GenDigital

CBS Continues Acquisition Streak, This Time Snapping Up Last.fm

Before going into the details, don't you find just the least bit ironic that it was the CBS side of the old Viacom business that acquired radio site Last.fm instead of the new Viacom, home to MTV? It's somewhat of a telling story these days. Here's the deal with Last.fm and the youth market. For the most part, the site is barely on our radar, they are considerably larger outside of the U.S. especially in parts of Europe. Their value proposition is similar to that of a typical social network, offering users the opportunity to connect with like minded peers. In this case, however, it is all about your music tastes. Their pitch to marketers is their "stickiness" factor, which they claim is unusually high based on the fact the whole notion of "music discovery" is an time intensive process. How this fits into CBS's current stable of online properties, which are mostly sports related, is anyone's guess, but it will be interesting to see if they are able to monetize the platform as well as integrate it within their portfolio of Internet properties.

TV Watch: Hidden Palms Premiere

If you're around tonight at 8:00pm, I would suggest you tune into the CW Network's premiere of "Hidden Palms," which has all the makings of being the next "The O.C." According to our May Immersion report where we provided our panelists with a list of synopses from 15 new and returning spring/summer television series, "Hidden Palms" received the second highest individual rating among females and sixth highest among males. The last time we saw a show rate that strongly with the audience was with "Entourage" this time last year, and I probably don't have to tell you how that show is faring among the audience right now. Anyway, here's the deal with "Hidden Palms," the exec producer is Kevin Williamson, the same Kevin Williamson who brought us longtime teen staple "Dawson's Creek," and also produced the hit teen drama flick "I Know What You Did Last Summer." The cast is made up of talent who have appeared in a wide variety of television dramas and comedies, including "The O.C." and "NYPD Blue." The storyline features the perfect teen angst mix of drama, love, scandal and some violence. Could "Hidden Palms" be the Wednesday prime time killer of the summer season? Early indications say yes, but we'll wait and see, we'll post on the results and progress of the show in a couple of weeks.

College Internships Move To Online World

The prized summer internship for college students can be considered their first taste of the "real world" and a jump on possible future employment after graduation. Competition for coveted internships at top investment banks, media companies and brand marketers continues to be healthy. However, with that said, if you take a look at this nation's workforce and some of the massive changes that have occured over the past ten years with the advent of technology and communications, the trend of telecommuting and working remotely has started to spill over to the world of college internships as well. I just read a story about a 24 year old student who completed an internship last summer for a small financial services company in the comfort of his own residence. Of course, there are pros and cons for students participating in virtual internships. I am one of those people who beleive the cons far outweigh the pros. For one thing, the next generation of this nation's workforce needs to witness firsthand what it's like to be in an office environment. They need to understand how to communicate effectively in-person, in addition to communicating over email or the phone. Say all you want about how Gen Y is so adept when it comes to communications via technology, but to simply swap one for the other doesn't seem kosher at the end of the day. There is clear value to know that you have to wake up and be at a certain location five days a week for a certain period of time. There is value to learn and witness firsthand how certain office environments work and discover what a company's culture means. I have to think a lot of these characteristics are difficult to comprehend if you are working remotely. I hope this trend ends up turning out to be more of a fad than a long lasting event, because quite frankly, it just doesn't make a lot of sense.

Prediction Confirmed, American Idol Ratings Down 20%

Back in early January, we posted about American Idol, which was a couple of weeks away from launching a new season, and in typical fashion, messing up every other network's ratings on Tuesday and Wednesday nights. Based on certain feedback we received from panelists, we sensed a level of burnout among the audience, especially after last season, and we posted back in January that we expected American Idol to post declining year over year ratings. Lots of you respectfully disagreed with us, and that is certainly understandable. We stuck by our trend call for throughout the season and lo and behold guess what? Ratings for the finale were down by 20% compared to last year. Now, I know what your thinking, so what, the show still dominates the ratings (which it does) and they continue to pull in gigantic $50 million sponsor packages from the likes of Ford and Cingular. If you go back and look what we said in January, we noted that AI would still finish the year as the number one show on television, but for the first time that unprecedented growth in viewers would not be sustained due to burnout from their core audience of teens and college students. We have tremendous confidence in our proprietary panel and to date, they haven't really let us down, we're not looking for a pat on the back, but at the same time, when we notice trends like this emerging from our panel, chances are, more times than not, that these kids are dead on. Have a great Memorial Day Weekend, and in between your cook outs and trips to the beach and pool, remember just for a moment what Memorial Day is all about: recognition and remembrance of those who have died serving this country.

Has Facebook Lost Its Cool Factor? We Don't Think So

There is a not so positive piece in today's Mediapost Media Daily News stemming from coverage of a panel held yesterday that included interactive media buyers from leading agencies. Essentially, the panelists collectively said that Facebook missed out on a big opportunity when they passed on an opportunity to be acquired by Yahoo last year for a cool $1 billion. The panelists noted that the buzz around Internet M&A has switched from the social networking sites like MySpace and Facebook to the large advertising networks and Internet advertising technology companies like 24/7 Real Media and Doubleclick, two companies recently acquired by agency holding company WPP and Google, respectively. I have to strongly disagree with that notion, considering there hasn't been a week that's gone by where something wasn't happening with a social networking site. Even today, news is out that Club Penguin, a social networking site aimed at the tween crowd, competing with the like of Whyville and Webkinz could be acquired by MySpace parent company News Corp or even Sony, who purchased video sharing site Grouper last year. To say that Facebook's time has come and gone is a bit naive and nearsighted in my opinion. According to our own research, Facebook's growth rate both domestically and internationally (through the few select international markets we cover) is growing at a considerably faster rate than that of MySpace. One could argue that MySpace hit a major saturation point and Facebook is just picking up the scraps, but again, I don't believe that is the case. In my mind, Facebook's cachet--it's unique selling point goes back to its roots as the main driver of a paradigm shift in the daily communication habits of teens and college students. Yes, they opened up their membership base last year to include a broader audience, but their original core market doesn't seem to care or notice that fact and they remain, by a wide margin, the dominant social networking site among teens and college student nationwide. Time and again, ever since the Yahoo acquisition rumors popped up, Facebook execs led by their CEO have said they are interested in building a company for the long haul, not looking for the quick exist strategy. If you go back to 1996 and '97 Yahoo co-founders Jerry Yang and David Filo were saying a lot of the same stuff and for all of the negative buzz that has circled around Yahoo over the past year and half, they still managed to build a company that generates nearly a billion dollars in net profits a year and commands a market cap $40 billion, I'd say that is not too shabby for a company that was non-existent a little more than ten years ago. Facebook's traffic and membership is growing by leaps and bounds and from what I can see they are getting very creative in coming with innovative applications that will ultimately add value to their platform and ideally create more effective advertising opportunities for their clients. Our friends over at emarketer estimate that social network ad spending will reach $865 million this year and nearly $2.2 billion by 2010, Facebook has just as good a chance to capture a giant share of that spend assuming they continue to execute against their strategic plan. So perhaps going at it alone isn't such a bad idea after all, as much as their direction and focus may be considered not in vogue by some.

The CW Introduces New Ad Placements and WB-like Fare

For those of you craving a new teen angst drama, your prayers will soon be answered. At The CW Network's upfront presentation yesterday, a scripted series dubbed "Gossip Girl" based on the popular book series about wealthy NYC teens, headlines the year-old network's new programming schedule for the fall. "Gossip Girl" is exec produced by "O.C." creator Josh Schwartz, who is also exec producing the upcoming NBC comedy/action/drama series "Chuck." The CW focused on its innovative content wrap placements that feature strategic product features that are woven into two or three minute spots as well as a series of new advertising opportunities including a series of 5 second "bursts" CW execs called "CWickes," cute, right? Anyway, it's refreshing to see the networks, especially The CW who lives and dies with the youth market, introduce as many advertising/technology enhancements and initiatives as it is to see everyone's new slate of programs. As the upfront draws to a close this year, here are couple of takeaways and themes I've seen over and over again starting on Monday with NBC and ending yesterday with The CW. First, the whole sci-fi/fantasy genre is clearly top of mind of television development execs, wait to you see all of the new fare under that genre dropping this fall. Clearly, only a few, if any, will make it. Hardly anyone wants to take a chance and gamble on new half hour sitcoms. Being devoted Seinfeld fan, I was pretty much ear-to-ear  for 15 minutes when Jerry Seinfeld took the stage Monday at NBC's upfront, even at this point in his career, he has that effortless type ability to make a couple of thousand people laugh, pretty hard, out loud...and lots of those people laughing like crazy were media buying people that for some reason or another have a tough time expressing any type of joy or laughter. That said, he's not doing another sitcom and apparently it looks like the whole sitcom genre died with the end of Seinfeld. No networks appear to be scooping up these types of series anytime soon. Next, it's all about supplemental digital offerings and the most frequently used word of this year's upfront: engagement. Every network says they will do a better job of infusing digital content offerings against their standard content and every network says they will do a great job of "engaging" their consumer through multiple media touch points. Based on what I saw and read this week, it looks like NBC is in the best position to capitalize on these two trends. Who ever says the upfront is dead, obviously was traveling in Antarctica this week, to me, it seemed the networks were re-invigorated to strut their stuff and talk about a lot of the macro trends facing traditional media today, I call that a step in the right direction. Plus, just watching Tiki Barber throw a football from the stage at Radio City all the way up to the third level balcony section (mind you, with his suit jacket still on) was enough for me to come back next year. No, really, all joking aside, I think the networks, collectively all put on a good show this year, clearly have a fire in their respective bellies to make stuff happen, and with all of the talk about media fragmentation and exodus to alternative outlets echoing 24/7, this was an upfront about new possibilities and new, dare I say innovative opportunities.

Univision Makes Push, Stresses Youth Reach

Univision, the fast growing Hispanic Network, unveiled a bold pitch to the television advertising community at their upfront presentation yesterday. Their timing could not have been better.  There is story out today that's all over place highlighting U.S. Census data saying that one in every three Americans are a minority. And guess what's the largest minority in the U.S.? Right, Hispanic and Latino Americans, who now make up close to half of the 100 million American citizens classified as minorities. Univision stands to benefit greatly since advertisers will now be able to use comparable ratings data used by the major five English speaking networks instead of the old index Nielsen used to have for Hispanic homes in the U.S. Another element that is sure to create some juice for Univision is the age demo it reaches. The average age of U.S. Latinos and Hispanics is only 26, smack dab in the middle of the highly desirable and coveted 18 to 34 year old viewing demographic segment. So, what does all of this mean? Well, for one thing, Univision is the real deal. They will probably end up securing in the neighborhood of $1.2 billion from advertisers. Secondly, with continued focus on the youth market and targeting large ethnic and racial groups such as Latinos, Univision comes out as being almost a "must buy," not unlike the old Thursday nights on NBC during the Seinfeld, Friends, Frasier and E.R. days.

Third Installment of Halo Due Out In Late September

Based on feedback from our panelists, we called the biggest gaming title release of the year, Microsoft is calling it "the biggest entertainment release of the year," that might be stretching, but clearly this release has some juice...I am talking about the release of Halo 3, which according to reports, will be released on September 25th. Originally, we heard rumblings that they were going to get in the game in store shelves before the end of August, but it doesn't look like that will be the case. Essentially, if it wasn't for the Halo franchise, there would be no Xbox. Halo has been Xbox's saving grace and its most credible offering since launching in '01. Halo 2 continues to be a regular appearing title on our Top Ten List Report for video and computer games and we expect Halo 3 to shoot directly to the number one position come October. Why? Because we see the buzz first hand and also because the Halo franchise has a terrific operating record. When Halo 2 came in out 2004, it generated $100 million in sales within 24 hours. As a reference point, the number one gaming title among the youth market, Madden NFL took two weeks last summer/fall to generate that same number for its '07 release.

Friday Night Lights Coming Back

I am looking forward to attending NBC's upfront presentation later this afternoon at famed Radio City Music Hall. I am anxious to see how their execs discuss their new line up for the fall, which includes a remake of the Bionic Woman series and a new comedy/drama mix coming from The O.C. creator Josh Schwartz called "Chuck." One show that will be back next fall will be "Friday Night Lights." Much the same way "Desperate Housewives" really took off in its second season, I see FNL following a similar path. In case you missed this past season, that's too bad, because when it comes to drama, let alone fav topics like sports and teen angst, it was hands down the best show on television period. I'll take FNL's worst episode and it will still be better than The O.C.'s best episode, One Tree Hill's best episode, etc. You get the picture. I think the audience will get the picture too starting next fall. As the first season drew to a close a couple of weeks ago, we did notice an up tick in popularity among our panelists and we believe this momentum will carry through into the start of season 2 as the show progresses through some pretty heavy plot changing elements.

Facebook To Offer Free Classifieds

Look out Craigslist, here comes Facebook. According to multiple reports, Facebook, the top ranked site among college students has plans to introduce a new classifieds service its called Marketplace that will put it squarely in competition with leading sites like Craigslist as well as other leading classified online services. The move to classifieds makes a lot of strategic sense for the sixth most visited web property since there will already be a "prerequisite" trust factor established among the member base unlike a stronger "fraud perception" sites like eBay and Craigslist generate among the audience. In addition to increasing its value to its membership, Facebook will look to build out the revenue generating capability of the new application by offering its users numerous opportunities to promote their offerings as well as offering their advertisers additional contextual display placements. I wouldn't be surprised by the time next year, Facebook has the number two or three online classifieds service behind only Craigslist. They did it with photos, and they certainly are well positioned to do it with classifieds.