2 million viewers. March’s entrant is Rescue Chef, a daytime weekend show in which Boome helps regular cooks solve their culinary dilemmas.

Heading into this season’s upfront, the network is pitching advertisers on the benefits of hooking up with new talent as they rise. It has signed deals for two of its stars with major brand names, although at presstime could not say on the record which brands. And it has been finding new ways to blend product integrations into primetime reality shows—the winner of Ultimate Recipe Showdown, for instance, gets their recipe on the menu of TGI Fridays, along with $25,000.

“We’re in the world everyone else is in, trying to understand the best way to keep the editorial voice clean, while also in a fun way incorporating advertisers and brands when it fits with the show,” says Karen Grinthal, Food’s senior VP of ad sales.

Media buyers are responding kindly, many saying that the cutting back of Lagasse—who maintains a development deal with Food, and will continue to produce new episodes of Essence of Emeril through 2008—perhaps improved the network’s standing with some clients.

“[The network has] grown to the point where they’re bigger than some of their talent,” says Bill Holba, who works with packaged good products as VP/associate director of national broadcast for Initiative. “And they’ve got a corner in the market that no one’s taking away at this point.”

“Food Network has done a good job at seeking out and developing talent,” says Dave Kornett, senior VP of national broadcast at PHD. “I would have every confidence they’ll be able to replace talent that’s leaving with a more younger and current feel.”

 

http://www.broadcastingcable.com/news/news-articles/foods-new-ratings-recipe/84342

 

From TV’s viewpoint, housing market is hot

Ellen

Burst of home-flipping and improvement programs reflects what’s on people’s minds, executives say.

3/10/2008   Associate Press

NEW YORK — Real estate may have cooled considerably as an investment, but not real estate television.

House-flipping and home-renovation programs are still big hits on cable. While “for-sale” signs sprout on lawns across the country, TV programmers are like developers who plow ahead with new housing projects anyway.

A new season of the A&E Network’s “Flip This House” — one of a troika, with TLC’s “Flip That House” and Bravo’s “Flipping Out” — premieres Saturday night.

A&E has several new programs in development. On TLC, at least six new ones are beginning in the next year, starting with “Date My House,” hosted by former “Bachelor” Bob Guiney, in which potential buyers spend a night in a home on the market.

HGTV had its highest prime-time ratings ever in January. Nine of its top 10 series deal with the housing market, including “House Hunters,” “My First Place,” “Hidden Potential,” “Buy Me” and “Designed to Sell.” The network on Feb. 29 did a special theme day of “taking the big leap,” or investing in that first house.

“What’s driving interest right now is that people are worried about it: ‘What’s the value of my home? How can I increase interest in my home?’ ” said Jim Samples, HGTV president. “And then there’s the ‘life-goes-on’ factor. People are still changing jobs, families are still getting bigger. If anything, they tend to nest in this environment.”

Samples admitted, though, that one of his first questions last fall upon taking over HGTV was how the housing market downturn would affect the network’s programs.

HGTV essentially built itself on the public fascination with property. At its start, the network had shows on crafts and landscaping, but now the home is the focus. “House Hunters,” which premiered in 1999, helped introduce real estate as a prime TV target.

When TLC’s “Trading Spaces” became a sensation, it showed that renovation and decoration could be entertainment instead of simply chores.

The network has concentrated recently on reviving that franchise, even bringing back original host Paige Davis after a two-year absence.

“Flip That House” will become more reflective of the economy, said Brant Pinvidic, TLC’s senior vice president of programming. Not every “flipper” gets rich quick. The show will make sure every time at the end to clearly outline how each investor did, he said.

“If the programming reflects the attitudes in the community and what people are feeling, it will do better than if the programs feel outdated,” Pinvidic said.

A&E’s “Flip This House” is expanding its cast of characters for the upcoming fourth season, adding renovation teams in Atlanta and Los Angeles to join returning “flippers” from San Antonio and New Haven, Conn.

 

http://articles.latimes.com/2008/mar/10/entertainment/et-housetv10

 

Primetime Ratings: Private Practice Makes Perfect for ABC

Ellen

Grey’s Anatomy Spinoff Propels Network to Wednesday-Night Win

10/18/2007   Broadcasting & Cable

ABC won Wednesday night in the 18-49 demo with a 3.7 rating/10 share average, according to Nielsen Media Research overnight numbers.

Grey’s Anatomy spinoff Private Practice was the top rated show on ABC and any network with a 4.4/11 from 9 p.m.-10 p.m., although that was down from last week’s 4.8/1.

Quirky ABC drama Pushing Daisies (Twin Peaks meets Six Feet Under with a touch of Target commercial) was even with last week at a 3.6/10.

CBS was second on the night with a 3.5/9, led by CSI: NY with a 4.1/11 from 10 p.m.-11 p.m. to win its time period handily. Kid Nation continued to underwhelm after its early overhype at a 2.4/7 for last place in its 8 p.m.-9 p.m. time period.

NBC was third with a 3.1/8, topped by Bionic Woman, although that show continued its slide in the overnights, down from last week’s 3.8/10 and way down from its debut 5.5/14. It also dropped from a 3.5/9 in its first half-hour to a 3.2/8 in its second.

Fox was fourth with a 2.8/8 led by the just-renewedKitchen Nightmares at a 3.2/8, up from last week’s 3/8.

The CW was fifth with a 1.9/5 topped by America’s Next Top Model, which beat CBS and tied with Fox for third place from 8 p.m.-9 p.m.

 

http://www.broadcastingcable.com/news/programming/primetime-ratings-private-practice-makes-perfect-abc/30903

 

Desperate for Ratings: “Desperate Housewives” Has Record Low Audience

Ellen

4/15/2008   THR

LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) – ABC’s “Desperate Housewives” fell to a record low rating for an original episode as the suburban soap returned to the air on Sunday after being sidelined for more than three months by the writers strike.

The show drew 16 million viewers, down about 15 percent from its season average of 18.9 million viewers, according to Nielsen Media Research. It was still enough to win the 9 p.m. hour by a wide margin, and give ABC the nightly honors with 10.5 million viewers.

“Housewives” was hurt by the absence of “Extreme Makeover: Home Edition” as a lead-in. Instead, ABC moved the fast-fading “Oprah’s Big Give” to the 8 p.m. slot (8.9 million viewers vs. a season average of 11.5 million).

At 10 p.m., ABC tried out Thursday regular “Eli Stone,” which benefited from the strong lead-in (9.2 million vs a season average of 8.2 million).

CBS was second for the night (10.4 million) with “60 Minutes” (14.1 million), “Big Brother” (10.7 million), “Cold Case” (8.8 million) and “Dexter” (8.2 million).

NBC (5.3 million) was dragged down by recycled episodes of USA Network’s “Monk” (5.2 million) and “Psych” (4.2 million). Fox averaged 5.1 million viewers overall.

 

http://www.reuters.com/article/2008/04/15/us-ratings-idUSN1233431920080415

 

Stars before pilot pickup is new trend

Ellen

2/28/2008   The Hollywood Reporter

With the pilot season truncated to three months because of the writers strike, some broadcast networks are switching the order of pilot casting and pickups to save time and give themselves a better shot at sought-after talent.

On Wednesday, British actor Toby Stephens (“Die Another Day”) was cast as the lead in Fox’s drama “Inseparable.” However, the project has not yet been picked up to pilot.

A modern-day Jekyll and Hyde tale about a partially paralyzed forensic psychiatrist (Stephens) with a split personality whose alter ego is a charismatic criminal, “Inseparable” was pitched before the strike by creator Shaun Cassidy, who originally developed it several years ago. The network asked for a revised draft, which Cassidy couldn’t complete before the work stoppage began.

To get a head start when the strike concluded, Fox brass in January gave their blessing for casting to begin on the ABC Studios-produced project but delayed an official pilot order until they read Cassidy’s new draft (HR 1/11).

In similar fashion, two comedy projects, Fox’s “Don’t Bring Frank” and CBS’ “Ex Life,” were cleared to begin casting Friday before the projects have been picked up to pilots (HR 2/25).

Casting on CBS’ drama pilot “Mythological X” also will start before there is a script in place. The project had been in development at CBS, but when it greenlighted it to pilot Wednesday, the network also tapped a new writer, Diane Ruggiero, to pen a new script.

The move allows the networks to get an early start on the casting process, avoiding the mad rush when “everyone will be trying to tap the same talent pool,” one agent said. “That pool gets depleted very quickly.”

Another early trend emerging from the pilot pickup season, which started in earnest this week with CBS ordering a quartet of shows, is the expanding invasion of foreign formats.

The prolonged strike prompted the broadcast nets to take a closer look at international series.

Last year, a record seven foreign formats — three dramas and four comedies — made it to pilot stage. With the thick of pilot ordering still days away, that number already has been surpassed this year.

CBS on Wednesday picked up two pilots based on international formats: the British “Ny-Lon” and the Israeli “Mythological X.”

“Frank” also is based on a British format, as are ABC’s drama “Life on Mars” and NBC’s comedy “Father Ted,” while NBC’s “Kath & Kim” comes from Australia. Additionally, Canadian imports “Flashpoint” and “The Listener” recently were handed series orders by CBS and NBC, respectively.

NBC Uni, CBS Corp. and News Corp. toppers have promised major shakeups of the pilot process in the wake of the writers strike. But so far, aside from some minor tweaks like jump-starting casting, the biggest news this post-strike pilot season seems to be how business-as-usual it has been.

“They said they won’t be picking up pilots, and they’re doing just that,” one agent said.

 

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/stars-before-pilot-pickup-is-105783

 

50 Million New Reasons BuzzFeed Wants to Take Its Content Far Beyond Lists

Ellen

8/10/2014   NYT

Jonah Peretti, above left, a co-founder and chief of BuzzFeed, with Ben Smith, editor in chief.

Here are three completely crazy insights about BuzzFeed, the viral content start-up:

1. BuzzFeed is a web traffic sensation that draws 150 million average monthly viewers.

2. Numbered lists, like this one, are what the site is most famous for and drive much of its audience.

3. BuzzFeed wants to be known for much, much more.

To help make that happen, BuzzFeed just closed a new $50 million investment from Andreessen Horowitz, a prominent venture capital firm in Silicon Valley. The investment values the company at about $850 million, according to a person with knowledge of the deal.

Now the question is whether BuzzFeed can maintain the agility and skills of a tech start-up while building the breadth of a large media company.

“As we grow, how can we maintain a culture that can still be entrepreneurial?” said Jonah Peretti, the company’s co-founder and chief executive. “What if a Hollywood studio or a news organization was run like a start-up?”

That is exactly what Mr. Peretti is going to try. On Monday, BuzzFeed will announce that its new cash infusion will be used to make several major changes, including introducing new content sections, creating an in-house incubator for new technology and potential acquisitions, and putting far more resources toward BuzzFeed Motion Pictures, its Los Angeles-based video arm.

The goal: Try a bunch of new features, and fast.

BuzzFeed, which is based in New York, started in 2006 as a kind of laboratory for viral content — the kinds of highly shareable lists, videos and memes that pepper social media sites. But in recent years, the company has added more traditional content, building a track record for delivering breaking news and deeply reported articles, and it has tried to marry its two halves in one site.

But what has really set BuzzFeed apart, Mr. Peretti said, is its grasp of technology. The company, which now has 550 employees, has been especially successful at distributing its lists and content through mobile devices and through social sites like Facebook and Twitter.

Ze Frank, president of BuzzFeed Motion Pictures, which is contemplating full-length films.

The photo-sharing site Pinterest, in particular, now drives more traffic to BuzzFeed’s Life section than Twitter does, Mr. Peretti said. Social media accounts for 75 percent of BuzzFeed’s referral traffic, according to the company.

Chris Dixon, a general partner at Andreessen Horowitz, who will join BuzzFeed’s board, said: “We think of BuzzFeed as more of a technology company. They embrace Internet culture. Everything is first optimized for mobile and social channels.”

Still, the company faces the same problem that more traditional publications do — rates for traditional online advertising, on general interest sites like BuzzFeed, have dropped consistently from year to year.

To keep up, sites must either perpetually increase traffic at a steady clip, or innovate and move into new and potentially more lucrative areas like so-called native advertising and video.

Already, most of BuzzFeed’s revenue is derived from BuzzFeed Creative, the company’s 75-person unit dedicated to creating for brands custom video and list-style advertising content that looks similar to its own editorial content. Mr. Peretti declined to share financial details, but he said BuzzFeed’s revenue for the first half of 2014 was twice as much as the first half of 2013. According to Mr. Dixon of Andreessen Horowitz, BuzzFeed is expected to generate revenue in the triple-digit millions of dollars by the end of 2014.

Another media company, Vice, has prospered on a similar blend of such content offerings, and has also made a significant proportion of its money from its in-house advertising agency. It offers brands the publication’s ethos, and writing and video-making skills, as a way to reach consumers.

Still, some analysts consider BuzzFeed’s continued reliance on social media sites for traffic as a major liability. In 2011, The Washington Post introduced its Social Reader app, a major initiative that allowed users to read and share articles from the newspaper within Facebook’s News Feed. This initially reaped loads of web traffic for the publication. But when users complained that they were getting spammed by constant notifications of what their friends were reading, Facebook changed its News Feed settings, and traffic for the Social Reader plummeted.

“If Facebook decides to tinker with its algorithms tomorrow, these viral publishers could be gone in the blink of an eye,” said Nate Elliott, an analyst with Forrester Research. “They’re putting their entire existence in another company’s hands.”

This is not Mr. Peretti’s first media enterprise, however. He was a co-founder, along with Arianna Huffington and the venture capitalist Kenneth Lerer, of The Huffington Post. That online media start-up, which relied heavily on showing up in Google search results for traffic, was sold to AOL in 2011 for $315 million. Mr. Lerer, also a BuzzFeed co-founder and investor, will soon take a more active role at BuzzFeed as executive chairman.

The push into more areas might help insulate BuzzFeed, too, from an overdependence on social media. BuzzFeed Motion Pictures, which is led by Ze Frank, a web video pioneer, aims to produce new videos — from six-second clips made for social media to more traditional 22-minute shows — at a rapid-fire pace. Initially, his team will focus on independent distribution, hosting video content on BuzzFeed.com, YouTube or other digital platforms. But BuzzFeed Motion Pictures could also look to produce feature-length films or shows, working in conjunction with traditional Hollywood studios.

The company also plans a fast expansion into international markets, already a major driver of the site’s new-user growth, with plans to open offices in Japan, Germany, Mexico and India this year.

And the future of BuzzFeed may not even be on BuzzFeed.com. One of the company’s nascent ideas, BuzzFeed Distributed, will be a team of 20 people producing content that lives entirely on other popular platforms, like Tumblr, Instagram or Snapchat.

Initially, it will not be a direct revenue stream for the company. But Mr. Peretti says he thinks it will ultimately give the company a much larger reach than traditional counts of web page views can measure.

“We’re organizing ourselves to be a media company for the way people consume media today,” Mr. Peretti said.

Correction: August 10, 2014
An earlier version of a picture caption with this article misspelled the surname of BuzzFeed’s chief executive. As the article correctly noted, he is Jonah Peretti, not Paretti.

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/11/technology/a-move-to-go-beyond-lists-for-content-at-buzzfeed.html?_r=0&gwh=9E3089954186954C858D4FC6BCE2953E&gwt=pay&assetType=nyt_now

 

 

The Blooming Field of Online Originals

Ellen

Viewers can’t seem to get enough of online originals, so on-demand streaming services are working overtime to supply the demand.

2/19/2014   Emmy

For viewers of the political drama House of Cards, the very calculated risks taken by Kevin Spacey, as a scheming U.S. congressman, were a big reason to binge through all 13 episodes of season one.

For Netflix, the series also represented a risky but very determined move. The subscription-based company wanted to mimic the business models of pay-cable titans HBO and Showtime, increasing its subscriber base by creating unique, in-demand original programming.

Netflix came up with a winning formula: spend lavishly — reportedly more than $100 million — on top talent and production values, and combine that with its famously granular, NSA–level data about its audience.

And it didn’t miss. With its February debut, House of Cards proved that if a digital upstart really wanted to create a high-quality, original hit series that could win Primetime Emmy Awards — 3 of them to be precise, out of 9 nominations — it could do it. The debut 5 months later of Jenji Kohan’s similarly lauded women’s prison drama, Orange Is the New Black, which has become Netflix’s most watched original show, further supported that notion.

Suddenly, for every digital company dabbling in premium original video content, the bar had been raised. To compete at the level of Netflix, companies must now invest real money — in top-level, union-repped talent and production resources.

Of course, for those who enjoy quality television, that’s a good thing. With Netflix developing its next batch of online originals — and the 2 other major players in the subscription video-on-demand business, Amazon and Hulu, looking to get into the game — the scene is set for a flurry of big series premieres over the next 12 months.

Yes, 2014 promises to be even bigger than 2013. Here’s a look at some current and upcoming highlights:

AMAZON

While Netflix prevailed among premium digital streamers this year, it’s likely that Amazon Studios will have the next big online hit.

Looking to make a splash with its half-hour satirical comedy Alpha House, Amazon is sticking close to the winning formula established by House of Cards, kicking off its primetime originals business with a show that also focuses on the excess-laden world of national politics.

The comparison can probably end there. While House of Cards is a kind of Game of Thrones examination of the Beltway power culture, Alpha House is more Curb Your Enthusiasm… or better, Veep.

Just like Netflix, which has seen its U.S. subscriber numbers spike from 21.8 million in September 2012 to 31.4 million a year later — largely based on the drawing power of its originals — Amazon has good reasons for spending a reported $1 million to $2 million on each of the 11 episodes of its 1st season of Alpha House.

As of the 2nd quarter of this year, Amazon had 11 million members in its Prime service, which beyond letting customers stream movies and TV shows like Alpha House, also gives them free shipping on physical goods like Kindle Fire tablets. And with Prime members spending about 150 percent more on the shopping platform than typical Amazon customers, the company understandably wants to increase their ranks.

Alpha House stars John Goodman, Clark Johnson, Matt Malloy and Mark Consuelos as four dysfunctional Republican senators who share a rental house in D.C. Created by Doonesbury mastermind Garry Trudeau — who is executive-producing with Jonathan Alter and Elliot Webb — it was one of eight adult primetime and six children’s pilots that Amazon posted on its platform earlier this year.

Amazon let its users watch these pilots for free and requested their feedback. The company recently began refining the process, quietly forming small focus groups out of its more active users.

After evaluating viewer data and other factors, Amazon decided to move forward with Alpha House, as well as another comedy, coincidentally titled Betas, an ensemble about 20-somethings at a Silicon Valley start-up.

While the show’s stars — Joe Dinicol, Charlie Saxton, Jon Daly, Karan Soni and Maya Erskine — are not household names, the producing roster includes TV and film veterans Alan Freedland, Alan R. Cohen, Michael London and Michael Lehmann.

Alpha House appears to be a series that could answer Netflix’s bell in terms of star power and audience appeal. Or, as digital media analyst Richard Greenfield of BTIG Research puts it: “Amazon is spending real money.”

Roy Price, the former financial analyst who runs Amazon Studios, would not confirm the reported $1 million-to-$2 million-per-episode price tag, but he does say the budget is “in the ballpark” of made-for-pay-cable half-hour series.

Qualitatively, the Alpha House pilot certainly looks and delivers laughs like a top-shelf premium cable comedy.

When Johnson, as the cagey senator from Pennsylvania, lets Goodman — the blustery gentleman from North Carolina — reuse the speech he just gave on the Senate floor to continue a filibuster, he gets a dry, “Hey, thanks!” from Goodman in response.

Meanwhile, Molloy’s senator from Nevada — a Mormon of questionable sexual orientation who opposes gay rights — appears before the Council for Normal Marriage to receive a phallic-shaped Say No to Sodomy Award.  And the episode gets a cameo boost from Bill Murray, playing an outgoing roommate who oversleeps on the morning he’s supposed to be turning himself in to the Department of Justice.

So how is Amazon getting the word out about Alpha House and Betas? With “a mix of advertising on Amazon, as well as more traditional platforms,” says Price, who in addition to the sprawling Amazon.com empire, also has the traffic-producing Internet Movie Database (Amazon owns IMDB) to direct viewers toward its series.

Amazon chose to initially release three episodes of both series — Alpha House dropped November 15, Betas November 22 — and then follow with 1 new episode per week. For Price, this trickling methodology is preferable to making entire seasons available all at once, as the other big on-demand platform, Netflix, does with its shows.

“I think doing that creates a little problem for the water cooler,” says Price, noting that it’s difficult to create a cultural buzz around a show when some fans are on episode 1 while others are on episode 9 and still others have finished the whole season already. “You can see it in the numbers,” he adds.

As Amazon Studios ramped up development under Price this year, it used a uniquely democratized “open-source” system, whereby anyone could pitch a script or a series concept. More than 5,000 pilot scripts were uploaded to the site; ultimately, 2 of the 25 produced pilots came from the online process. The company also uses a 2nd track of traditional development.

With its Los Angeles headquarters, Amazon Studios seems to be relying more and more on proven TV industry executives, such as former ABC Studios senior vice-president Morgan Wandell, who was hired in October to oversee drama development.

And Betas aside, looking into 2014, the company seems to be relying on more established talent for its series, too.

Primetime pilots under consideration, for example, include Mozart in the Jungle, an adaptation of Blair Tindall’s memoir of life among struggling, recreational drug–gobbling New York classical musicians, written by Roman Coppola, Jason Schwartzman and Alex Timbers.

There’s also The After, an apocalyptic thriller from X-Files skipper Chris Carter, and Bosch, a procedural cop drama based on the work of writer Michael Connelly.

HULU

While Amazon stepped up with big-name talent in 2013 to challenge Netflix, Hulu — which touts about 4 million paid subscribers — spent the first half of the year in a kind of holding pattern, waiting to see if its corporate owners were going to sell the subscription video service.

Besides a number of coproduction deals with the BBC for so-called North American exclusives — like the just-premiered The Wrong Mans, starring Tony winner James Corden — Hulu has invested in some go-it-alone original productions.

Those include shows with high-profile talent like Eva Longoria and Seth Meyers, who are producing — and voicing — half-hour animated comedies. Longoria’s Mother Up!, about a Manhattan mom transitioning to suburban life, debuted in November.

Meyers’s The Awesomes, about a misfit band of superheroes, debuted in August and is queued up for a 2nd season next summer. Executive-producing with Meyers are his former Saturday Night Live colleagues Michael Shoemaker and Lorne Michaels, and the cast also includes ex-SNL-ers like Bill Hader and Rachel Dratch.

“Comedy and animation — those are the kinds of programs that have traditionally done well on our platform,” Charlotte Koh, Hulu’s head of development, told emmy earlier this year.

The relatively inexpensive coproductions and toons supplement an array of 1st-run, in-season TV shows that viewers won’t find on any other streaming service, but Hulu has yet to debut a big, splashy original show.

With its ownership and management situation now stabilized, that is likely to change soon.

In August, the company announced that it is partnering with Lionsgate and Brad Pitt’s Plan B Entertainment to produce 10 episodes of the subversive comedy Deadbeat, about a New York medium who helps ghosts settle their unfinished tasks. Troy Miller (Arrested Development) will direct and also executive produce. The cast includes Tyler Labine, Cat Deeley (host of Fox’s So You Think You Can Dance), Brandon T. Jackson and Lucy DeVito.

Deadbeat is expected to debut sometime in 2014 on both Hulu’s free and paid-subscription services. Given the involvement of Lionsgate, which produces Netflix’s critically lauded Orange Is the New Black, it should be the company’s most ambitious — and risky — original content investment to date.

NETFLIX

After a year full of big, buzzy primetime shows — which included season two of the Ricky Gervais comedy Derek — Netflix is closing out 2013 rather quietly.

On December 13 it launches season two of Lilyhammer, the coproduction that stars Steven Van Zandt (The Sopranos) as an ex-gangster awkwardly exiled to snowy Scandinavia.

Also in December, Netflix debuts the kids’ series Turbo: F.A.S.T. An adaptation of the DreamWorks Animation feature, it features the voice of Mark Hamill.

Netflix promises an even bigger splash in 2014. In an October conference call with investors, CEO Reed Hastings said that the company will double its original-content spending during the calendar year.

To that end, the streaming service has committed to second seasons of House of Cards, Orange Is the New Black and the Eli Roth horror series Hemlock Grove. It has also confirmed a 13-episode order for a psychological thriller from Damages creators Todd A. Kessler, Glenn Kessler and Daniel Zelman.

The series — yet to be titled — concerns the unveiling of family secrets among adult siblings when a black-sheep brother returns home.

Meanwhile, reportedly in development for 2014 — though unconfirmed by Netflix — is Narcos, a series focused on notorious Colombian drug kingpin Pablo Escobar, from Brazilian director José Padilha.

The company was also said to be in talks with the Weinstein Company and Electus to distribute Marco Polo, a 9-part period drama from creators John Fusco (Young Guns) and Dave Erikson (Sons of Anarchy) that was originally intended to air on Starz.

Notably unmentioned by Hastings when touting the 2014 slate was the science-fiction drama Sense8, from The Matrix creators Andy and Lana Wachowski along with Georgeville Television. A 10-episode order for that show was announced earlier this year, but at press time its fate was unknown.

Already announced for 2015 and beyond: the rollout of four 13-episode live-action series based on the Marvel characters Daredevil, Jessica Jones, Iron Fist and Luke Cage, to be followed by a miniseries called The Defenders. The deal with Marvel and ABC Television Studios, both divisions of the Walt Disney Company, comes on the heels of last year’s movie distribution deal that will bring Disney features to Netflix starting in 2016.
•
Originally published Emmy® magazine issue 12-2013.

 

http://www.emmys.com/news/features/blooming-field-online-originals

2013 TV in Review: The Rise of Craft-Brewed Television

Ellen

Why was so much of the year’s TV like a good beer?

12/10/2013   Time

As I wrote when I put together my top 10 TV shows of 2013, this was a tough and rewarding year to make the list because there was so much good TV. But that was also true because there was so much change going on in TV this year: in the stories being told, in the people telling them, and in the means of delivering them to you. As the year winds down, I’m looking back on a few of the trends that made 2013 TV what it was:

It’s been a few years now that people have predicted that technology would usher in a democratized, diverse media world of a billion channels, all on equal footing. I can’t forget that I am writing for the magazine that, with the rise of YouTube, declared “You” the Person of the Year in 2006.

That future hasn’t entirely arrived. Yes, there’s more original online video every year. Being an online media outlet now means being a video producer. Some web series, like Brad Bell and Jane Espenson’s Husbands or Felicia Day’s The Guild, could genuinely hold their own with their TV-on-TV counterparts. And there’s been some crossover between the worlds: Annoying Orange got a TV show! But there was still, by and large, a divide. On the one side, there were the interesting experiments and explosive memes of online video, and on the other, there was full-scale “real” television, made by the handful of broadcast and cable networks that could afford it. We didn’t really see the TV equivalent of “indie film” break out because the economics and logistics of the industry didn’t allow for it.

In 2013, though, we started seeing more and more TV productions that came close to that. While Netflix made HBO-scale projects like House of Cards and Orange Is the New Black, online video outlet Hulu gave us offbeat international productions Moone Boy and The Wrong Mans. Sundance Channel, eschewing high-metabolic action dramas, emerged as a specialist in low-simmer dramas like Rectify, The Returned, and Top of the Lake. New, small satellite channel Pivot had one of the best new comedies of the year in the Australian Please Like Me. IFC, following on the success of idiosyncratic sketch comedy Portlandia, gave Marc Maron his own dark personal comedy (which owed something to the dark personal comedy of FX’s Louie). Amazon debuted as a “broadcaster” with Alpha House and Betas, comedies set in the particular milieus of GOP politics and software startups.

None of these shows, and other small pleasures like them, are “indie TV” exactly–they have stars and budgets and weren’t exactly made on anyone’s credit card. But they’re approaching that–a middle ground somewhere between utterly DIY YouTube work and full-scale big network productions. They’re not exactly home-brewed, but craft-brewed.

The beer metaphor works nicely, actually, not just because TV and beer go so perfectly together. As in the beer world, some of these harder-to-find boutique offerings are overseas imports, others the productions of smaller American producers. (Or, like HBO’s stable of smaller-scale, smaller-audience series like Getting On or Hello Ladies, they’re a side product of a major distillery.)

Because they cater to smaller audiences with specialized tastes–even more so, in some cases, than already-narrow cable audiences–they can offer more specific flavor profiles, alienating to some. You might notice, for instance, that some of the shows that I mention above fit into a nebulous area somewhere between comedy and drama. Getting On, set in a hospital eldercare ward, is an often brutally funny memento mori. The Wrong Mans combines comedy with the crime-thriller genre; Maron, with personal psychotherapy.

Likewise, The Returned is a horror story that would rather unsettle than terrify. Enlightened–my #1 show of 2013–was simultaneously a New Age satire, a corporate cat-and-mouse game, and a meditation on how crazy you have to be to keep faith in a fallen world. Finding these stylistic and tonal hybrids may be a defining characteristic of craft-brewed TV: where big productions aiming at a larger audience need to be distinct in mission–very funny comedies, very stark dramas–these smaller shows are all about complicating things, making space for the odd, the both-fish-and-flesh, the uncategorizable and the category-creating.

And like the artisanal beer market (or, for that matter, the term “indie film”), craft TV describes both a sensibility and a business situation. It’s a phenomenon that’s possible not just because of the artists working in it but because of the growth of outlets–cable, satellite, streaming–for them to work in. It’s a byproduct of a market with expanding shelf space that allows–no, demands–unusual, niche products combining odd ingredients. Crack a few open. Eventually you’ll find your favorite.

 

http://entertainment.time.com/2013/12/10/2013-tv-in-review-the-rise-of-craft-brewed-television/

For Liberty Global, the Next Step Is the Content

Ellen

7/29/2014   WSJ

“You need to have great scale to compete with Google [or] Netflix,’ said Mike Fries, CEO of Liberty Global. Sander de Wilde for The Wall Street Journal
Cable magnate John Malone and his protégé Mike Fries helped light the fire in Europe’s telecom consolidation. Now they are on the prowl for media.

Liberty Global LBTYA +1.88% PLC—of which Mr. Malone is chairman and holds a roughly 27% voting stake and Mr. Fries is the longtime chief executive—has spent tens of billions of dollars in recent years buying cable operators including Virgin Media Inc. of the U.K. and, if regulators agree, the Netherlands’ Ziggo ZIGGO.AE +1.00% NV. Its assets are mostly in Europe.

Amid a global race to keep up with Google Inc. GOOG +0.23% and other technology companies, Liberty Global needs media assets to complement its cable empire and keep subscribers paying their monthly bills. Earlier this month, it bought a 6.4% stake in ITV Group PLC, Britain’s No. 1 commercial broadcaster, which airs the popular drama series “Downton Abbey,” for more than $800 million.

(Liberty Global, whose legal headquarters are in London, is separate from Mr. Malone’s Liberty Media Corp., a media and communications holding company where he is also chairman.)

On the sidelines of a board meeting in Brussels, Messrs. Malone and Fries discussed industry consolidation, their acquisition plans and competition with U.S. tech giants. Edited excerpts:

WSJ: What’s behind the current wave of consolidation in telecommunications and media?

Mr. Malone: It’s the “eat or be eaten” drive of capitalism. Scale economics are compelling in the media space where you have high fixed and very low marginal costs. The consumer’s appetite for convenience and a full menu of services is compelling, along with the synergies.

Mr. Fries: Consolidation is king. Scale has always been critical for the industry, and I think it is more critical today than it has ever been. The pace will accelerate and it makes good sense. Consolidation supports our thesis that in a globalizing digital world you need to have great scale to compete with Google [or] Netflix.

WSJ: Liberty has played a big role buying up cable operators. Is there more in store?

Mr. Fries: That story line is not coming to an end, but it is slowing down. The acquisition opportunities in terms of cable television assets are fewer, and our market expectations in terms of how many more markets we want to expand into is a smaller universe. Portugal is too small. Italy doesn’t have any cable. And we wouldn’t get into the satellite business.

There are a couple of markets in Central and Eastern Europe that still require some consolidation. Poland would be one of them. It is a pretty competitive market with lots of fragmented [cable] operators.

Opportunities around content and other media assets [also] look to us to be interesting. Those opportunities look to be becoming more plentiful, not less, over the next 18 to 24 months.

WSJ: Why more media-deal opportunities?

Mr. Malone: [Mike] has done the major obvious acquisitions that have been available. And now they’re looking for ways to make those businesses that they are in better. Either considering certain vertical investments that would enhance their service offerings, their competitive posture, or moving forward on a whole series of technological innovation.

In some cases it is defensive; in some cases it is offensive. In the [case of ITV] it looked like a good investment and would enhance our relationship with ITV and its management. They have a very large production studio whose output could be very interesting with respect to program needs in other jurisdictions.

WSJ: Would you be interested in increasing your ITV stake beyond 6.4%?

Mr. Fries: Are we committing today that we’ll never, ever own more shares? Of course not. [But] we don’t have any intention to do anything. There is no smoking gun there.

WSJ: What’s the status of Liberty’s efforts to buy a majority of motor racing series Formula One jointly with Discovery Communications Inc.?

Mr. Malone: We have been engaging in discussions for what seems like an endless period of time. We continue to be interested, but when we have something to announce we’ll announce it. You have got to kiss a lot of frogs before you find a prince. At this stage we are still kissing the frogs.

WSJ: Why invest in Formula One?

Mr. Malone: Sports has been elevated as an area of interest in content because of its real-time nature. The industry has a long tradition of paying up for sports and that becomes even more important as other elements of entertainment programming commoditize.

WSJ: You offer mobile service to your customers through other operators. Why not buy your own mobile operator?

Mr. Fries: We are not buying mobile companies that are, in some instances, falling knives—struggling in this competitive environment.

It makes a lot more sense if you are mobile operator to buy a cable operation. That I get. You need all the things a cable operation provides, which is why Vodafone bought in Germany, why Vodafone bought in Spain.

WSJ: So would there be a logic to Vodafone buying Liberty Global?

Mr. Fries: There have been no conversations. Our core organic business—I have never felt better about it in 20 years in the industry. We don’t need to make acquisitions. We certainly don’t need to be acquired to make shareholders happy in this company.

Mr. Malone: As a practical matter, this company is not for sale because it represents a very unusually high long-term return on invested equity capital. It’s an approach towards wealth building that I totally believe in.

WSJ: Long-term, how can Liberty compete with U.S. tech giants like Google or Facebook as they become bigger distributors of content?

Mr. Fries: I don’t see them as competitors, quite frankly. They are changing the landscape but they are also furthering our own business strategies. They are not in the connectivity business. They are apps. But we are certainly thinking about the business differently today because of the evolution of these apps.

WSJ: How about Netflix, which is preparing a September launch in several additional European countries? Are they a competitor or partner?

Mr. Fries: Both. We distribute them in the U.K. We compete with them in Germany and the Netherlands. We see them as enabler of our broadband business, and that is a good thing. But also they are competing for content rights and competing for share of the video wallet.

Mr. Malone: “Frenemies” is the term of art. Almost all the communication companies compete with each other and supply each other and drive each other. It is sort of the nature of the beast.

 

http://online.wsj.com/articles/next-step-for-liberty-global-content-1406667563

 

 

Kendall Morgan Rhodes VRP

Ellen

Kendall Morgan Rhodes

SVP, Digital Programming & Content Production
Relativity Media

Kendall_Rhodes13

Bio (from NATPE’s Speakers page)

Kendall Rhodes serves as Senior Vice President of Relativity Media where she is responsible for expanding Relativity’s original digital content, developing channel strategies, launching branded video marketing campaigns for Relativity’s feature films, developing intellectual property, and growing Rogue’s audiences across the Rogue Movie Network and Relativity Media’s digital properties such as iamROGUE.com and AritstDIRECT.com.

Rhodes has been developing and producing content for features, television and the web for over ten years. Rhodes produced a number of feature films as co-founder and President of Cherry Road Films such as Southland Tales with Dwayne The Rock Johnson, Sarah Michelle Gellar, Seann William Scott, Mandy Moore, and Justin Timberlake; The Hunting Party with Richard Gere and Terrence Howard; L.A. Riot Spectacular with Snoop Dog and Emilio Estevez; and Eulogy with Ray Ramono, Zooey Deschanel, Famke Janssen, and Debra Winger. While President, Cherry Road Films had a first look, development deal at Warner Independent Films, a division of Warner Brothers. Rhodes also incubated and launched SpinDaily.com in 2008, an editorial website dedicated to making videos on the latest trends and products in beauty, fashion, lifestyle and music in the Los Angeles area. Prior to 2002, Rhodes was the coordinating producer of A&E’s Inside Story and Investigative Reports, co-produced a documentary in Cuba with Academy Award winning director, Barbara Kopple, as well as worked at Nibblebox.com (Hypnotic) and CNN.

Rhodes went to University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill for her BA. She received a scholarship to complete her Masters from San Diego State University in Women’s Studies and also her MFA in Film from Columbia University in New York.

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kendallmorganrhodes

Summary (on LinkedIn):

For over ten years, Rhodes has been creating and producing long- and short-form multiplatform content and branded entertainment. Rhodes has developed and produced feature films, television shows, digital web series, YouTube campaigns and branded viral videos.
Rhodes is currently Executive Producing for Relativity Digital Studios and responsible for the packaging, production and daily oversight of a number of their original series.

Experience:

SVP, Digital Programming & Content Production
Relativity Media
February 2010 – Present (4 years 6 months) Beverly Hills, CA
Co-Founder/President/Feature Film Producer
Cherry Road Films
January 2002 – September 2010 (8 years 9 months) Santa Monica, CA
Co-Founder/Digital Producer
SpinandStir Media
October 2008 – January 2010 (1 year 4 months) Los Angeles, CA
Creative Executive
Hypnotic
January 2000 – January 2001 (1 year 1 month) Greater New York City Area
Series Coordinating Producer
BNN
September 1999 – September 2000 (1 year 1 month) Greater New York City Area
Assistant Producer
CNN
May 1998 – September 1999 (1 year 5 months) Greater Atlanta Area

Education
Columbia University in the City of New York
2000 – 2002
San Diego State University-California State University (Scholarship)
1996 – 1998
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (Honors)
1990 – 1994

Organizations
The Paley Center’s Media Council – Member
International Academy of Web Television (IAWTV) – Member
Academy of Television Arts & Sciences – Interactive Media Peer Group
Film Independent – Member Arts Circle
Sundance Institute – Innovator
Women In Film

Language: French

Twitter: @spinkendall (1,486 followers) https://twitter.com/spinkendall
“Producer Film, TV, Digital + I just like to make good content with cool people.”

Google+: https://plus.google.com/105288311568269589677/posts
(One of her three posts is Variety’s article “Relativity Launches Digital Studio Division (EXCLUSIVE)”)

IMDB Pro: https://pro-labs.imdb.com/name/nm0604811/

Credits:
Money for Nothing (Executive Producer) (In development)
Bob Thunder: Internet Assassin (Producer) (In production)
Interns (2014 TV Mini-series) (Executive Producer)
Girl’s Guide with Michelle Phan (2014 TV Mini-series) (Executive Producer)
Tube Top (2011 Talk show) (Producer)
The Hunting Party (Co-Executive Producer)(2007)
Southland Tales (Producer) (2006)
The L.A. Riot Spectacular (Executive Producer) (2005)
Mail Order Wife (Producer) (2004)
Eulogy (Executive Producer) (2004)

In The Media:

-Kendall Rhodes has been on many panel discussions on online video production including “Digital LA – Branded Entertainment Panel” and “Digital Hollywood” etc.

YouTube Stars Get the Hollywood Treatment
7/15/2014 Variety
http://variety.com/2014/digital/news/youtube-stars-get-the-hollywood-treatment-1201262848/

YouTube star Shane Dawson is one of the featured cast members in “Bob Thunder: Internet Assassin,” a feature-length digital movie lampooning YouTube multichannel networks being co-produced by Relativity Digital Studios and video site FilmOn.

“Bob Thunder: Internet Assassin” is being funded by FilmOn Prods., owned by Alki David — the eccentric entrepreneur who has tried to launch an Aereo-like Internet TV service to stream broadcast networks online. David and Relativity’s Kendall Rhodes serve as producers.

Online video tips from Spin and Stir Media

12/27/2008
http://stylecampaign.com/blog/2008/12/online-video-tips-from-spin-and-stir-media/

2009 will see a surge in retailers using product and educational videos on the web and in email campaigns.

Dave Witzig from ShopNBC reported that customers that watch their videos convert at twice the rate of customers who don’t. Conversion rates increased 45% on 10 different products after retailer MyWeddingFavors.com tested more than 100,000 video impressions.

Obviously now is the time to start thinking about an online video strategy.

I interviewed Kendall Rhodes – seen below – founder of SpinandStir Media, which caters solely to business who want to produce internet video content.
kendall

1. Introduce yourself
SpinDaily.com is a video blog for Los Angeles fashion, beauty, arts, culture and lifestyle.
SpinAndStir Media is an internet video production company that produces high quality video promotions, web series, how-to videos and short films.
……