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We're Not Who You Think We Are

Kassia Krozser

The King Is Dead, Long Live The King!

January 26, 2006 by Kassia Krozser

There have been more than a few interesting discussions this week about the old media dying and making making way for the new media. Each discussion concludes with the clear need for established media outlets to embrace change. And fast.

Any media business has two products to sell: its content (to readers and viewers); and its audience (to advertisers). The task for old media is first to protect its advertising revenues by amassing audiences online and, second, to offset their viewers’ intolerance of mass-advertising by making them pay more for content—which they are increasingly willing to do. It will not be easy, but then saving the heroine never was.

While I will not presume to speak for my fellow ‘lopers, I can say that we have been online, in a serious manner, for well over ten years. It’s getting to be that I don’t remember a time when Amazon.com wasn’t part of my everyday shopping experience. I think I downloaded my first e-book in 1998. A few weeks ago, we enjoyed a new episode of Monk on the big screen monitor (which, not surprisingly, has better resolution than our old-school television). I will even admit to downloading a couple of fansubs of Samurai Champloo because I was in dire need of a new anime series. It was the fansubs, by the way, that helped build early buzz for the series’ North American debut.

The record industry went ahead and spent a lot of money and energy not getting it. In fact, as an avid observer of industry efforts, I spent the better part of five years shaking my head in bewilderment. The solution was so simple, yet they rolled out a new partnership, format, initiative, plan, lawsuit, you name it, every few months. While the labels were scrambling to get a clue, the consumers had moved on. The recent demise of record stores like Aron’s may or may not have been inevitable, but the music industry didn’t help matters by continually fighting progress.

As we build the full-featured Medialoper site, we’re looking at the whole entertainment universe. It’s a big place. We think many of the old media companies will adapt to the new atmosphere. Those that won’t will be the ones who, like the music business, don’t get it.

  • King content: Don’t write off Hollywood and the big media groups just yet

Filed Under: Mediacratic

Does The World Really Need A Fifth Network?

January 24, 2006 by Kassia Krozser

Jim has already taken time from his busy day to make fun of The CW’s name. I will take the time to, well, think about what the merger of UPN and The WB means. First off, the fact that UPN and WB merged has absolutely no impact on me. None. Not one little bit.

Granted, I’m not the target demographic, but it’s been a long time since I tied my television watching to a specific channel/time. In fact, the time was when I coerced the husband into HBO because I was going to watch The Sopranos or else. Since then (and before), we rely on TiVo to capture programs by title. It doesn’t matter to us when it airs or what channel it’s on. This is a very important thing to note — even my mother has a DVR. Sure, she needs my little sister to program it, but mom is a fast learner. All it takes is a show she doesn’t want to miss.

According to Les Moonves, head mucky muck of CBS, this merger will create a powerful fifth network. This begs the question: does the world need a fifth network? In addition to all the basic and pay cable channels? What does a fifth network have to offer the world (except for the great Everybody Hates Chris)*? Well, it’s obvious:

[Read more…] about Does The World Really Need A Fifth Network?

Filed Under: Mediacratic, Television

Medialoper News of the World

January 21, 2006 by Kassia Krozser

We’ve pulled together a sampling of stories that reflect discussions happening all over the entertainment industry. This week, we pay special attention to the UK.

  • Long-lost tunes dug up for jukebox of the net; Universal releases 100,000 vintage tracks online; Archive raid aims to get older fans downloading: Realizing they have a cash cow just sitting there, Universal opens the vaults for the iPod generation (which not only includes pre-teens but also baby boomers). Bands like the Fairport Convention, the original Nirvana, and Big Country will be released into the wild. It is unclear what service Universal plans to use.
  • BBC chiefs defend licence fee bid: The BBC needs a 2.3% hike in its licence fee to give the public what it wants, BBC director general Mark Thompson has told the House of Lords: A changeover to digital programming, demand for fewer repeats fuels the increase. The question remains as to whether this will do much to position the BBC for the future.
  • CBS to Air ‘Micro-Series’ on TV, Internet: CBS will air The Courier in seven installments of a minute or less via cellphone and on the internet. The series will also air during CBS broadcast programs (think commercial break, no product). Pontiac is sponsoring the series; CBS.com will provide further details about the series’ core mystery. Inexplicably, CBS will not release the micro-series concurrently to cellphones and the internet. Those users have to wait until a day after broadcast to download. CBS is using Verizon’s V Cast service, so if you’re not using that system (and you may not be in light of last week’s news), you’re out of luck.
  • Fox TV takes time on new distribution outlets: Fox isn’t rushing into making announcements and cutting deals, they say (though in-the-know types can easily assume that frantic deal-making is going on as we type). Peter Liguori is playing it coy on whether Disney’s deal with iTunes was premature, choosing to liken new media to a marathon. We’ll give him that.
  • E-read all about it: The world of publishing stands on the cusp of the greatest innovation since Gutenberg. With cheap, portable electronic readers just around the corner, what is the future of the printed book?: Robert McCrum contemplates how electronic devices will affect the future of the book (we could have saved him some time: the book as we know will remain an institution for a long time to come). He looks at devices and contemplates the big question: how long before the OED offers download-to-your-phone definitions?
  • Close-up on what went right, wrong: Patrick Goldstein of the Los Angeles Times reviews the last year in entertainment (motion picture-centric). He points to the key factor driving changes in how we watch: time. As in the consumer’s time. (Note: at least one level of registration required.)
  • Ofcom suggests TV download plan: Broadcasters in the UK could have the right to distribute independently-made TV shows for downloading under new proposals from media watchdog Ofcom.: The UK continues to grapple with new technologies that threaten to drastically change how television has been controlled for decades. Interesting tidbit: the UK is the world’s biggest market for illegal television downloads. So much for our image of prim and proper Britons.
  • Journalism’s paper tigers? A decade into the Internet age, newspapers try to stay relevant after losing a monopoly: Newspapers, who stood by as the internet siphoned off classified advertising revenue (we remain slack-jawed at the way the leading papers failed to grasp the importance of Craigslist), now try to figure out where they fit in the new new media.
  • Wait wait! Don’t tell me! Too bad. TV spoilers abound, and the best you can do is keep up: Finally, the decline of appointment television has created a new challenge for viewers — how to avoid spoilers.

Filed Under: Mediacratic, The Weekly 'Loper

What We’re Talking About

January 18, 2006 by Kassia Krozser

There’s a lot of stuff I want to highlight this week, but thought this one was worth a quick post. When we first started discussion the Medialoper and Mediacratic idea, our focus was on television. It took about thirty seconds to realize that we’d have to look at all media. In the worlds of entertainment and information, every cherished institution is being re-examined.

Even magazines. I noted earlier this week that magazines are beefing up their online staffs, but what about the magazines who, well, abandon words entirely? What if there’s a movie magazine out there comprised of, well, movies? Short films, to be exact?

Wholphin (yes, that’s the progeny of a whale and dolphin) comes from the brain trust behind McSweeney’s and The Believer. And it comes at just the right time for the reviewers at the Washington Post:

That’s because we at The Magazine Reader are sick. We’re also tired. We’re sick and tired of words — endless words marching one after another in horizontal line after horizontal line in paragraph after paragraph in article after article in magazine after magazine.

In other words, we’re sick of reading. We long to join the rest of our fellow Americans sitting on the sofa with beer and Doritos, basking in the glow of a TV screen. And now Wholphin enables us to do just that.

  • Wholphin, a Journal Cast Against Type — On DVD

Filed Under: Unexpected Results

The Google Bazaar

January 16, 2006 by Kassia Krozser

The Los Angeles Times has an interesting profile of the head of Google Video Store, Jennifer Feiken (though we could have done without the tidbit about her height increasing when she wears high-heeled boots — seriously, it’s 2006, people). While I found myself mildly interested in Feiken’s journey from the cutting room floor (an aborted role in Hairspray) to Silicon Valley, I was more interested in how Google will work its way into the brave new world of the new media.

Google has made a lot of bold moves in the media world, most notably with its Google Book Search/Print/Publish initiative (what is it, anyway?). And it’s not an overstatement to say they own the search engine world right now. Aggregating and cataloguing data is what they do best — it remains to be seen if they’re up to the task of selling content to the user. Our initial analysis indicates that Google has a long way to go — hiring an entertainment industry insider is a good first step, but this may be the time that Google needs to leverage other skills even more. First up: make it usable.

LAT describes Google’s initiative as an “online bazaar” and indicates that established media companies are facing the project with skepticism.

The service got a rocky start last week. It was launched three days late because of technical problems, and some users complained about glitches and a shortage of popular TV programming. For example, there were only one episode of CBS’ popular show “CSI: Crime Scene Investigation” and fewer than a dozen music videos from Sony BMG Music Entertainment — two of Google’s major media partners.

Google also faces challenges from existing partnerships established by its competition, not to mention the fact that iTunes has set the bar very high:

[Read more…] about The Google Bazaar

Filed Under: Google, Mediacratic, Services

Making It Play In Peoria

January 15, 2006 by Kassia Krozser

The other day, I noted that Verizon’s V Cast music service doesn’t play nice with iTunes. In fact, it doesn’t play at all. While I’m sure that announcing a partnership with Microsoft (or any other exclusive, proprietary deal between a small number of companies) makes for great press conferences, it doesn’t play in Peoria. In this coming year, we are going to see more services and devices than the average person will be able to fathom. In fact, the average person missed your press conference and only wants Stuff To Work.

The dream, as described at last week’s Consumer Electronics Show, is to allow devices like TVs, computers and audio receivers to share audio and video around the home, with a single remote control running the show.

Since everyone knows the dream — let’s call it a goal — surely new products are being developed to fulfill it. Or not.

At CES, tech heavyweights such as Intel, Panasonic, Samsung and Sharp all showed off networking systems, but none of those systems are designed to work together. The resulting problems are similar to miscommunication between people who speak the same language but different dialects — sometimes they might understand each other perfectly well, but at other times they might not.

This isn’t an easy problem to solve, but if you look to stereo components of the past, you can see that a receiver from Sony managed to work just fine with a DVD player from Panasonic. They live peacefully together in the same dwelling. That’s how the new home entertainment network needs to be. Consumers want cool, definitely, but they also want cool that works straight out of the box. . .with all the other cool stuff they’ve bought.
Apparent winners in this high-stakes game will emerge quickly, but if the needs of the consumer aren’t addressed early in the process, there will be more expensive failures than successes. And, like the iTunes store proved, consumers will flock to the technology that works for them.

  • Network Babel in the Living Room

Filed Under: Mediacratic

Hatchette Leads Magazines in Web Vision

January 11, 2006 by Kassia Krozser

How do you know the world is spinning faster? When the magazine industry starts thinking new paradigm. The Time corporation announced layoffs as a way to beef up its online presence (this is how things are done in the corporate world). Now Hatchette Filipacchi Media U.S. has institutionalized its web and electronics operations with the announcement of a new V.P.

The publisher named Marta Wohrle as VP-director of digital media, responsible for the development of 16 Web sites, four mobile applications, digital editions for all Hachette titles, joint ventures in new media, video-on-demand and new media acquisitions.

Looking to the future is the goal, and Hatchette will be increasing web staff and implementing cross-platform strategies — none announced as of yet, but Wohrle probably hasn’t had time to pick out her office furniture, much less cross-platform anything. Though we remain curious about the idea of video-on-demand. So intriguing.

“Migrating our assets to new digital platforms will require new strategies for creating content. As content is increasingly conceived for multiple platforms, we may, at times need to form new partnerships. We’ll need to develop the skills and systems that enable print- and screen-based resources to be shared and vigorous cross-promotion to be fostered,” he [Jack Kliger, president-CEO of Hachette] said.

Although magazine publishers were among the first to recognize the power — and threat — the Internet presented, Mr. Guelton said every magazine publisher now understands that the question is not whether to have a digital strategy, but how fast to execute it.

“The bigger difficulty for us is to truly understand and accept and implement the idea that we are not defined by paper or by a distribution form,” he said. “We are as magazines defined by content, editors and a relationship with marketers.”

This is certainly the right thinking, but, as we’ve learned, it’s all about the execution. The publisher is behind magazines as diverse as Woman’s Day, Elle, and Road & Track. Good products, but we’re going to offer a bit of useful advice: strong web presences begin at home. Finding the Hatchette (much less Hatchette U.S. operations) home page was an exercise in ingenuity. If they can’t find you, they won’t come.

  • HACHETTE NAMES NEW DIGITAL OPERATIONS CHIEF: Creates New Post to Oversee Web and Electronic Ventures (Note: Subscription required)
  • Hatchette Filipacchi Media U.S.

Filed Under: Mediacratic

Give The People What They Want

January 11, 2006 by Kassia Krozser

Verizon customers who upgraded to the company’s new music service discovered a big oops: their cell phones can’t play MP3s acquired from anyone but the company’s V Cast Music Store. Verizon says this was an unintentional error and is working to fix the problem. But this problem highlights another issue facing the communications giant:

The new V Cast Music store does, however, weigh in definitively on one side of the music download industry by employing the newest version of the Windows Media Player from Microsoft Corp., which doesn’t work with Apple Computer Inc.’s Macintosh operating system or iTunes software.

The audience being targeted by V Cast is already using iTunes for music and more. By choosing a Windows-based format, Verizon is asking consumers to make a choice that might backfire on V Cast. Consumers who have purchased music via iTunes — and given the store’s blockbuster success, there are many — aren’t going to repurchase items just to listen to music on their cellphones.

This isn’t a Beta versus VHS issue. Content providers cannot afford to embrace one operating system/format over another. Consumers have made it clear that they want their technology to be as flexible as possible. Companies that force choices on consumers will learn what the music industry discovered the hard way: people aren’t buying the “we know best” approach.

As for the MP3 problem, there’s no way to say this nicely: it was sloppy work by Verizon. The MP3 format is mature and skipping compatibility testing shows that Verizon either doesn’t understand the business it’s entered or needs to implement better software development procedures. This blunder puts the burden on the consumer: they must go to one of the company’s stores to receive a software upgrade. Why not provide a downloadable link on the V Cast website and send a text message to all service subscribers?

Now Verizon faces two challenges: recovering from this stumble while convincing consumers that excluding the world’s most popular music service was a good move.

  • Verizon’s Music Service Hampers MP3 Ability

Filed Under: Music, Services

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Previously on Medialoper

  • Certain Songs #2580: Supertramp – “Even in the Quietest Moments”
  • Certain Songs #2579: Supertramp – “Bloody Well Right”
  • Certain Songs #2578: Supergrass – “Sun Hits The Sky”
  • Certain Songs #2577: Supergrass – “Alright”
  • Certain Songs #2576: Superchunk – “If You’re Not Dark”

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